Spot welding car bodies on the line

The first industrial robot was a Unimate installed in 1961 at the General Motors plant in Ewing Township, New Jersey, where it unloaded a die casting press, a two-tonne arm following instructions held on a magnetic drum. Lordstown was the step that mattered for people, because a welder had been holding a heavy gun against a moving body several hundred times a shift in sparks and fume, and that job went. A machine holds position better than an arm at that rate of repetition, which is why a weld pattern is now specified rather than aimed. Human work moved to fixture design, to teaching and programming the paths, to maintenance, and to final assembly, where wiring harnesses, trim, seals and door fitting still resist a machine.