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Oh dear. It pays to use Wikipedia or the library to avoid ruining a
correct thesis with a multitude of small errors.
David Nobel discusses the realization of "automation" in his fine
book "The Forces of Production", which I heartily recommend.
I was fortunate enough to see one of the very first 3-axis automatic
milling machines in 1955 while I was working at Thompson Products in
Cleveland, Ohio. The machine was in the R & D lab a few doors down
from my lab. Oddly enough, the computer with it was built in Japan
without integrated circuits. It was made with a dazzling array of
discrete transistors on a multitude of PC boards. Its program ran
through a typical computer style tape drive. That machine was not
much different from the ones we use today. It was operated by
stepping motors and was essentially "blind." I.e., there was no
feedback from the results of a cut to the controlling computer. If
the tool broke, the machine just went right on. This is still
standard practice today.
By the early 1960s the planer (sp.?) process was well developed by
Texas Instruments and Fairchild (funded by the military), and silicon
integrated circuits were available for commercial applications, both
RTL and TTL. It was then obvious that "smart" machines were just
around the corner.
Then came in 1964 the famous document "The Triple Revolution" which
pictured a production system operating (virtually) without people.
Everybody had a copy. This document is available today at <http://
www.educationanddemocracy.org/FSCfiles/C_CC2a_TripleRevolution.htm>
and probably lots of other places. It is worth reviewing. In
particular, the Monthly Review and the Boggs family and many of my
friends were much affected. At that time, automation was seen as a
challenge to the Marxist notion of the role of the working class in
transforming the world.
As a member of the SWP, I spoke both in Cleveland and in Detroit
against the assumptions, central thesis and conclusions of the Triple
Revolution document. My point was, simply put, that the threat of
automation was the THREAT of automation; that the capitulation of the
UAW started not because there were automatic milling machines
competing with living labor, but because the union leadership and the
membership were afraid of such competition. They were fooled by
newspaper articles, demonstrations, etc. In 1964, there were no
automatic milling machines--computer controlled or otherwise--that
were competitive with a skilled machinist. If any comrade has the
opportunity, they should take the tour through the Ford plant at
Baton Rouge and witness for themselves how far from "automatic" the
assembly line of today is.
A few years later, (1970) I worked for Acme-Gridley who manufactured
multiple spindle automatic lathes. To give you a sense of their
power, one machine I worked on would pick up a casting and spit out a
fully machined diesel engine piston every 6 seconds. And all to
tenths of a thou tolerances. No computer. And No computer controlled
machine could come close to that performance. (That was a union shop,
by the way, controlled by the old MESA, if anybody remembers Dick
Tussey.)
As far as the steel industry goes, the continuous casting technology
was well understood before WWII; as a fact it was patented in the
19th century. Its use was the result of a thousand little
improvements over the years and was not a shock to anybody. The main
and distinguishing feature of capitalism is the mobility of capital.
Technology was exported by the US not alone, but along with the
capital to realize itself; that's where Germany got back into the
steel business. Germany still had coal and iron ore. Japan had
neither. Let's not get careless.
Between the first transistor and the gigaherz computer of today lies
60 years. What we must do is not get blinded by applying "Moore's
Law" to history.
--rod
On Dec 9, 2009, at 4:14 PM, David Walters wrote:
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> A few random thoughts on production techniques...
>
>
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