Never went to an assembly line (despite knowing CAW and UAW people). But I saw a program on the Science Channel that was bit of an eye opener.

I think I'm just like everyone else here thinking that there is alot of human involvement that goes on in building a modern car. As a result, buy into the idea that jobs are being exported, and believe that it's up to the unions to make a better car.

However, most of a car's production is automated. Unibody construction is entirely by machine, painting is by machine, and it seems that outside of installing pre-made interior sections or installing plastic fuel tanks or bolting on tires, there is very little the modern autoworker does today and as a result, there is shockingly few of them actually working on an assembly line.

I'm suspecting that automation has cost autoworkers more jobs than any "exporting of jobs" ever did. I'm also guessing with all the money that an automaker saves by using automated assembly instead of people makes negotiations more predictable: "Let us cut 'X' number of jobs over the next few years by expanding automation to this or that area , and we'll give the workers left a portion of the savings".

 

Just curious if the program mentioned whose manufacturing processes they were looking at?

 

Again, if they dont really do anything why are their salaries so high? Why do they deserve such great benefits?

 

So is this now going to turn into a Luddite thread? LOL

Automation does cost jobs but those people get other jobs. The electronic switchboard put lots of operators out of work, but they're not all still unemployed, LOL. Stagecoach drivers found other work when the car was invented. Its the creative destruction of old jobs and their replacement with higher tech jobs that keeps the economy chugging along.

The hype over exporting jobs is overblown and full of hyperbole. I think a lot of it is created by the pro-labor crowd to try to increase their own political influence.

Just like it is in the environmentalist movement's best interest to make sure there are plenty of environmental problems to rail against...all the while we've been slowly improving air and water quality, etc. for the last 30 years. But you'd think now it was worse than ever. The reason is these groups have to justify their existence so they don't dissappear.

As Guy said most auto assembly at the plant by humans is just installation of pre-assembled systems, structures, components, etc. All the subassembly goes on at the suppliers locations, etc, much of which is automated too.

 

I just finished a tour of the Vette plant in BG and let me tell you there are entire sections of the car that people just put in, as in the DASH assmbly which is pretty much everything in the dash except the drive's airbag. When the line was running it didn't look like there were a lot of people but there sure were a LOT when the line was shut down for a break. BTW something that disturbed me a little they don't let people smoke while assembling the cars but when the line is shut down the smoking areas are QUITE near the line.

 

One point to bear in mind is that most of the automation has replaced labor not nessesarily due to high or long labor costs/time but more because of better consistancy in result.

Robots can weld and paint more consistantly than humans can (although humans must still be mixing the paint/thinner mix from the amount of orange peel still on cars). That's where the most automation has taken place.

 

Yep, my uncle works in the paint shop area at a GM plant and they basically just watch to make sure nothing gets messed up. He does other things too, but a lot of it is automated in paint at least.

 

Don't they talk about assemby time in the 13 - 18 man hour range? That would be in the $800 to $1,200 range @ $65 an hour to assemble a car.

Also, are the job banks not the negotiated result of promising to not cut jobs for productivity improvement?

 

I toured the Corvette plant back in Aug. and I was surprised in this day and age how much hands on work that was done on the assembly line of the Corvette and XLR. Of course there was automated welding, painting, etc. but the amount of work done by human hands was more than I thought, but then again this was the slow assembly line, I am sure things are a little different say at a truck plant were volume is a major concern.

 

well....you are correct in that most welding and paint operations are automated......there are still workers involved in that operation, but not to the extent as it used to be.

Further, while it's true that many of the assemblies (such as IP clusters and such) are installed as a component, let's not forget that those clusters were put together by human hands.....the difference is that those operations are usually done by suppliers...and the supplier personnel. (such as Delphi)....so while the number of employees in one plant aren't where they used to be, in many cases, their jobs (meaning what a person used to do) are simply switched to the supplier and the parts are put together in another plant...then shipped to the final assembly plant.

Make no mistake, while there have been great inroads in automating some of the worst jobs.....it still takes thousands of people to assemble a modern day automobile when you consider ALL of the components.

 

Automated assembly lines of any kind are a deceiving place. They might look deserted, but they can be hiding hundreds of workers. Sorta like gophers. Commercial Aircraft lines are the best at this.

I mean, ya, automation has replaced a LOT of labor, but there is still an unexpectedly high number of people working in a 90% automated environment.

 

Kinda' like when they promised us that computers would cut down on paperwork...yeah, right....

 

The XLR line actually stops and workers get like 20 minutes to put things into place, comare that to the Corvette line where the line continues to move and workers have about 3 minutes to complete their duties and you can see why the XLR costs so much more.

Scott, I wanted to point out that I went on the same tour in the early 90s, C4 era, and they used to let people on the tour turn the key to start the cars. I was highly disappointed that they can't let 1 person on each tour press the button, especially since the car is still elevated and doesn't have wheels yet.

 

I believe they still do that.. at BG a lady was lucky enough to get a chance to do that.. I don't remember if she said it was completed but she was very happy about it...

 

I went last Friday and they didn't let people.