In the discussion of reindustrialization in the United States, it is a popular saying that automation will save American manufacturing. Automation and robots will replace skilled labor, save labor costs, and increase productivity, thereby revitalizing American manufacturing. Of course, automation and robots cannot solve the US employment problem and the main goal of re-industrialization: to put the US economy back on a positive cycle through a lot of employment, but this is another problem. The question here is: Can automation save American manufacturing?
It is generally believed that automation can accomplish several things: 1. Improve product quality; 2. Save labor on the production line; 3. Reduce the demand for skilled labor or technicians; 4. In an ideal fully automated production method, the system also has Self-learning function.
In fact, the first two things are conditional, and the latter two are largely not what people imagine.
The truth of automation
Automated production methods can achieve very high repeatability, so the consistency of the products is better. However, the quality of raw materials is not absolutely consistent, and the production equipment also has wear and changes in state. In actual use, the fully automatic production line also needs to be adjusted frequently. The products produced by automation can achieve quite high product consistency, but cannot reach the highest quality. The highest quality can only be adjusted in real time according to the conditions of raw materials and equipment, which can only be done manually. This is not the work of low-level labor, but the work of skilled craftsmen. This is not the manual work of files and drills, but the use of precision machine tools or even CNC precision machine tools. However, in the hands of skilled craftsmen, the fine processing of each product is the ultimate quality. Rolls-Royce cars and Patek Philippe watches are not manufactured on an automated production line. There are reasons for traditional craftsmanship, but the bigger reason lies here: the highest quality can only be achieved by hand. But for bulk products and ordinary users, the quality achieved by automated production is good enough.
Saving labor on the production line is not that simple. In labor-intensive industries, the labor force on the production line is the main body of the labor force, and automated production can undoubtedly greatly reduce the labor requirements for labor-intensive industries, which is not a problem. The problem is that equipment maintenance, process design, and production improvements in automated production itself bring new labor requirements. Broadly defined equipment includes hardware and software. Taking a typical large chemical plant as an example, rectification towers, pumps, pipes, vessels, reactors, etc. are not changed because of automated production or manual control, but computer control systems (DCS) and related instruments and valves are products of automation . Around DCS, the chemical plant "extensively" came up with a whole support chain. General instrument technicians, full-time DCS instrument technicians (responsible for DCS hardware), full-time PLCs (dedicated to program logic control and safety chain protection) Analysis instrument technician, control engineer, DCS engineer (responsible for system software, upgrade and system integration), control system IT engineer (responsible for the transition layer from DCS to business / management network and advanced control connected to DCS through software interface protocols such as OPC, Data management system) and so on. But this is just this part of the chemical plant. Related system manufacturers also have a complete technical support system, from hardware to software to comprehensive application support. Of course they also have their upstream support system. The manpower of such an entire industrial chain is considerable, although the support system of system manufacturers and upstream manufacturers is shared throughout the industry, rather than dedicated to chemical plants.
So far, the role of automation in saving American manufacturing is positive, but the next thing is less clear.
The problem of automation
Can automation reduce the demand for skilled craftsmen? On the surface, everything is automatic, and the presence of people is superfluous. Of course, it can reduce the requirements for skilled craftsmen. It's actually not that simple. The automatic control system can control normal production conditions and handle limited and known abnormal conditions. But as long as anyone who has lived in the real world knows that unknown abnormalities may not only occur, but also always appear at the most deadly time, only trained and adaptable skilled craftsmen can deal with it, so the existence of people not only It is necessary and life-saving. But it is at this point that the development of automation has created new problems. Automated systems usually automatically handle the vast majority of normal and low-level abnormalities, which can easily paralyze and slacken the operators, and ignore the subtle and subtle signs of abnormality. Once an obvious abnormal situation occurs, it is usually very urgent. At this time, we must first go through a stage of surprise and response, and then we need to judge the status quo, recall or turn out various emergency procedures. Because such abnormal conditions are rare, the contrast between normal and normal conditions is too large, and the operators who are not very good in psychological quality often cannot handle it correctly. As usual, they continue to rely on automated systems to help him out, and it is impossible to correctly determine that this has exceeded automation. The scope of the system's capabilities, which can cause failures to escalate and even evolve into catastrophic accidents.
