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How many jobs have your CNCs created?

Comatose

Titanium
Joined
Feb 25, 2005
Location
Akron, OH
There's yet another gloom and doom thread running where the robots are destroying jobs. But in another reality, I've built my company from scratch around automation, so any jobs we have are a net gain. Further, if it wasn't for automation I'm certain that only engineering, and not manufacturing, could be here in the USA. Even better, we export all over the world.

We've got about 20 people. Without the CNCs and other automation, we'd have a pair of engineers, maybe a sales guy and an office manager. What fun would that be?
 
1 :D Mine.

I've been running my shop single handed for a few years now, but back when I had men around, they did the manual stuff and I did the cnc stuff. It was a good mix, but without cnc to take care of small scale production and some rotomolds, I would have missed out on hundreds of thousands of dollars of work. Frankly I would not have wanted to do a lot of that work manually.

Having cnc enabled me to develop some machines for the leaf-cutter bee industry, again, because there was a lot of related small part manufacturing that I wouldn't want to do manually. Actually without being able to do some 'miracle turning' on an old Bandit equipped lathe, that project would have been dead in the water, and hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of profitable work would have never happened.
 
There's yet another gloom and doom thread running where the robots are destroying jobs. But in another reality, I've built my company from scratch around automation, so any jobs we have are a net gain. Further, if it wasn't for automation I'm certain that only engineering, and not manufacturing, could be here in the USA. Even better, we export all over the world.

We've got about 20 people. Without the CNCs and other automation, we'd have a pair of engineers, maybe a sales guy and an office manager. What fun would that be?

IMNSHO this discussion is treading deep water, I like machining, it's way better than selling furniture, cars or working McDonald's. Si let's not promote the idea of automation. So I agree.
 
I first started building my cnc grinders and mills around 1978-79 starting with a COSMAC ELF, early Apples, IMSAI 8080s and later Sinclair ZX81s.
This certainly created lots of jobs in my shop and the ability to pay more to employees. A huge boost for my shop.
Downside being at the same time it meant job losses at my competitor's manual shops as one of my guys/gals could do the work of 2 or more outside.
In much of this business a win for you means a loss for someone else so is there a "job gain" or just a gain for you?
This used to be inside the US. Now you strive to unemploy someone halfway across the globe and they do the same in return.

Not sure they create jobs, maybe it steals jobs and puts them in your building.
Bob
 
Everyone automates.
The only Q is how much, how fast, how $$

The reality is like GM.
600.000 workers before, 1/3 now, more production.
Better pay.

Like paper mills.
50 workers 1980 - 3 in 2010.
Much better pay.

The "new machinist" is mostly IT, and or an engineer with cad/cam/dB skills.

Sure .. US "lost" 600k machinist jobs at 40k/yr.
Gained 300k IT jobs for protolabs, 3d printers, Tesla, spacex et al, at 150k each.
Net gain maybe 20B/yr.

A cnc typically creates "wealth", and this translates to use or consumption.
Maybe less line workers at the metal plant (or not), but much more jobs for making high end cars, high end houses, high end restaurants, etc.

The best thing for everyone is better workers, ie more educated, with higher salaries.
At 80-150k each, they spend more.
And yes, every industry can support 80-150k workers.
Germany and switzerland are a good proof of that, for 40+ years.

Investing say 50k per worker in higher-productivity tools makes every worker produce an extra 20-100k in gross margin/year.
And yes, I know, where one is used to no investment (machinists/workers bring their own tools) this is anathema.

Yet it works, from japan to switzerland to australia to uk to scandinavia, where everyone gets a burdened 40-45$ an hour pay rate, profitably.
 
I first started building my cnc grinders and mills around 1978-79 starting with a COSMAC ELF, early Apples, IMSAI 8080s and later Sinclair ZX81s.
This certainly created lots of jobs in my shop and the ability to pay more to employees. A huge boost for my shop.
Downside being at the same time it meant job losses at my competitor's manual shops as one of my guys/gals could do the work of 2 or more outside.
In much of this business a win for you means a loss for someone else so is there a "job gain" or just a gain for you?
This used to be inside the US. Now you strive to unemploy someone halfway across the globe and they do the same in return.
Bob

I like to imagine there is an ethical use of cnc: to remove the drudgery of mass production and to release the imagination of creative types to build what would not otherwise get built. Unethical use: to copy and make counterfeit products. But if existing products are not being made efficiently, then that method of making was deserving of, and doomed to failure anyway.
 
Hu and Bob have been working at this way longer than me (their olds):) but like I said, I like what I do, so have to say no. I like the problem solving, the new, the difficult, the genius.
 
