[techdragon]

Having slightly more than average (researched the industry as an outsider) knowledge of industrial robotics. It turns out million dollar industrial robots are kind of like enterprise software. You "buy" an ERP/CRM/etc but it doesn't just work out of the box, theres weeks and months of work-hours needed to try and get it actually integrated into a company, and it still might not work since software has bugs, humans are fallible, and huge software with endless features sometimes forgets which ones still work properly in combination with others.

Industrial robots are kinda like this too. You can buy an arm based on physical specs like how large it is, how precise it is with certain weights of objects (because it may be less precise with larger objects), how quickly it can move around, how quickly it can get from precision point A to precision point B (because precision and speed are a tradeoff once weight is involved due to momentum), how much power it uses, is it hydraulically powered or electrically powered, available off the shelf end effectors provided by the manufacturer... etc.

Then you have to install it, as in mechanically bolt it to the ground (which might have issues with load cantilevering), mark safety areas humans cant be in when its operating (that could require redesigning the entire floor plan of a building depending on how much spare room there is around everything because people still have to get around to other important things when the robot is doing its job), then you have to program the robot (which can in some ways be simple xyz coordinate motion, but also you need to tie it into some form of process control software so it knows when to do its job, and other things around it know when to do theirs, and process control systems are software, and may not be compatible, or have bugs, etc), then you have to maintain it (spare parts, breakdown rates, warranty turnaround times, industrial equipment built to be used, is sometimes used to do things that will wear them out, but its at a known rate that was planned for, but is not lived up to, requiring replanning or additional costs)

Its a web of complexity that can lead to what seems simple "just buy a robot to lift this thing from here to there and then buy another robot to weld it to the car" ... into a project that takes piles of money, months of work-hours by multiple different disciplines from construction to programming, and anything going wrong dominos down the line making it take even longer and cost more...

I wouldn't hold failing to get industrial robots working against them. Feel free to continue holding all the other opinions though :) everyone is entitled to our opinions after all... i just had something relevant to say about the robots.

[bob778]

As an insider of the automated manufacturing space, your ERP analogy is good but missing one detail: every other large company eventually gets an ERP working. Tesla is an outlier in regard to their manufacturing processes and even much lower margin industries tend to design new factories around the automation platform yet Tesla just...doesn't?

I've never worked with Tesla so have no inside info on their situation but their factory designs have always seemed strange to me - like they refuse to follow industry norms.

[techdragon]

Not entirely invalidating your point, but it’s worth keeping in mind how many organisations will publicly declare an ERP project has been “finished successfully” in various PR channels, while staff will be stuck shouldering the burden to maintain duct tape and bailing wire hacks for a few years as the ERP that was “finished successfully” has in reality only met 40-80% of its original goals, the project having been either quietly rescoped or just “finished early to the satisfaction of all parties” or any number of other PR bullshit phrases.

I’ve personally witnessed a couple if “successfully deployed ERP projects” which were in reality complete shit shows to the point where lawsuits were considered, and it was only the good old fashioned grease of the professional consultants who started getting worried this might haunt them in the next job after they quit, that kept the gears turning and stopped things getting that far. One of these was barely 50% of originally promised scope, downscoped twice and “successfully completed” 5 years before the internal teams who took over when the consultants were kicked out, gave up and told management they couldn’t deliver and and a new solution should be put to tender.

Oracle and IBM and SAP and the like may be able to always end up delivering, but plenty of clients will walk away partially down the road due to going bankrupt or merging or any one of a number of outcomes because the massive vendors that will “always deliver” might take so long to get there that you can basically just call it what it is, a practical failure… if an ERP is installed in a company but no one ever uses it, was it even deployed?

[MarkMarine]

More silly than that. It’s like saying they can’t get ERP from Oracle or whomever to work, so they are going to build their own ERP from scratch, it’ll do more and be 1/1000 the price.

[KineticLensman]

This. In a previous life we were asked to install a motion platform for a vehicle simulator. Our customers had a small hangar-like building with a free corner, and a research budget that could easily afford the hardware required. But the installation required floor safety markings, physical barriers and interlocks so that bystanders couldn't get whacked and integration with the building fire alarm system so that in an emergency the sim would park in a safe position so that the trainees could exit. The latter required software development as well.

[MarkMarine]

Thanks for this info about industrial robots, I suppose I can understand this difficulty. I have heard a rumor that when they were having trouble getting the line robots to work properly, Elon personally came and sat next to the people who knew how to program and run the robot, grew frustrated with them, and fired them one by one until no one on staff could program the robot… so the difficulty might have been magnified at Tesla. Who knows if that’s true, but I can definitely see that fitting his personality.