How factory workers learned to love their fellow robots

Tesla calls robots the names of superheroes, and Nissan prefers anime characters. The name Godzilla is loved by everyone.

At Tesla's Fremont, Calif., Plant, the biggest robots on a common assembly line are named after superheroes from the X-Men comics series.
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Workers at the Navistar truck plant in Ohio were not friendly, when a new colleague appeared in production nearly 40 years ago.

It was a robot welder, and the people completing the production line thought of him as a troublemaker, representing a wave of automation that jeopardizes their jobs . They called him Scabby (Sneaky).

Today, the truck manufacturing plant is closed, and the hostility towards the machines is dissipating.

Giant robots capable of performing the work of several people have earned respect after decades of coexistence and are now receiving new, more interesting nicknames.


Godzilla from Ford

The trend is best observed at a plant in Fremont, California, under the control of Tesla Motors Inc. founded by a great comic book fan Elon Musk. The biggest robots were named after the Marvel superheroes.

Their names are Wolverine, Professor X, Mountaineer and Beast. Names fit into the atmosphere of production. Co-owned by Toyota Motor Corp. and General Motors Co. currently displays the "Evolution of Man", showing a mural with monkeys turning into men and women, which, in turn, are transformed into Iron Man.


More than ten Tesla robots have names

They are superheroes, as they do superhuman things, ”said Nick Tabak, who, together with other engineers, gave the robot names. “We called them after the X-Men, and that made them less intimidating and more part of the team.”

At the Fremont plant, huge robots pick up Model S aluminum electric cars and transfer them to a new line. Sticking to the theme, the company ordered the designer a graphic image in the style of comics of what is happening at each station.

Tesla is not alone, and this phenomenon is not unique to North America. At Ford Motor Co. , Honda Motor Co. , General Motors , Nissan Motor Co. and Toyota - everywhere workers give the names of the most respected robots.

At the Nissan plant in Kyushu in southern Japan, there are yellow robots named after famous anime characters; they perform welding work. Sparks fly, while the huge metal parts of the machines pass their way to the final assembly.

One name is Son Goku, the other - Vegeta. These are characters from the Japanese drama Zet Dragon Pearl, in which adventurers protect the world from evil.

Also at the plant Nissan work robots, whose name is Doraemon and Dorami from the show "Doraemon", a hit anime series with a plot relating to the past decades. One robot name is Luffy - this is the main character of the manga "One Piece. Big Kush ", which tells about a young man whose body has all the properties of rubber.

Min Su Kan, a professor of humanities from the University of Missouri (St. Louis), says that people tend to coexist ambiguously with machines, but also believes that they can cause feelings of kinship or comfort. "We do not give a name to scissors, but when they begin to act as a person, they have a chance to get a name."

A few decades ago, at the now closed Navistar factory, employees put a stick in the arm of a Scabby robot, and he pounded the balls in the hole during family corporate events. It made the car more accessible and more humane.

“I remember going there for a family day and saw him kicking balls in the hole,” said Jason Barlow, a third-generation Navistar International employee and employee of the United Autobuilders Union. “But there was fear, because people thought he would take their jobs.”

Mr. Kahn, author of the Noble Dreams of Living Machines book, says that the phenomenon of being given names to robots may indicate respect, but this act also has a tinge of fear: “Deep inside these workers are afraid. If the machines are not controlled, they can be extremely dangerous. "



In the Honda company, the Fanuc M-2000 robot is openly called the T-Rex, and among themselves, the Godzilla. In other factories, it is also called Godzilla.

Ford is launching a new, lighter F-150 pickup with an aluminum body, which is a quantum leap for industry that has long relied on steel. Work cannot be done without the Baby Zilla, an automated line robot that moves the finished truck body from the body shop to assembly lines in Dearborn, Michigan, and Kansas City, Missouri.

However, Baby Zilla is in the shadow of Godzilla - a giant M-2000 Fanuc robot working in Ford’s factories, where they make steel cases. Able to lift almost 3,000 pounds, he takes a car and moves it from one moving assembly line to another.

By the way the robot works, opening and closing the clamps, you can easily see the similarity with the 30-meter fire-breathing monster that bears ruin in Tokyo. Toyota, GM and Honda - everyone calls the Robot Godzilla at their plants.

It's so big that it does the work that several machines used to do before, ”said Ron Ketelhat, an engineer working at the Ford plant. - This is the largest robot in the industry.

Honda's Godzilla works in tandem with another M-2000, dubbed T-Rex, in East Liberty, Ohio, at the factory where the C-RV SUV is made.

“This is one of my favorite things at the factory,” said Tom Litavish, coordinating engineer at the Honda factory. - One robot installs the engine, and the other puts the rear suspension.

Car factories welcome visitors from the local government or the media, and the T-Rex robot always attracts attention. “People stop to look at him when they pass by,” Mr. Litavish said.

On a recent family day (similar to those held in Navistar many years ago), workers prepared a pair of giant Honda robots so that they could entertain the crowd.

One robot held a small object that was supposed to resemble a UFO hanging in the air thanks to massive clamps. It was programmed to move an object as if it were a flying saucer.

An alien dummy of 1.80 m height was attached to the arm of another robot, which he moved up and down, which was accompanied by strobe lights.

The Honda plant in Ohio also uses large welding robots called Big Mac and Hulk. “We gave them names, most likely because we are proud of them,” said Mr. Litavish.