This is great comment - the "automation systems are not cost effective for high product mix mfgrs" seems like the crux of the matter to me. Can we create more flexible/universal systems?

3D Printing claims to do this, but as mentioned it's limited in what you can do - so that's going to take quite some time to get right (20years).

It'll be interesting to see the ReThink Robotics launch coming up to see if their system can help alleviate some of these problems.