\u201cTypically bicycle spokes are dropped into the hub one at a time by hand. This machine does it automatically and only in about thirty seconds,\u201d said Arnold Kamler, owner of Bicycle Corporation of America, or BCA.
\u201cUsing the same amount of people, we can do about three times as many hubs in a day,\u201d Kamler said.
A BCA employee and robot working together
BCA has been in his family since 1905.
The company has a factory in China, but Kamler recently moved ten percent of BCA\u2019s business back to the U. S. Why? Wages for Chinese workers had soared out of sight.
Kamler bought an abandoned factory and created 140 jobs — a lifeline in this distressed industrial town. But the only way to make it work was investing in robots.
\u201cWe\u2019re creating jobs with the automation and being able to be price-competitive with China now and it will get even better in the future,\u201d he said.
$6 million of automation does the work of more than 100 workers.
As robots take human jobs, Europeans mull free money for all
Kamler was asked whether his employees see the robots as a future threat to their jobs.
Arnold Kamler
\u201cWe\u2019re not replacing other jobs with these robots,\u201d he said.
\u201cWhat we\u2019re doing is we\u2019re adding more equipment that makes us more efficient.\u201d
Production manager Albertus Jones sees the machines as co-workers.
\u201cA lot of people have that misconception that automation decreases jobs. It\u2019s just a different type of job, a more skilled job,\u201d Jones said.
And without the robots, the human jobs wouldn\u2019t exist, either.
A new model that could allow American manufacturing to ride high again.<\/p>\n

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