Mods (Modular Installations)

[resistance]

Just heard an apartment building here will be using all pre-installed electrical (modular type installation) in their building?more specifically in areas that are residential. Seems to be a threat to our jobs. Your thoughts?

 

[cadpoint]

No big deal, someone or something will have to make some connections, I heard on the radio where a lot of job's will be replaced with robots in the near future.

I would hope a little different approach would be taken to QA's what comes in, but stamped out production from the owners and the builders is all to thier benefit.

 

[resistance]

I?m sure they will have a couple people to simply plug-to-activate the electrical equipment, but it doesn?t take as many to do it?which means we will see a lot of people in the unemployment line. If this is going to be the trend, then why should we be wasting all our money getting all this required training!! The upside: Lets hope it takes years before it goes full blown

 

[mgookin]

A robot is anything that does what a human can do (or could have done). It can be hardware/ tangible or software. Robots & machines have been taking our jobs since the invention of the wheel. It really accelerated during the industrial revolution. I have robots in my factory today which pick and place resistors & capacitors which are smaller than a flake of pepper and one robot can do 2,800 pcs per hour. I'd rather have robots in America than buy trash from Mexico & China. 30 years ago I worked in defense manufacturing at Westinghouse and our electrical assembly lab was dozens of guys (and gals) with soldering irons & pencils. Today I feed a robot an array of printed circuit boads and make sure the components feeders are full. We make 6 units of product in under 5 minutes with 57 components per product. One day I'll produce a video of it. The old timers on here will love it. The younger guys will just think it's normal, I'm sure.

 

[petersonra]

factory built stuff is controllable both as to cost and quality. field built stuff much less so. the trend for a long time has been to do less and less work on site. many times trusses are made off site for instance. a lot of weldments are now trucked in. this just continues that trend.

 

[GoldDigger]

factory built stuff is controllable both as to cost and quality. field built stuff much less so. the trend for a long time has been to do less and less work on site. many times trusses are made off site for instance. a lot of weldments are now trucked in. this just continues that trend.

Depending on exactly which code(s) apply to the finished modular structure, it can also have the advantage of allowing the manufacturer to work with one single set of requirements nationwide instead of having to customize the module for each local AHJ at the destination.
Mechanical/structural parts which go into a conventional building will still have to meet local building code provisions and be ordered with that in mind. Pre-installed utility components of modular buildings are usually exempt from local codes.

 

[rt66electric]

Rearange location

Rearange location

The jobs have been moved from "site location" to a FAB-shop. the jobs are still there. Wages may be different , I'm sure the guys in the shop are considered "Trainees" or "temp positions". Some persons would rather work in the same shop "day-after-day" as opposed to , "I don't have a clue where I will be working tomorrow".

 

[kwired]

This is no new concept, even for dwelling units, we have had mobile and manufactured homes for a long time now.

As a consumer which price tag is more appealing to you?

Would you rather pay the purchase price of an automobile that was completely made and assembled by hand or one that was made on the assembly line?

How much you think your computer would cost and maybe even how large it may be if it were not assembled by machines?

How many tools or other equipment do you currently own that make certain tasks easier, but maybe are not absolutely necessary to get the job done?