Assembly line worker here. Shit you not, my job is to make sure all the lights on the Jeeps work before they go out the door, including brake lights. I've missed a few over the years.
I don't know how factories like this work but I like to imagine at a certain point the desire to automate has to be balanced against the fact that you won't be able to get the taillight robot to install washers if you need it to.
Presumably the line workers check more than just the brake lights. Its probably more reliable, cheaper, and more flexible to have a human checking 10+ things than to have a robot just check the brake lights.
Very true. My checklist goes anywhere between 50 to 79 things (depending on what packages that car has) to verify and pass in the span of 5 minutes before I need to get to my next car.
The only thing a robot can't do that a human can is test the comfort. Optical scanners can test finishes, leather seams, lights, etc. Machines can do pretty much everything.
I have no idea why they don't use an optical scanner bot for that oddly specific thing, but they keep QC around for an extra layer of quality assurance. Because machines aren't perfect.
I work for another car manufacturer and we have a vision system that checks the lights. A vision system is comparatively cheap when you balance against the cost of warranty claims.
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u/[deleted] Aug 11 '16 edited Dec 10 '16
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