[mikepurvis]

I think a lot of that comes in the form of partial and adaptive automation, though— like self-checkout at the grocery store, where it's "automation", but only in the sense that the self-checkout console enabled outsourcing the pick and place part of the work onto the consumer.

Or elsewhere in the thread, the example of moving a previously-modular computer part onto the logic board, so that it can be soldered on rather than needing to be installed later in the assembly process.

Companies like Rethink weren't in this world— they were trying to build a manipulator (Baxter) which was a drop-in replacement for a person doing pick and place work. Which has a certain appeal, if it works ("no need to retool anything; just buy it and put it to work!"), but it puts you up against the direct price comparison of just having a human continue to do that job.

[ethbr0]

I've worked in software automation for about a decade now, and that's been my learned wisdom too.

Don't try and boil the ocean: see what COTS is available, adapt your process to be able to leverage that, plug it in, and move on to the next project

As commentor above noted, volumes have to approach obscene to justify a moderate+ amount of custom, one-off implementation work.