Hamming’s claim: it has almost never proved practical to make by machine the identical product you made by hand. Automation does not merely speed up the existing artifact, it changes what the artifact is.
He lists three effects of robots in manufacturing: a better product under tighter tolerances, usually a cheaper one, and the point he says needs emphasis: a different product.
The corollary is that the difference should be sought deliberately at design time rather than discovered later as drift.
- Concrete instance: Screws and bolts became rivets and welding
- Operative instruction: Redesign the job, not the current version
- Source: The Art of Doing Science and Engineering: Learning to Learn