Automation Irony

minnesotti wrote:

I've seen that during the years since I got my B. Sc. in mechanical
engineering.  One example is drafting/CAD.  When I was an undergrad,
preparing drawings using computers was a rarity.  Within ten years,
programs like AutoCAD were available for desktop computers, but
expensive.  A decade after later, they were commonplace.

When I started teaching, my students learned both.  The reasoning back
then was that by knowing how drawings were made using conventional
methods and instruments, they understood how to do them using a
computer.  By the time I quit, the emphasis had shifted to sketching,
followed by software.  Now, rather than preparing conventional
orthographic and, in some cases, isometric projection drawings using
software, the focus is on 3-D solid modelling.

I'm not convinced, however, that the students nowadays are better at
preparing drawings than I was over thirty years ago.  When I learned
drafting, I was required to visualize what I was to portray and think
through the process.  I never saw that while I taught CAD but, then,
many of my students had little aptitude for drafting to begin with.

When I was completing my second master's degree, I took a course in
advanced digital design.  We were given a course project and we had to
design and build a circuit to implement what was supposed to be done.  I
learned a lot about how to lay out components relative to each other in
order to minimize wiring, as well as what's involved in troubleshooting
a board.  (My lab partner and I once spent several hours chasing a bug
when all it turned out to be was a misconnected pin.)

Several years later, I was a TA for that same course.  The students no
longer had to build anything but designed the circuit using VHDL.  The
circuit was tested by downloading the software onto a board which had, I
believe, a programmable logic device on it.  No laying out of
components, no cutting and stripping of wires, and no checking of
connections.

In short, the overall educational value had been severely diluted and
diminished.

  But sometimes

There's one thing I wish that would be taught in engineering schools.
Students would benefit enormously by doing case studies, both of
failures and successful designs.  They would have to go through the
entire process to determine what was done, what calculations were made,
and, finally, what worked and what didn't.

But that would require a major shift in how engineering is taught.  For
one thing, universities would have to start hiring profs with actual
field experience once again, something that was quite common even a
generation ago.  Also, it would mean having to reduce the number of
"fun" design projects which emphasize teamwork more than actually
producing something that works.  In my experience, most new designs are
based on older ones, usually ones which worked, but their successful
adaptation would require a knowledge of why those older designs worked.

That of course is a world class idea..its what I did on my
own, it produced the insights I used to get to top levels with
my light weight degree.

I did one other thing, even as I was driving cross country on
a freeway, I would see something on a building and sort out
what it was, why it would be employed and how it
worked...then, and most importantly I would see how many ways
I could think of improving the function, or using the same
notion in some other industry for some other purpose..

that...was valuable.   So my resume says ' cross platform
innovation ..etc'... no one has a clooo what that means...
they want to know about the 2 day GAP (gasp) in my resume... I
tell them I go bass fishing between projects and hope for
weeks, but only got days most of the time ...  these assume I
must be lying,,   so they can call that police dept and see if
I was arrested....   the mind boggles.

Sometimes I tell em about the gun fights in my previous
life... and the flat tracking... they dont understand any of
that.. they dont even know what the problems are with carrying
an automatic.

amazing.... these don't have any balls either.



 something that was quite common even a

thats it alright.


Phil Scott

I've also seen this in the field.   Humans are required by nature to have a
constant meaningful stimulus.  We tried to take the easy tasks away and
leave the harder ones for the operator, and also to retrain the operators to
work at higher levels in the process.  Instead of poking switches to open
valves at the right time, they could concentrate on scheduling the right
production and taking care of overall quality issues.  What we ended up with
was a few operators who were able to run the entire plant, and a few others
who needed to be poked in the ribs when the foreman came around.  COV
improved by a factor of 3 to 6.  Given the process improvement it was worth
it.  There was talk of eliminating an operator, but they decided to keep a
"hot spare" trainee around instead on the (now) easy board.

Unfortunately, when things go wrong, the operators trained under the new
system had too little experience to recognize and react to unusual
situations.  The old operators were so used to what is now an unusual
situation that they responed automatically.  When you go from having one
alarm per second to one scheduled alert every 20 minutes, alert is not an
option.

Michael

very interesting...that is how the brain works.

It will take a generation or two to get past that, meantime we
in the US will be eating a lot of rice and beans,... then just
rice.



it is very very significant...although you do raise a very
good point on the loss of base level experience...Ive seen
that starting to happen even 15 years ago... many other
engineers knew how to look things up in a catalog and specifie
to fit,,but not how to strategize or optimize a system... they
could find something that would fit,,, that was it.     A
boiler maybe,... when there were many other more viable
options without a boiler.... that would have made the system
much more viable for the client.





