3-30-18
present day assembly lines are mostly automated
until the stage of final assembly and much more flexible
people working in teams are used where changes are made often
the assembly line was an engine of American prosperity in the
20th century
but it also was a technology of control--repetition and
standardization
now we have the decline of American manufacture, at
least of jobs
how has the effect of automation on
workers changed over time?
The environmental impact of the assembly line?
- pollution because factories
have to be very big to make good use of assembly lines
- lots of pollution from making
the parts
- assembly line processes that
are more chemical such as papermaking put out a lot of
pollution
- big factories mean
transporting goods long distances to market
- lots of cheap products which
we then throw away--the whole point of the assembly line is
to make a lot of cheap products
What happened to Detroit?
- used to be the main location
for automobile factories
- many fewer car factory jobs--because
of automation, building cars other countries, building
cars in other states--cheap convenient land, southern
workers don't tend to unionize
- professional people moved
outside the city to suburbs, not enough money coming in in
taxes to have good schools and infrastructure
- people became afraid of the
city, riots... so fewer people shopped in the city
- now young professionals and
artists are moving back to the city
- post industrial economy
The assembly line has meant
different things to different people over time
if the effect is not inevitable but instead different in
different times and places
how do we choose to use the assembly line?
we have choices about where technology takes us
