Word: robots
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Another area of vulnerability for U.S. manufacturers was the hydraulic- robot technology pioneered by Unimation. The company's robots, which became the American industry standard, were large (up to 4,000 lbs.), powerful, multipurpose and expensive, ranging in price from $30,000 to $200,000 apiece. But these bulky hydraulic machines, originally programmed to perform tasks by means of magnetic tape similar to that used in tape recorders, were often inaccurate and susceptible to breakdowns. Says Raj Reddy, director of the Robotics Institute at Pittsburgh's Carnegie-Mellon University: "U.S. companies dragged their feet on innovation because they wanted...
Even as U.S. robotmakers wallowed in their early success, the Japanese, who imported their first hydraulic robot in 1967, were coming up with a new product. Fitted with high-speed computer chips and sophisticated circuitry, the new electric machines received instructions via computer-software programs. The machines tended to be smaller, less expensive ($5,000 to $40,000 each) and not as prone to breakdowns as their U.S. hydraulic counterparts. - Though electric robots were less powerful, and thus less capable of heavy industrial tasks, their greater accuracy in tasks such as delicate manipulation and precision welding made them more attractive...
Exaggerated claims about what U.S. robots could do for businesses proved to be just as debilitating. Says Laura Conigliaro, analyst with the Prudential Bache investment firm: "The robot industry promised more than it could deliver. The technology was not as advanced or sophisticated as promised." Many companies discovered that buying an industrial robot was only the first, and least expensive, step in automating their factories. Says Carnegie- Mellon's Reddy: "Suddenly they needed experts in computer science, communications and database technology. The number of people in factories with this expertise is probably zero." Adds Warren Seering, professor of mechanical engineering...
Some of those who rushed to buy an expensive robotic system got less than they bargained for. At a Ford Motor plant in St. Louis, snags in 200 production-line robots delayed the 1986 introduction of the Aerostar minivan. Then the discovery that the same robots had been skipping many key welds led to the recall three months later of some 30,000 of the vehicles. In another disastrous episode, a Campbell Soup plant in Napoleon, Ohio, was outfitted with a $215,000 system designed to lift 50-lb. cases of soup. But anytime it encountered defective cases, the machine...
...current slump does not necessarily signal the demise of American robotics. The industry is expected to perk up again by the end of 1988, partly because of increases in U.S. competitiveness caused by the falling dollar. Struggling American manufacturers have begun to adopt the electronic robot technologies of the Japanese and, like U.S. automakers, are moving their own assembly plants overseas to help cut costs. Above all, U.S. robotmakers have adjusted their own expectations of how the industry will perform in the future. "We're in a solid business with solid growth," says Bruce Haupt, a marketing manager...