General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Fast-Food Strikes Expand Across U.S. to 50 Cities [View all]Lurker Deluxe
(1,041 posts)As a machinist I have seen this as well over the last 20+ years. Within the last 10 it has become incredible. What used to take a first class machinist to do now simply takes an operator, a person who makes $12/hr and stands next to an automatic machine and puts pieces of metal in them. The piece is then removed and placed in another machine and so on ... when it is done it is inspected by a 3D measuring machine and any adjustments are made to the program.
There is no skill set there and one operator can keep several machines busy at a time. The money is made by the programmer and already there are machines which are beginning to interpret CAD drawings which will eliminate the programmer. Changes will be made to the CAD process to make them "machine ready" and another whole group will be eliminated.
I am simply lucky that I found the big ass machines interesting when I started in this trade, the truly big CNC machines cost into the millions and most still run the old school monsters that were made in the 50-70's making my skills special and my value high. Simply put, they do not train people to use high speed steel tooling anymore and grinding a profile is just not done ... except by us old school people left around.