Uniqlo's Tokyo Warehouse is 90% Robotic (inputmag.com) 34
Japanese fashion retailer Uniqlo has managed to automate 90 percent of its flagship Tokyo warehouse, the Financial Times reports, adding that the facility includes a two-armed robot that can fold and box T-shirts, a job previously reserved for human staff. From a report: The industrial T-shirt folders come from Japanese robotics startup, Mujin. Uniqlo's parent company, Fast Retailing, partnered with Mujin to equip its flagship Tokyo warehouse with the robots, reducing its reliance on human labor in the process. FT says the innovation could enable the factory to completely automate production.
Hard to say if practical (Score:3, Insightful)
With conglomerates, it's often hard to know if these are just show pieces, R&D experiments, or are actually saving money. They are not required to publicly disclose a lot of internal spending.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
With conglomerates, it's often hard to know if these are just show pieces, R&D experiments, or are actually saving money. They are not required to publicly disclose a lot of internal spending.
Let's say that they really are saving a lot of money.
That's nice -- for them. But there is still the one question that nobody wants to talk about: What if every business does that?
Robots don't buy clothes, or cars or food or anything else. All of those people who you eliminated aren't just employees. They aren't just a business expense that needs to be eliminated. They are also consumers. After you eliminate 95% of all the jobs, who is going to buy your products?
The 5% of the population who is still e
Re: Hard to say if practical (Score:1)
What if every consumer owned an appliance (robotic) that replaced the need for many refined goods or currated products?
We also very rarely speculate on the cost of living adjustments that automation has the potential to deliver, so if everything stays the same except for the "jerbs", it does look like a proverbial sh!tshow in the making.
Re: (Score:2)
As a general rule, when cost-of-production goes down, industry actors collude passively to maintain prices wherever possible. That way corporate boards get to collect all the cost savings. They will lower prices on goods & services only when dragged kicking and screaming into that eventuality, which will only happen when they find that enough people can't buy their products. But at that point, they may opt to scale back production rather than lower prices.
Re: (Score:2)
industry actors collude passively to maintain prices wherever possible. That way corporate boards get to collect all the cost savings.
Much of this collusion is driven by the rise of institutional investors. If Fidelity and Vanguard have big stakes in both Ford and GM, they have nothing to gain from a price war. A fight for market share will just shift the benefit from one part of their portfolio to another, while lowering overall profit. Better to use their influence (and board seats) to enourage high prices.
Re: (Score:2)
Interesting thought. There are other complaints about index funds and those who operate them:
https://www.wsj.com/articles/b... [wsj.com]
Japan's net population went down 500k in 2019 (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
and they're not making it up with immigration. it's probably more necessity than anything else.
Indeed. Japan's population is falling, and the size of its workforce is falling even faster.
Korea has the world's lowest birthrate and will soon experience population decline as well.
In a few decades, China population will decline even faster as the tail-end of their last multiple-birth families begins to die off.
We should expect Asia to be the big driver of automation and robotics for the next few decades. In the West, it is driven by profit. In the East, it is driven by necessity.
Re: (Score:2)
There was a story about this on the news yesterday. The government has created a new type of visa and was hoping for 45k applications, but only got 1k because they didn't advertise it well.
They are trying to change the attitude of companies that foreign workers are temporary and disposable. Instead of 5 years they can stay indefinitely, switch jobs easily and bring their families.
Re: (Score:2)
Japan's population is falling, but it's also aging rapidly. Children are less attached to their parents and more mobile, and the sense of traditional family responsibility for multiple generations is going by the wayside.
Home health aides are expensive, they can only visit for a few hours a couple times a week, the pay sucks, and burnout is very high. Elderly Japanese people don't like strangers coming into their homes, and especially foreigners (the only ones who will do that job now).
Research is ongoing
Re: (Score:2)
"With conglomerates, it's often hard to know if these are just show pieces, R&D experiments, or are actually saving money."
A robot who can fold laundry can replace a couple of billion workers called 'wives'.
Re: (Score:2)
At the moment, that is indeed unclear. But once the Solution exists, it is only getting cheaper. Folding clothes, stacking boxes, etc. are not really tasks that change. So while this may be a stunt today (or not), it will very likely not be one in the future.
