If successful, counting on machines can help preserve this nation’s technological power — not the stereotype of machines snatching assembly line jobs from workers, Jun Misumi — company spokesman, said Monday.

The move toward machine-only production will likely be completed in the next few years, perhaps as soon as 2015, said Misumi, although he declined to give specific dates.

Akihito Sano, professor at Nagoya Institute of Technology, said Japan needs to do more to fine-tune its sophisticated technology so robotics can become more practical, and was doing some soul-searching lately about practical applications. Japan has tended to focus on research and come up with razzle-dazzle humanoids and then get been beaten in simple but practical products like the Roomba vacuum cleaner by iRobot Corp. of the United States, he said.