that depends greatly on what task you're automating. America is full of workers that can be eliminated for less than a wage increase of 2x. millions of people's jobs. and it gets worse every year with like u say tech being cheaper.

post pandemic if wages stay high and raw material costs come down its gonna be really, really, really, really bad for workers. the only reason we're not doing 2x our pre-pandemic numbers is lead times are long on certain items like motors, bearings, etc.

We'll see. Maintenance networks are expensive and if you are deploying at millions of restaurants or small businesses and you can't always get replacement parts quickly then the lost revenue will very quickly shift in favor of the workers.

I don't know that workers under $20 an hour are at risk yet because most of their automatable tasks already are.

This post was edited by NetflixAdaptationWidow on Nov 1 2021 01:39pm

your last statement is incredibly far from the truth. many low pay, if we're calling sub-20$ jobs low pay, tasks are well within the scope of current affordable automation. the issue for a few decades has been a job shortage in a stage of unemployment, meaning companies faced severe backlash for automating tasks when not enough jobs existed. much of the work we do today is specifically aimed at lowering the number of employees in places where previously it wasnt in their timeline, because they cant find workers. they've waited to pull the trigger for years, now they have no choice.

They have no choice but they also have no option. Supply line issues make automation in the near future basically impossible. Have fun automating when it already takes months to order forklift parts.

no.

supply line issues are turning 6-8 week normal ship dates for us into 12-15 week ship dates.

everything can still be got, its just a bit longer timeline.

3 years ago if we said 12 weeks we'd not get an order, these days they thank us, and order 2.

forklift parts are far more specific than 99% of what goes into a conveyor or automation machine, our entire industry is designed around getting away from highly specific parts as a means to make maintenance better. 1/2 hp motor goes out, so what, put on anything you have. bearings seize up, replace with any 1" bore bearing. etc.

u outta pocket boy.

This post was edited by thesnipa on Nov 1 2021 02:11pm

I thought it was worse than that.

Conveyers would only be one small part of automation though, Can what you said be applied generally?

it depends again on what you're looking at. we had a conference on linmots (linear motors) which basically are a cylinder in most applications but without air, all mechanical, and they've got some parts with like 6 month lead times, some next day shipping, some removed temporarily from the catalog.

but overall we can always find another brand, another solution, another design. plenty of ways to skin cats whether its moving a box or something far more complex like filling a bottle and capping it. sometimes thats more pricey, sometimes it means cheaper with a shorter lifespan of the machine.

overall tho i think most if not all applications are just doubling leadtimes on deliver and increasing prices to match purchased items increase. i havent heard of a single "well we cant get ______ so we have to turn down the job" situation from us or any one else in the bizz.

the reason u hear sky is falling reactions is dudes 30 years in the bizz used to having x, y, and z in house 2 weeks after ordering cant fathom a 10 week lead time. it's alien to them. its just a line in an excel schedule to me so idgaf.

What you say makes sense for the company, but not for society at large. There are tremendous society wide externalities with mass layoffs without assistance and retraining.

Theres externalities for having piss poor wages, and were seeing them in action.

Doesnt mean it wont happen. Capitalism is supremely short sighted

yes, unemployment leading to a lack of viable consumers for products is a massive part of it.