Laurie Anderson
Dr. Miller [United States Live]
[Spoken intro]
One of the reasons Chrysler has been running into such financial trouble lately, is that there have been some problems with the relay devices between the computers and the robot welders. When a problem develops further up the line, it takes a long time for the computers to tell the robot welders to stop. So the robot welders continue to make these welding motions - dropping hot metal directly onto the conveyor belt - even though there are no cars on the line. Building up a series of equidistant blobs of molten steel. It takes several hours for the computers to tell the robot welders to stop. And at the rate of 80 cars per hour. A typical plant is capable of manufacturing approximately 100 of these blobs, before the plant can be totally shut down