 The US corporations cannot

    That is the historical pattern.   I had lunch the other
day with a chinese american babe about 25, IQ must have been
200 across the boards... one brilliant person on any issue you
raised, she was impeccable though in discussing a few physics
issues, I asked about that... she reluctantly said she had 4
years in physics at UC Berkely but was not a physics major.

(the drop out rate for male math wiz nerds in physics is at
least 90%... in my my earlier years I met a young woman,
killer babe type also,  who made it in physics...Polly, she
was working the night shift at a bar, auditing her physics
classes at UC Davis, I asked her why and she said she was
taking care of her invalid father...so had to audit the
classes and work nights... I asked her a few physics related
questions...she knew the answers in spades).





This chinese babe begged to differ with me on my remarks
similar to your own, she is on a more optimistic agenda,
saying that the human species is changing so fast, with
increased scientific capabilities that it is not actually the
same species as the previous generations, especially now, so
that the life cycle of nations issue I have been discussing is
irrelevant... I had tp agree with much of her premise, I would
like to think I am wrong with mine.

We ended that aspect of our discussion in a partial stand off.
I met her a few months earlier at a lyndon Louroche PAC table
set up outside of a starbucks in San Rafael... the man is not
nutz as I had assumed from all the bad PR on him... he has an
agenda now to push economic reform on the US via legislation
..for instance stopping the american car manufactures
scheduled shut down of 75 million square feet of auto
manufacturing in the US over the next two years... I havent
read the proposal yet.. in talking to her it is apparent that
it will be more than slightly workable... they have a lot of
big names signed onto the proposal, especially in the rust
belt but interestingly no one in the senate willing to sponsor
it.

thats interesting.   This is a competent organization, I think
they will get most of their proposales onto the senate floor,
especially as the US economy goes south.



If we offshore the S and E, we loose the training ground for
the brain trust development crucial to the nations
survival...that was also discussed extensively.    She asked
if I would help her set up tours for high school and college
students in manufacturing plants..she says these dont even
know what a machine tool is... when  you tell them that our
industry is mothballing that stuff or sending it to china they
think you mean a 20 dollar hand drill or something... they
have no clue...not even the senators in many cases... they
dont know ...so they vote to allow it.





Phil Scott

Phil Scott wrote:

This is exactly right. As the educated part of mankind has realized
that it badly needs physical exercises even though the work is mostly
office the same way management requires hands on training. Otherwise
they never get how things are actually done. Big disappointment for
those who believe that technical work is below their IQ level.

--
Phil Scott
Ideas are bullet proof.

I discovered personally, after semi retiring from the
consulting busines that lack of regular hands on work actually
allows key parts of the brain to ablate away, decreasing IQ
and capability in all areas especially what had been
considered purely intellectual areas..that was in 1993....
recovery is still in progress but getting well onto the plus
side of the score card now.


Science mag published the first leaks of research on that in
1995... now its commonly understood.

What is not understood yet is that the body is also severely
affected by not doing hands on work..it devasates ones health,
brain function is distributed throught the body..(at the nerve
centers called ganglia)..... that ablates away with disuse.
(the dendron arm linkages, synapses, ablate away)... thats how
actual stooges are created in corporate america...once created
those cannot simply decide to change...the wiring is in
place...the damage is done.


I recovered to a large degree by accident, not entirely
though..and its taken 20  years in total..and it was not easy.
and a lot of luck was involved.


... today, with recent progress, women eyeball me again, I
haul ass on my motorcycle with verve no less...and my skin has
cleared up of all the bloat and age related apertinences one
sees in a majority of people my age...   all that was brain
structure related...


there were many other aspects.... Ive posted a series on
anyone can find by searching google news groups with only my
name as author, and 'amyloid' in the subject line.


In corporate america people lie or are forced to lie, these
then must rationalize the lies of course.... to remain
'sane'... that rationalization miswires these neuron
synapses...

that corruption of the brain and distributed brain throughout
the body ruins these people entirely in every single aspect
imaginable   ...everything, their health and even their
familys health...  it kills all charisma, it turns their kids
into zombies... even the dog is affected... their gold fish
gets fungus....it ruins them and everything about them...and
it ruins the companies they operate in.


Thats why I don't oppose them... these are taking themselves
out as we speak...in the most horrific fashion too... its pure
hell for many of these actually.

Myself, and for most people that are not corrupt...its not so
bad...





Phil Scott