These claims are just on the edge of believable to me, but tantalizing -- they say pretty clearly you can dump a product spec (which I imagine is still a highly specific CAD file of some sort, not a "make me a cool phone" type instruction), and the software side of the factory can instrument raw material production into a final product.
I don't think there are any steps in this process that couldn't be automated with today's tech; however I bet there are a lot of steps in this process that have a human checking in and approving or clicking 'redo' right now.
Taking the step to add self perception, hooking up sensors to everything is smart and very interesting, adding logistics connectivity is very interesting, basically the whole thing is intriguing.
I have a lot of questions, though -- it seems like it's 10 years too early to have this working -- but if you're planning long range, the experience here will almost certainly be baseline work you need done for building a better more successful autonomous factory over the next few iterations.
It would be an incredible production advantage for the company that's first to really getting to 'automated automated' -- once you had that platform, you could point it a lot of places.
I don't think there are any steps in this process that couldn't be automated with today's tech; however I bet there are a lot of steps in this process that have a human checking in and approving or clicking 'redo' right now.
Taking the step to add self perception, hooking up sensors to everything is smart and very interesting, adding logistics connectivity is very interesting, basically the whole thing is intriguing.
I have a lot of questions, though -- it seems like it's 10 years too early to have this working -- but if you're planning long range, the experience here will almost certainly be baseline work you need done for building a better more successful autonomous factory over the next few iterations.
It would be an incredible production advantage for the company that's first to really getting to 'automated automated' -- once you had that platform, you could point it a lot of places.