The big idea: Moving towards the machine buys some things and costs others.
It buys
- Speed
- Consistency
- A collapsing labour cost per unit
It costs
- Capital
- Flexibility
- Resilience
What that looks like: A craft workshop can make something different tomorrow; an assembly line cannot. A CIM plant stops entirely if its software does.
Each system, with its advantages and its disadvantages.
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| System | Advantages | Disadvantages |
|---|---|---|
| Craft | Every piece can differ, the maker controls quality directly, set-up costs almost nothing, and the work is skilled and satisfying | Slow, expensive per unit, and quality depends entirely on one person's skill and on that day |
| Mechanised | Faster and more consistent than hand work, the machine takes the effort, and a modest volume becomes viable | The operator must be present for every part, and quality still varies with their skill and attention |
| Automated | Consistent quality, continuous running, and labour cost per part collapses | High capital cost, expensive and slow to change, and a fault makes hundreds of bad parts before anyone notices |
| Assembly line | Very high output, short training, and each station can be optimised independently | Repetitive demotivating work, the whole line stops if one station does, and it is inflexible once laid out |
| Hybrid | Puts people and machines where each is best, and copes with variation full automation cannot | Two systems to design, balance and maintain, and the human stations set the pace of the whole line |
| CIM | A design change flows straight to the machines, stock and schedules adjust themselves, and every part is traceable | Enormous cost and complexity, total dependence on the software, and a cyber failure stops the whole plant |
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| Craft and mechanised | Automated and assembly line | |
|---|---|---|
| Skill required | High, and it takes years to acquire | Low at the station, high in maintenance and programming |
| Job satisfaction | High — the worker sees a finished product they made | Low at a station doing one task every forty seconds |
| Effect on employment | More people, each paid more, making fewer units | Fewer people making far more units, and a shift from making to maintaining |
| Effect on the product | Variation between units, which may be a virtue or a fault | Every unit identical, which is what a spare part depends on |
The disadvantage students forget: An assembly line stops completely when one station fails, and an automated line makes hundreds of bad parts before anyone notices a drifting setting.
A craft workshop does neither: a mistake is caught by the person making it, and everything else carries on.
Robots, CAM and CIM: what each buys, and the human cost
Robots
Work faster and more accurately than people, run 24 hours, repeat a task identically and take over dangerous or dirty jobs such as welding and painting.
CAM
Machines cut straight from the CAD file: no marking out, quick set-up, identical parts every time, so the production rate rises.
CIM
Computers link design, ordering, stock, machines and finance in one system: fewer errors and faster response, but high investment, training and maintenance.
Assembly line
Each worker or robot repeats one task, so output rises and unit cost falls; one broken station stops the whole line.
The social cost
Jobs are lost or deskilled, remaining work can be monotonous, and communities that relied on a factory are hit hardest.
How this is tested — discussing the advantages and disadvantages of each production system. It comes up two ways:
Paper 1 — multiple choice
- Identify an advantage of a named production system.
- Choose the disadvantage that applies to a described system.
Paper 2 — analysing a product
- Evaluate the advantages and disadvantages of a system.
- Evaluate a proposal to change a company's production system.
The trap: Listing advantages with no disadvantages. Every system on this axis buys something and gives something up, and a one-sided answer scores half.
A furniture workshop making 200 chairs a year by craft methods proposes to move to an automated CNC line to make 5,000. Evaluate the proposal.
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