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1 | # On Equivalent Product |
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| 3 | The following is an excerpt from "The Art of Doing Science and Engineering" by Richard Hamming. |
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| 4 | Over the last year it has been replaying in my head with regards to the shifts with agentic coding. |
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| 6 | >The computers make it possible for robots to do many things, including much of the present |
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7 | >manufacturing. Evidently computers will play a dominant role in robot operation, though one must |
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| 8 | >be careful not to claim the standard von Neumann type of computer will be the sole control mechanism, |
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| 9 | >rather probably the current neural net computers, fuzzy set logic, and variations will do much of the control. |
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| 10 | >Setting aside the child’s view of a robot as a machine resembling a human, but rather thinking of it as a |
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| 11 | >device for handling and controlling things in the material world, robots used in manufacturing do the |
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| 12 | >following: |
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13 | > |
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14 | >A. Produce a better product under tighter control limits. |
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15 | > |
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16 | >B. Produce usually a cheaper product. |
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17 | > |
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18 | >C. Produce a different product. |
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19 | > |
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20 | >This last point needs careful emphasis. |
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21 | > |
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22 | >When we first passed from hand accounting to machine accounting we found it necessary, for |
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| 23 | >economical reasons if no other, to somewhat alter the accounting system. Similarly, when we passed from |
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| 24 | >strict hand fabrication to machine fabrication we passed from mainly screws and bolts to rivets and |
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| 25 | >welding. |
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26 | > |
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27 | >It has rarely proved practical to produce exactly the same product by machines as we produced by |
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| 28 | >hand. |
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29 | > |
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30 | >Indeed, one of the major items in the conversion from hand to machine production is the imaginative |
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| 31 | >redesign of an equivalent product. Thus in thinking of mechanizing a large organization, it won’t work if |
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| 32 | >you try to keep things in detail exactly the same, rather there must be a larger give-and-take if there is to be |
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| 33 | >a significant success. You must get the essentials of the job in mind and then design the mechanization to do |
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| 34 | >that job rather than trying to mechanize the current version—if you want a significant success in the long |
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| 35 | >run. |
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36 | > |
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37 | >I need to stress this point; mechanization requires you produce an equivalent product, not identically the |
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| 38 | >same one. Furthermore, in any design it is now essential to consider field maintenance since in the long run |
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| 39 | >it often dominates all other costs. The more complex the designed system the more field maintenance must |
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| 40 | >be central to the final design. Only when field maintenance is part of the original design can it be safely |
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| 41 | >controlled; it is not wise to try to graft it on later. This applies to both mechanical things and to human |
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| 42 | >organizations. |
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