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Component Manufacturing dverti$er
Don’t Forget! You Saw it in the
Adverti$er
December 2019 #11245 Page #84
Will Automation Always be a Distant Dream for Modular Housing?
By Gary Fleisher
R
ecently I heard, once again, a speaker supporting total automation of the modular production process while comparing modular housing with automobile production lines.
Let me put this to rest for hopefully the last time. Modular housing is not anything like the auto industry. There are two very important reasons this is not a true comparison. The first is the idea that houses can be produced on an automated assembly line with few production workers. Even if a factory automated the wall and floor panels along with the roof trusses, automation would end at that point in the factory. From assembling those components into a volumetric module through electrical, plumbing, insulation, drywall, and interior and exterior finishing, no robot or automated machinery will ever be able to take the place of human interaction with the module. Having watched an agonizing video of a human-looking robot picking up a sheet of drywall, squaring it on a jig so it could place it on a wall panel, and then screwing it to the studs, I can’t believe any factory would want to spend a million dollars or more to have drywall put up infinitely slower than any person who has ever worked that station on the production line. And let’s not even try to figure out how long it would take a robot to measure, pick up a sheet of drywall, square it, and then cut it to size before fastening it to the wall. My God, please put that robot out of its misery already! Continued next page
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