fields of employment that cannot be replaced by automatics?

Date 10-31-2011 20:01

First of all: erection jobs.
So far, it hasn't been invented a robot that can replace a human welder in erection jobs.

A few examples:
Welding of a 48 meters tall vacuum tower of an oil refinery that has arrived completely unassembled at the jobsite.
Welding of the vacuum pipe of that tower, that comes off its top and goes down to the ejector that produces vacuum.
Welding of the main steam piping of a power plant that comes off the boiler superheater and goes down to the generator's turbine.
Welding of the bottom and the roof of an API 650 oil storage tank 50 meters in diameter. There are machines that can weld the side of the tank but not the bottom and roof.
Welding of the 50 meters tall flare of an oil refinery, encased within its supporting tower.
etc. etc.

I've personally been faced to all of those jobs back in my days of erector engineer.

Giovanni S. Crisi
Sao Paulo - Brazil

By js55

Date 10-31-2011 21:09

Giovanni, another of the forums contributors with a few gray hairs.

By G.S.Crisi (****)

Date 11-01-2011 17:26 Edited 11-03-2011 19:19

Too many gray hairs, js, too many. But it's better to have gray hairs than having no hairs at all.
Giovanni S. Crisi

By cddolan74 (**)

Date 11-01-2011 19:01

I find that offensive :lol:

By G.S.Crisi (****)

Date 11-01-2011 21:17 Edited 11-03-2011 19:19

Erased

By qcrobert (***)

Date 11-01-2011 21:37

Giovanni

I believe he was joking also, since he put a lol (laughing out loud) face :lol:

icon behind his remark.

QCRobert

By ctacker (****)

Date 11-01-2011 21:41

I think he meant that for a joke also Giovanni, see the smiley face in his post!
you Brazillians would have fun with me, short, fat and bald,LOL
Thats not 3 kinds of people, thats just me ! :lol:

By welderbrent (*****)

Date 11-01-2011 23:20

Hey, I've lived with short jokes all my life. And I'm not talking about the time it takes to tell the joke.

I most surely resemble that remark.

But offended I am not.

I also think that was intended as a further joke Professor. He was giving you a hard time.

Communications are SO fragile. Especially across language lines.

Have a Great Day, Brent

By G.S.Crisi (****)

Date 11-03-2011 19:23

OK, Gentlemen, you've convinced me that cddolan was also joking; so I rewrote my "offensive" posting and erased the other one where I intended to clear up my position.
Giovanni S. Crisi

By martinmartiini Date 01-26-2012 15:27

ok, Im not american .. so excuse me in case I express myself incoherently
Im on colledge welding course first year (lots of welding-books to read through), (Im over 30yo and previously done construction concrete work)
and Im trying to pinpoint specific welding jobs that I can specialise on
Here, in my area, there are only about 5 welding companies which make busstations, shipping-containers, truck-containers, custom transporter-vans for disabled people etc
...so..
main employment fields for human welders which cannot be replaced by robots/machinery -
- construction beam stick welding?? (construction seems to be on decrease in europe .. maybe only China is big on steel construction)
- large diameter pipe stick welding (pipe/tank/container assembly on-site)
..........
- pipefitting (piping of water-suppliers, heating-stations etc)
- sewer pipe welding
- transport-vehicle (cars, buses, trains) repair ??
- shipbuilding (welding of large sheets of steel)
- machine parts assembly in a factory-workshop
...
and ..
What would be the best/advanced area to specialise on - pipe stick welding, TIG-welding, industrial MIG/MAG, oxygen-cutting ... ??

By Lawrence (*****)

Date 01-26-2012 15:49

Honestly, All the advanced studies you mention are good. All will make you valuable.

Part of being a marketable welder/craftsman is the ability to be excellent in multiple processes.

In the beginning you may want to focus you training on the processes and skills that will help you find a job to pay the bills right? But another part of our trade often includes "going to where the work is". So being flexable means you will be able to compete for a job when other people with less training cannot.

Here in America, (generally speaking) the pipe welding jobs pay more but often require travel from project to project over time. The manufacturing jobs pay less but often offer stability... It's a choice.

By Metarinka (****)

Date 02-13-2012 06:39

it's also a common mis understanding that robots replace humans. You still need very skilled techs to maintain the robots, program them and perform repairs or 1-off pieces that can't be cheaply automated. All the case studies for detroit auto say that a robot does the work of 1.1 people. So if there were 30 workers before there would be 27 afterwards.

By Mat

Date 02-25-2012 00:48 Edited 02-25-2012 00:50

Robotic welders are limited in what they can do, but what they do, they do well! (mindless repetive jobs!)

I watched one do it's thing in one shop and it was quite a neat thing to witness. They are limited though, pretty much to the consistency of a parts fit up, the programmer and what the part is. Smaller parts in batches of 2000 where all of the pieces are the same and the fit is the same everytime, they work great! Not so much for anything else, as they cannot currently see the puddle and are limited in their range of motion, although a lot of them still require an operator.

I would say that erection, heavy fab and custom work is pretty safe for quite awhile yet! :grin:

One of the neater machines to watch cycle is a turret punch. I had to run one for awhile at one shop and I was thinking to myself, "The guy that came up with this thing was either a genious or manically insane!"

By Metarinka (****)

Date 03-06-2012 01:19

The newer robots are slowly catching up, the range of movement thing is still an issue and you won't see any doing fieldwork anytime soon. however the modern systems with laser seam finding and adaptive welding parameters can get much closer to welding on the fly. I've seen robotics be cost beneficial on part runs as small as 100 but those were simple parts that could be automated fast with known parameters. As mentioned fittup, having a good programer etc all play their part. Also as mentioned they're great at doing the hot, dangerous work that humans don't want to do.