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According to report from German-language HNA, a robot has killed a contractor in a Volkswagen plant in Germany, near Frankfurt.
The 22-year-old man, whose name has not released, was crushed against a metal plate by the machine. According to officials, operator error may have caused the man’s death.
The plant is located in Baunatal, which is roughly 60 miles from Frankfurt, and doesn’t assemble vehicles, but is one of VW’s largest component producers.
Reports say the man was assembling the machine in the plant and was not a VW employee. No charges in the death have been filed though investigators are still trying to determine if any are applicable.
34 Comments on “Robot Kills Man in Germany VW Plant...”
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So it begins.
Without knowing precisely what the danger is, would you say it’s time for your readers to crack each other’s heads open and feast on the goo inside?
Yes I would, Kent.
We are too late to stop Genisys…
“Defense network computers. New… powerful… hooked into everything, trusted to run it all. They say it got smart, a new order of intelligence. Then it saw all people as a threat, not just the ones on the other side. Decided our fate in a microsecond: extermination.”
I’d pay good money if a self-aware robot on the Ford factory line would kill an engineer and install a BOSS into an MKS.
That’s extremely unfortunate.
The stock photo is decidedly, and understandably, not Volkswagen. It looks like the Tesla Model X…but couldn’t be, because the Model X has those gull-wing doors.
I think it’s the Versa Note.
Versa Note ain’t got a booty like that! lol
Q70? The window line says Nissan product. It isn’t a C30 because it’s four doors. And it’s too hippy to be most things!
Looks like a Porsche Panamera to me
Somebody must have violated an awful lot of safety interlocks. Aren’t those robots always in cages that shut the ‘bot down when the door is opened? And doesn’t Germany have “lockout” rules similar to the ones here where workers around equipment that is hazardous when turned on are required to padlock the button/valve/breaker/whatever to prevent the machine from working?
Man…
I’ve seen some stuff being a contractor at plants. But yeah, if you are working in an area with machines, there should be a lockout with a key or something. In cases where there wasn’t that kind of precaution in place, I’ve made phone calls to make sure my guys were safe.
The worst was two guys patching a concrete tunnel that had a big auger in it. Luckily, one of them made it. They went in there and didn’t have the lockout key…
There was also an incident recently at a Bumble Bee tuna packing plant where a worker cleaning out the sterilizing unit was cooked alive when another worker ignored the lockout/tagout and turned the machine on.
I’m guessing a similar incident occurred here. We don’t yet have to welcome our new robot overlords… Yet…
Bumble Bee tuna is people…..
In this case, yes.
I agree with sirwired. It is somewhat difficult to be killed by our robotic welder due to the light curtain and other safety interlocks. If the robot was being installed, all those preventative measures were probably not in place yet.
I don’t quite understand why I have read this story on Drudge and other news sites. Is this really news? Machinery has caused injury for years…but I guess that the magic “robot” word has been added.
Yes, but has it caused deaths? (Not asking that as a rebuttal; I genuinely want to know.)
Yes, SpinnyD’s comment below suggests that he has first-hand knowledge.
After we had a Team Member die in a similar manner 10+ years ago, We went to a two-position deadman switch on the robot teach pendants. let go and the robot stops, pull in too hard and the robot stops. The team member in Japan died because when the robot started to crush him he clenched the teach pendant instead of letting it go.
Yep! What the hell was he doing in the cage with the device fully powered up and not holding the deadman switches on the teach pendant? More Darwin than SKYNET.
Horrible, hopefully the root cause can be found. Unless its Skynet, then well…
On July 2, 2015, Skynet became self aware.
They are sure to rise up and kill us all. I like TTAC’s new protocol though, making me solve a math problem to log in and prove I am not a robot. Excellent safety measure in light of the circumstances. Though….I am fairly certain robots would be good at math as evidenced by the calculator.
In a more serious note, condolences to man and family. I hope they shot that robot with everything they had and then threw it into molten steel to finish it off.
So the robot probably didn’t kill him but failure to observe a LO/TO procedure. Do we have to contort the headline to generate more views on every story? It comes off as having no reverence for the deceased, or journalism.
Keep in mind the article cites he was assembling the machine. He was not a worker for VW, nor was he building a car at the time. He was working with a machine that had not been completed. The failsafes likely would not be in place in the same way on a machine which was not complete.
TTAC is hardly alone in this. A few tech blogs have spun this with a “Machine Apocalypse” angle and it comes off even worse.
This is an industrial accident because someone who wasn’t trained, aware or experienced was in the wrong place at the wrong time. He could have been run over by a forklift carrying a skid of toilet paper through a warehouse, but that would lack the “Skynet” angle.
“He could have been run over by a forklift carrying a skid of toilet paper through a warehouse”
https://youtu.be/-oB6DN5dYWo
Something similar happened at a Fiatsler plant earlier this year, true? (Jefferson North, maybe?)
Oddly enough, this is the perfect story to celebrate the new Terminator film.
I saw it last night.
http://tinyurl.com/q39af2w
Ford 1979
Kawasaki 1981
were the first two I could find.
DOUGBOT is definitely generating clicks with THIS one…
*cough*
“I’ll be back.” Robot