Let People Find the First Corner
■ Fabric Changes Shape Every Time, Leaving No Planned Grip
A box keeps its shape wherever it lands, so a machine can grip a fixed point. A sheet crumples in the basket and hides its corners. To a machine built to grip fixed points, cloth offers nothing to plan in advance.
■ Two Robots Gripping the Wrong Spots Only Twist the Sheet
More hands did not help. Two Tsukamukun units pinched different spots on the same sheet and pulled, and it wound into a rope. They had the strength. What they lacked was the right place to hold: two adjacent corners, one each.
■ Conclusion: Draw the Line Right After the Hardest Step
The night-shift worker only untangled the sheet and handed over two corners. Spreading and folding became the robots’ job. Let people own just the bottleneck, and the work keeps moving with little human effort.
Before adding machines, find the one step people should keep.