Robot investment failures do happen (Score:1)
Car manufacturers have been backing away from some robotics, as it proved too inflexible for certain tasks. [autonews.com]
Maybe someday they'll work out the difficulties, but it may take a generation or two.
Re: (Score:2)
In robotics "a generation or two" can be just a couple of years.
Re: (Score:1)
So can failures. Look how automated driving looked like it was just about to burst into mass production, only to hit walls, literally and figuratively.
Yeah, well... (Score:5, Insightful)
... look up "lights-out fab", if you want some real "The robits are takin' our jerbs!" fearmogering.
I, for one, think shuffling around packages in a warehouse, is mind-numbing and insulting for a brain as advanced as a human one.
You know... like the people crushing rocks and dragging them across the desert to build the pyramids.
I think a human should get more advanced tasks. Not advanced in the kind that is taxing, but in the kind that is fun and fulfillingy because it actually changes something, means something, and gives one purpose. :)
And yes, there are some jobs that can never be replaced, because a human being involved, is the whole point.
Re: (Score:2)
That's a lovely thought. Consider the kinds of people who take warehouse jobs (and similar) as a form of lifelong employment: do you really see those people doing anything "advanced" for money? Have you ever worked in a warehouse?
If I give you a hundred guys with spotty criminal records who show up to work late on a regular basis, have a 9th-grade education on average, often show up stoned or drunk, and are difficult to motivate to do anything, what would you do with them that would be "fun and fulfilling"
Re: (Score:1)
You're making the mistake of thinking everyone is like yourself. People of average or below average intelligence have no problem with repetitive work. In fact, they prefer it to learning new things, which they find stressful.
The irony is, being intelligent I'd expect you to know these things. You don't. I guess you're not nearly as smart as you think you are. Dunning-Krueger Syndrome strikes once again.
Re: (Score:2)
I think a human should get more advanced tasks. Not advanced in the kind that is taxing, but in the kind that is fun and fulfillingy because it actually changes something, means something, and gives one purpose.
I think you overestimate most people's desire to change the world, most are content simply being useful. They have some job they do because it needs doing and puts food on the table, even if you're a garbageman it's like if I stopped doing my job this place would stink to high heaven pretty quick. Yes, long term we become more effective because we don't teach skills that have become redundant but the short term effect is for most people a loss of purpose. And for the most part a loss of skills and experienc
Re: (Score:2)
Well they have self service checkouts in Uniqlo now, but unlike primitive Western ones you don't have to scan anything. You just put your shopping bag in the right place and it scans all the RFID tags in the clothes. It's incredibly fast and easy.
and they have universal health care (Score:4, Funny)
and they have universal health care
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:1)
Yeah, 1-800-MS-AZURE. Good luck with that, bot dude.
one job robot not impressive (Score:2)
You can build a robot to do almost anything,(exception for extremely fragile items, such as fruit that bruises easily). The problem with certain tasks is that robots designed to do them can not easily be converted to other tasks. Folding and boxing t shirts is not hard to do, it's just that the robot that does that can not also fold and long sleeve shirts.
It's why many car companies drop robotic factories- they can not easily be switched to other types of cars.
Re: (Score:2)
I really wanted to disagree with you, so I did some research. The T-shirt folding thing appears to be a “machine” much more than a robot.
It would seem like robot arms with dexterous fingers, multiple angles of cameras, and the ability to collaborate dynamically is what is needed to get to the image of “fully automated.” That is going to take a couple orders of magnitude reduction in cost and several orders in machine learning.
Re: (Score:2)
exception for extremely fragile items, such as fruit that bruises easily
Actually even that's not true any longer. There are a lot of "pick and place systems" on the market now that will move the most delicate croissants from the assembly line to packages, pick up fruit from the sorter to place in bags, and even blocks of tofu. This is just one of the manufacturers.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
That name rings a bell (Score:1)
I remember my first visit to the Uni Klo. I was shocked to see how filthy it was. All walls were smeared graffiti and you had to fear catching something just by being in that room. Luckily they renovated that part of the building during my time there. For some reason I acquired the habit of wiping the seat before sitting down around that time.
Re: (Score:2)
I thought the seats wiped themselves in Japan?
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
"Robot" is from the Czech play 'R.U.R.', and meant "forced labor". In the play the robots eventually revolt seeking their own freedom.
Propaganda (Score:2)