During the BP "Deep Water Horizon" platform accident in the Gulf of Mexico on April 20, 2010, one reason for the escalation of the accident and the increase in casualties was that the operators were panicked and decisive. On May 27, 2011, Air France Flight 447 was flying from Rio de Janeiro to Paris. The airspeed tube was frozen and the flight speed reading was lost. The flight control system automatically increased the flight altitude and speed to gain time and space for the pilot to respond, but eventually caused a stall. . After the pilot took over the manual control, at a height of more than 13,000 meters, the proper shallow dive could have changed the stall, but the pilot mechanically used the standard operating specifications for the low-altitude stall, and continued to increase thrust and climb. Instead of changing the stall, instead Entering a deep stall and eventually crashing. On the contrary, if the degree of automation is not high, the operating hours need to "pulse" the process at all times, and it is easy to detect the clues of abnormal phenomena, but it is not prone to failure escalation. Excessive reliance on automation systems, the inability to correctly identify and deal with the state of uncontrolled automation systems, has become a common headache for industry. The industry usually uses simulation systems (also called simulators) to train operators to handle abnormal conditions, but the success of the training depends on whether the typical abnormal conditions can be correctly predicted. The abnormal conditions beyond the training courses still depend on the operator to adapt to the situation, but Highly automated systems are very easy to passivate people's ability to respond to random changes.
Another problem is that the workload is highly concentrated after being highly automated. In the era of manual operation, many operators were guarded by soldiers, and each was in battle. After automation, many mechanical and repetitive tasks are replaced by automation systems. Operators monitor the automation system at a higher level. Physically, this is easier; but the amount of information is actually greatly increased, and there is much more to focus on. This is like a traffic police. When a traffic policeman controls an intersection, he must switch the traffic lights according to the traffic flow to direct the traffic at this intersection. After the traffic control was automated, his job was transferred to the traffic control center, and the traffic light control at the specific intersection was changed to automatic control. Under normal circumstances, he has to look at the six roads and listen to all directions, from ensuring smooth traffic at one intersection to ensuring smooth traffic at a large intersection. Once the automatic control is weak and the traffic is blocked, he needs to make a lot of manual intervention in a short period of time to properly guide, rather than intensify the jam, the peak workload is greatly increased, and the requirements for psychological quality and professional skills are also greatly improved.
Another problem with high automation is the loss of operating experience. With the movement of people, experienced and experienced operators are replaced by new and inexperienced operators. The new operator relied on the automation system from the beginning, lacked practical experience, and even feared the manual intervention beyond the automatic control system. When the time came, it was impossible to start with random response. This is like using GPS to navigate a self-driving car. Under normal circumstances, without human intervention, it can safely and automatically drive from A to B. The people in the car can in principle surpass driving manually, but under normal circumstances this is not necessary. The problem is that over time, driving skills and interpretation of road conditions are rusty, or only theoretically capable. When GPS or autonomous driving fails, the driver temporarily holds the Buddha's feet and does not drive the car into the ditch.
Another disadvantage of the loss of operating experience lies in the development of future automation systems. The automated system did not fall from the sky, nor did it come out of the head on paper, but the materialization of rich operating experience. The experience of skilled craftsmen is not only important for the existing production process, but also for opening up the improved or completely new production process. Only when they have figured out the new process can they be highly automated. The difficulty of automation is usually not the automation of key processes or actions, but the handling of abnormal situations, human-computer interaction processing, and seamless transition between different states. These are not theoretical or utopian, and must rely on a high degree of experience. Therefore, automation reduces the demand for unskilled craftsmen, but does not reduce the demand for skilled craftsmen. The problem is that skilled craftsmen did not fall from the sky, but grew out of unskilled craftsmen. Automation makes the unskilled technician team shrink, which makes the technological progress brought by automation difficult to continue, because production technology and product technology are constantly improving, but after the skilled craftsman becomes a passive water, the next step of automation is difficult to continue Too. In other words, the revitalization of the manufacturing industry that relies heavily on automation may be one-off.
This problem also exists among engineering and technical personnel. A large number of outsourcing technical work in American manufacturing companies, general design and engineering management are contracted to EPC (Engineering Procurement ConstrucTIon) to reduce the company's burden. This is beneficial to the company. When there is a project, people are invited to do it. When there is no project, there is no need to raise a team, and there are no long-term burdens such as welfare and pension. Outsourcing companies are all senior professionals, with more experience and insights than people in the company. The problem is that EPC has a familiar process with user companies' engineering standards and project procedures, and the break-in is often maddening. What's more terrible is that you can now rely on EPC, but no one has engineers from the front line. Where does the next generation of EPC come from? This short-sighted approach of "Whether I die after flooding", and Relying on automation to revitalize manufacturing is also a problem.
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