The future of manufacturing
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wrote on 6 Apr 2025, 22:44 last edited by
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wrote on 6 Apr 2025, 23:24 last edited by
Who needs people if you can completely automate the factory?
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wrote on 7 Apr 2025, 00:30 last edited by
So much for all those manufacturing jobs we're bringing back.
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So much for all those manufacturing jobs we're bringing back.
wrote on 7 Apr 2025, 00:31 last edited by@Doctor-Phibes said in The future of manufacturing:
So much for all those manufacturing jobs we're bringing back.
Actually, it just might.
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wrote on 7 Apr 2025, 00:32 last edited by
At least more than now…
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wrote on 7 Apr 2025, 00:47 last edited by
I've been around a lot of manufacturing plants over the last 30-odd years and it's very noticable how there are fewer and fewer people and more and more automation. That trend is not going to change.
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@Doctor-Phibes said in The future of manufacturing:
So much for all those manufacturing jobs we're bringing back.
Actually, it just might.
wrote on 7 Apr 2025, 00:55 last edited by@LuFins-Dad said in The future of manufacturing:
@Doctor-Phibes said in The future of manufacturing:
So much for all those manufacturing jobs we're bringing back.
Actually, it just might.
Without organized labour.
There will be consequences of course….
The enlightened proletariat will be the next victims of the Trumperdorian Reaction.
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I've been around a lot of manufacturing plants over the last 30-odd years and it's very noticable how there are fewer and fewer people and more and more automation. That trend is not going to change.
wrote on 7 Apr 2025, 00:58 last edited by@Doctor-Phibes said in The future of manufacturing:
I've been around a lot of manufacturing plants over the last 30-odd years and it's very noticable how there are fewer and fewer people and more and more automation. That trend is not going to change.
Yup, seen that too. And the new business that are out there are fly by night. They come and they go and the big businesses just stay and stay. And grow and grow. I used to "compete" against Ecolab in the day. No one could do that anymore. They OWN the market.
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I've been around a lot of manufacturing plants over the last 30-odd years and it's very noticable how there are fewer and fewer people and more and more automation. That trend is not going to change.
wrote on 7 Apr 2025, 01:10 last edited by@Doctor-Phibes said in The future of manufacturing:
I've been around a lot of manufacturing plants over the last 30-odd years and it's very noticable how there are fewer and fewer people and more and more automation. That trend is not going to change.
It’s been that way since the Industrial Revolution
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@Doctor-Phibes said in The future of manufacturing:
I've been around a lot of manufacturing plants over the last 30-odd years and it's very noticable how there are fewer and fewer people and more and more automation. That trend is not going to change.
It’s been that way since the Industrial Revolution
wrote on 7 Apr 2025, 01:15 last edited by@Mik said in The future of manufacturing:
@Doctor-Phibes said in The future of manufacturing:
I've been around a lot of manufacturing plants over the last 30-odd years and it's very noticable how there are fewer and fewer people and more and more automation. That trend is not going to change.
It’s been that way since the Industrial Revolution
Right, and we've been in the middle of a second and now arguably third industrial revolution for the last few decades. Trying to bring manufacturing back is totally missing the point if the goal is to increase jobs involving manual labor. There won't be any manual labor.
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@Mik said in The future of manufacturing:
@Doctor-Phibes said in The future of manufacturing:
I've been around a lot of manufacturing plants over the last 30-odd years and it's very noticable how there are fewer and fewer people and more and more automation. That trend is not going to change.
It’s been that way since the Industrial Revolution
Right, and we've been in the middle of a second and now arguably third industrial revolution for the last few decades. Trying to bring manufacturing back is totally missing the point if the goal is to increase jobs involving manual labor. There won't be any manual labor.
wrote on 8 Apr 2025, 15:27 last edited by@Doctor-Phibes said in The future of manufacturing:
@Mik said in The future of manufacturing:
@Doctor-Phibes said in The future of manufacturing:
I've been around a lot of manufacturing plants over the last 30-odd years and it's very noticable how there are fewer and fewer people and more and more automation. That trend is not going to change.
It’s been that way since the Industrial Revolution
Right, and we've been in the middle of a second and now arguably third industrial revolution for the last few decades. Trying to bring manufacturing back is totally missing the point if the goal is to increase jobs involving manual labor. There won't be any manual labor.
I wasn’t talking about manual labor, I was talking about manufacturing jobs. If shoe factory moves from Vietnam with 5000 workers to the US with robotics and 20 technicians, that’s still a net growth in the US for manufacturing. The first thing holding it back is the robotics equipment is still massively more expensive than 5000 Vietnamese workers. The second thing is even when they reach the break even point for the equipment, it will be cheaper to hire 15 Vietnamese techs than 15 US technicians…
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wrote on 8 Apr 2025, 17:35 last edited by blondie 4 Aug 2025, 17:47
Being a sewist, I also think of textiles and clothing. The U.S. (Canada too) are huge consumers. I think the U.S. buys more to wear than any country globally. Not googling, but I think I read something like 70% of U.S. textiles and garments are made in countries like China, Vietnam, India. These areas of manufacturing account for something like 10% of global CO2 emissions. I’m sure too we’ve heard of the water pollution devastation due to dyeing and finishing processes. I think textile making ranks real high, like ?#3, as far as industrial pollution. These 2 industries employ millions globally and generate huge profits for big companies. What is your President’s grand plan for this other than overseas tariffs? Are Americans going to revive cotton production? How about wool? Where’s your farm land now for this, given our huge appetite for apparel? Is it hot enough, cold enough, nicely fertile now in the U.S. to produce huge amounts of quality natural fibre? Can you, given our present obscene consumption with clothing? What about synthetic fibre production and manufacturing? The U.S. is the #1 exporter of polyethylene for this purpose. Are you going to turn this around, to create textiles, to further pollute your own rivers making synthetics? Are you going to employ masses of low paid home grown labor needed for sewing 24/7 in workrooms the size of football fields? Yes, lots is automated now, cutting edge (ha)with lasers, precisely done overseas .. but lots remains manual labor.
