[gurps] [VEHICLE] of the week 759 - OHI Automated Heavy Lift Shuttle

[David Scheidt]

On Fri, May 15, 2009 at 5:18 PM, Zan Lynx <zlynx at acm.org> wrote:

> Even in the current modern world, manpower is usually the biggest cost.
>
> So it isn't the concrete you have to worry about, it is the union-mandated
> six person minimum team to supervise the concrete repair bots. :D

We had some concrete flat work (sidewalk and steps) done last year.
Labor -- including the labor of removing the existing work, was quite
a bit less than half the cost.  While it's true that labor is the
dominating cost of much construction work, that will cease to be the
case at higher tech levels, in most worlds (and certainly not any that
hew to realistic economics).  Automation will remove the need for
labor inputs.  (And you see that in the modern world, even in
environments where there is pressure not to keep labor costs as low as
possible.  If you look at  US housing construction practices over the
course of the 20th century, you can see the changes.  A friend of mine
lives in an early 20's shack.  It's one of hundreds of houses in his
neighborhood that were thrown up to house the rapidly expanding
workforce of the local auto factory, the local tractor plant, the
local stove plant, the local plane parts plant and so on.  They're all
not-terribly well built, but it's got features you'd not see in
anything but the fanciest custom stuff these days.  It's got a roof
that's planked, not made of plywood.  It's got site-built cabinetry.
Not just kitchen cabinetry, but under stair and around the chimney.
Site built stair stringers, site built trusses.  Plaster and lathe
walls.  site built windows.  All of that would be pre-fabbed stuff
today, and some of it, like the planked roof is something that a
builder would laugh at if you said you wanted.  (or, in his case, fix.
 He did the work himself, because the roofers all wanted to tear the
whole roof off and put on OSB, when only about 2 square feet needed
replacing. )  Even if you have custom cabinetry done, or custom sized
windows or trusses, it's all built somewhere else, and just installed
on site.  It's cheaper and faster, because there's less human time
involved.  )



-- 
David Scheidt
dmscheidt at gmail.com