But if you don't know how to weld, solder, hammer, or hot-glue something together yourself, how do you expect to teach a machine to?
When my dad was an engineer, engineers knew how to work the machines. Because a technical drawing isn't just an illustration, it's a set of instructions to someone on how to make that part. For example, the engineer was likely to know, through experience, what tolerances the machines in his shop are capable of, and adjust the tolerances specified on the drawing accordingly (or if the tolerances are bigger than what is required, say "we can't make that part with this equipment").
A few years ago, my dad mentored some college kids who were incredibly smart and eager to learn. But he complained that they had almost never touched a machine in their lives. They didn't know how to design the parts properly. He had to teach them.
>>A few years ago, my dad mentored some college kids who were incredibly smart and eager to learn. But he complained that they had almost never touched a machine in their lives. They didn't know how to design the parts properly. He had to teach them.
This happens because no matter what you learn and how much you know in general, that doesn't say anything about ability to deliver in practical areas of work in a small narrow fields.
You can learn everything general about programming. But pick up a new language and you will be hitting the manual very often even to do some very trivial tasks. Or you will like to read existing real world code in that language, to learn the idiomatic way of doing things.
When you spend time solving real world problems in any field using any tool. What you are basically doing is turning yourself into a 'human database' of problems and solutions to a wide variety of problems. And you get that only by practice and experience.
And, there are thousands of welders employed in many other industries - let us not forget that you can't sit around and stop production while you wait six months for the Chinese to make a replacement for a one-of-a-kind machine. On the street where I have my company (a niche-market hardware company), there are, I would take a guess at, at least 75 people employed primarily to do welding. The street is approximately 1 mile long. We also weld quite often - I wouldn't hire an employee whose answer to every question is "we can't do that process until I find someone to sell me the item I need to perform it." Why buy a $75 tool when I can make a functional one for $0.35 in materials and ten minutes of time?
My best-paid employees are those who can weld, drill, operate machines, and do all of the other things necessary to keep us in the business of making products - and also think creatively and logically.
Contrary to popular belief, China is not the manufacturing panacea - for most of us making small-market products (think a few hundred units a month), China is exorbitantly expensive. Most of my competitors either do their work in-house or out-source to other U.S. companies.
