The Latest Technologies for the Trades

I'd missed Brickey, I'll have to look him up.

Leak detection has gone high tech since we have so many water pipes embedded in slab concrete. I understand it is a sensitive audio device.

Infrared has had a sudden drop in price for the sensors, so it is showing up in everything from water leak (intrusion) detection to cold air leaks.

More to follow from other members I am sure, but the trades can still be done without.

Back in the late '80's, on one of my frequent trips to Tokyo, Japan, I was shown a building that reportedly was "building itself". I don't remember how many stories, but significant. I do not know how much of what I was told was marketing hype and how much was real. The crane was building itself as the building rose, and all of the welding was done with robotics. The only people in evidence on the site were truck drivers delivering materials and a gate guard keeping track of the trucks coming and going. Construction continued 24 hours per day, so I was told (I did not hang about all hours of the day or night to confirm this). I was not treated to a tour of the computer control room, and I can only assume that such existed. It was a pretty impressive show, even if it was all put on. I also don't know about the "finishing" work, the plumbing and electrical- I suspect that back in the 1980's trying to do that level of detail would have been difficult.

I don't think the trades have to worry, though. The great variety of different installations even in just a single small village will most definitely delay indefinitely the application of robotics to such mundane tasks as, say, repairing a toilet, or even changing a light bulb...

Robots repairing toilets? I'm having trouble visualizing this....... With all my engineering training and mechanical workshop experience I still have trouble with toilet repairs. Turn this job over to a robot? Well, robotic toilet cleaning may not be such a bad idea. But I'd want to make damn sure I wasn't sitting there when the robot showed up at the bathroom door.

BTW, cwarner, your posts in CR-4 have given me some new appreciation for the level of culture and technology in Panama. But is there something new and groundbreaking about sanitary systems there that we ought to be aware of? (yeah, I know I'm drifting OT here)

Ed Weldon

"and a gate guard keeping track of the trucks coming and going."

I should think this would be one of the easier jobs to replace.

welding comes to mind. There are a number of automated and semi-automated weld rigs.

Inspection (various trades) has all types of remote viewing and field analysis gear available now. Robotic pigs, borescopes, etc.

Lasers are used in leveling and positioning capacities.

Now regarding the rest of the posted, uhhh, question? - there is a bunch of other social dialogue in there too. I'll bite my tongue for now.

A couple of things. Technology that requires more people in the labor force doing tasks that the technology used makes the task of lower skill requirement, is not the same as automation that replaces unskilled labor with robotics and many fewer skilled operators. Robotic Automation is typically frowned upon by trade unions who tend to do everything in there power to stop it from occurring, so you do not see it used very intensively in the US in areas where trades unions have any influence, actually to the point of driving industries to a state of bankruptcy. A good example is the US auto industry, Unions have been fighting automation for decades, the US is about 20 years behind Japan in automation of their automobile lines. About 10 years ago I remember one big union strike against GM over GMs plans to automate one segment of the manufacturing, in which specialties in other fields that were necessary for production also went on strike and shut them down. There is really no way to retool towards automating even portions of the production lines if the unions go on a general strike against any automation that may potentially reduce the labor force numbers required to perform a task, and thus reduce the dues paid to the union. Automation, however, favors repetitive non-skilled work tasks completed in one location, things like custom homes would be hard to automate, unless the typical home construction standards and taste of consumers were to change.