…Just stuff I think of as I piece a quilt with cotton produced in Japan, thread in Italy, on a machine (designed in Germany) made in Taiwan.
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wrote on 9 Apr 2025, 02:31 last edited by Jolly 4 Sept 2025, 02:38
You don't know shit from shinola about growing cotton, do you?
We can produce enough fiber to supply a good bit of the world world, if need be. The rub comes in producing textiles.
There, you have a point. But then, most of that business will remain abroad, no matter if tariffs are high.
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wrote on 9 Apr 2025, 04:14 last edited by blondie 4 Sept 2025, 04:19
Well you got me there @Jolly . No, I’ve never bled picking cotton; I’ve only seen a cotton gin in a museum, my ancestors weren’t sharecroppers, or slave owners, and my experience with garment sewing with Huntsville’s Martha Pullen was limited to me just living there learning using Swiss and Egyptian cotton, not your SW produced Supima, which yes, is a decent export. I do know the U.S. is a major producer of cotton fibre. But there’s no way you’ve the land, climate, people or industry to satisfy yourselves and the world. And you don’t do wool like the Aussie’s.
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wrote on 9 Apr 2025, 12:29 last edited by
My great-grandfather was a small scale cotton farmer. My in-laws picked cotton by hand, to help put food on the table. My SIL's husband was raised on a 3000 acre farm, where they grew about 1200 acres of cotton. Somewhere around here, there's a picture of seven-year old me on a cotton picker. It's not the King Cotton it once was, but there is still a good bit grown in the South.
We don't grow as much cotton as we used to. We used to grow so much, the Feds instituted cotton allotments, limiting production. Nowadays, the price is low enough that a lot of acreage is planted in other things. Farmers plant what they can make money with and nowadays that's sugar cane if you're not too far north to do so. I live not too far from once was the largest row crop farm in North America, at around 70,000 acres and they don't grow a single cotton plant, but they could if the price was right.
There's a lot of production capacity we simply aren't using.
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My great-grandfather was a small scale cotton farmer. My in-laws picked cotton by hand, to help put food on the table. My SIL's husband was raised on a 3000 acre farm, where they grew about 1200 acres of cotton. Somewhere around here, there's a picture of seven-year old me on a cotton picker. It's not the King Cotton it once was, but there is still a good bit grown in the South.
We don't grow as much cotton as we used to. We used to grow so much, the Feds instituted cotton allotments, limiting production. Nowadays, the price is low enough that a lot of acreage is planted in other things. Farmers plant what they can make money with and nowadays that's sugar cane if you're not too far north to do so. I live not too far from once was the largest row crop farm in North America, at around 70,000 acres and they don't grow a single cotton plant, but they could if the price was right.
There's a lot of production capacity we simply aren't using.
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wrote on 12 Apr 2025, 12:59 last edited by
Here, read this article about a South Carolina town that used to be a textile hub that then transformed into a car manufacturing hub:
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@Doctor-Phibes said in The future of manufacturing:
I've been around a lot of manufacturing plants over the last 30-odd years and it's very noticable how there are fewer and fewer people and more and more automation. That trend is not going to change.
It’s been that way since the Industrial Revolution
wrote on 12 Apr 2025, 17:14 last edited by@Mik said in The future of manufacturing:
@Doctor-Phibes said in The future of manufacturing:
I've been around a lot of manufacturing plants over the last 30-odd years and it's very noticable how there are fewer and fewer people and more and more automation. That trend is not going to change.
It’s been that way since the Industrial Revolution
Exactly. Just from teh news of the recent dock workers contract where they were happy that the contract had a limit on the automation on the docks.
@LuFins-Dad said in The future of manufacturing:
If shoe factory moves from Vietnam with 5000 workers to the US with robotics and 20 technicians, that’s still a net growth in the US for manufacturing. The first thing holding it back is the robotics equipment is still massively more expensive than 5000 Vietnamese workers.
Yup. I remember (it was a few years ago) talking to a guy who was a sales guy for Capterpiller(?) (or a company like that) and he was saying how hard it was to sell heavy equipment to India. They could hire 1000 workers at a USD$1/day to move at much dirt as a heavy equipment and at a cheaper price.
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wrote on 12 Apr 2025, 18:41 last edited by
I remember living in Mexico in the early 90s and noticing how many workers they’d have doing manual labor and thinking they must be cheaper than imported machines.
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topic:timeago-later,7 days
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wrote on 20 Apr 2025, 01:10 last edited by