Everyone automates.
The only Q is how much, how fast, how $$

The reality is like GM.
600.000 workers before, 1/3 now, more production.
Better pay.

Like paper mills.
50 workers 1980 - 3 in 2010.
Much better pay.

The "new machinist" is mostly IT, and or an engineer with cad/cam/dB skills.

Sure .. US "lost" 600k machinist jobs at 40k/yr.
Gained 300k IT jobs for protolabs, 3d printers, Tesla, spacex et al, at 150k each.
Net gain maybe 20B/yr.

A cnc typically creates "wealth", and this translates to use or consumption.
Maybe less line workers at the metal plant (or not), but much more jobs for making high end cars, high end houses, high end restaurants, etc.

The best thing for everyone is better workers, ie more educated, with higher salaries.
At 80-150k each, they spend more.
And yes, every industry can support 80-150k workers.
Germany and switzerland are a good proof of that, for 40+ years.

Investing say 50k per worker in higher-productivity tools makes every worker produce an extra 20-100k in gross margin/year.


And yes, I know, where one is used to no investment (machinists/workers bring their own tools) this is anathema.

Yet it works, from japan to switzerland to australia to uk to scandinavia, where everyone gets a burdened 40-45$ an hour pay rate, profitably.


I totally agree and that's where the U.S. needs to be heading with numerous small to medium size businesses with that rationale to compete on the world stage with more sophisticated and complex products and associated services; i.e. things that are not "widgets".

I think the comment (Hanermo says: )" Investing say 50k per worker in higher-productivity tools makes every worker produce an extra 20-100k in gross margin/year." Is a massive understatement.

The other thread's key (published and cited ) article seems almost moronic to me as its comparing statistics and trends from the 1950s, 60s, 70s, to 2016. The WORLD has changed many many MANY times over between the 1950's to the present day, just about in every imaginable sphere of influence, geopolitically and economically. I'm 46 years old and the jobs that exist now that are vital to the economy didn't even exist when I was a teenager or a twenty something or very very rare nacent technology. The key point is NOT "Automation" but capability . That capability comes almost entirely from software development and to a lesser extent computer capability vis-a-vis cost of compute power. That's the first C in CNC... A small team of engineers and designers with affordable software CAD and simulation/ FEA software and CAD CAM tools coupled with forward thinking machine tools (such as multi axis platforms) can achieve almost miraculous things that would have taken several different teams of engineers (from different large departments) such as skilled technicians, draftsmen, model makers, mathematicians, skilled analysts and a small army of machinists and old school production systems 30 years ago to achieve the same result. A complex small scale engineering project that cost of the order of $2-3M today would have cost about $25 M to achieve 20 years ago and 30 years ago close to $60M ... 'Automation" vs. "Jobs" seems to be completely the wrong way of looking at things (now), as for the most part in the West "We" don't aspire to be a human being that operates as a robot... Whereas in the Far East/China its perfectly acceptable to have human beings functioning as robots; and there's an inexhaustible supply of human beings (for example in China) to be utilized as "Robots" in it's purest sense. Fundamentally that's why we will never "out-widget" the far east. That's why I believe the US needs to play to its strengths rather than try to play the "Anything you can do, I can do better" game. Better to compete on different fronts where your competitors are weakest rather than to meet China's "A-game" with a US "Equivalent".

Capability, not automation is the key. Never has such technical "Power" been potentially available to so few in such an affordable way. Most of the business in the US economy are small businesses not the corporate giants... The US (I think) needs to learn a little better (like Japan and Germany etc) to be more "Technocratic" on a small scale but in number. [Will be interesting to see if the "New government" in the USA actually puts any useful resources in that direction.].

Here's a fabulous documentary made (I guess after the war WWII) about the development of the Merlin engine/powerplant used in the spitfire and other aircraft. But shows exactly how things were done from design development prototyping design and scaling for very large scale production of extremely complex and precise and reliable systems requiring vast armies of employees at all levels. Theres' some really good machining and production footage here.

Rolls-Royce Merlin Engine - YouTube

In some ways we have lost certain things as a result of CAD systems, but overall the raw capability that folks have access to today far outstrips almost anything from 60 years ago.

Enjoy...
 
automation definitely creates jobs. just not the jobs that you can get with zero education and zero drive. we are at a cross roads where the maker can make anything they set out to. this then leads to new products not previously available to the market that someone somewhere will want. ultimately the automation has to go further than just manufacturing, a website is automation in marketing, the google search engine that finds it, doesn't have a person on the other side of switch board looking for your site and then plugging the search computer into yours. automation is everywhere and the more you can take advantage of it, the better off you will be.
 








 
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