The technical term for that is "the real world". Moment of perspective on just how weird the software people are that they don't just accept mucking around as expensive and dangerous.
It's hard to argue that most if not all of the recent innovations in manufacturing concern making chains more modulable, and easier and cheaper to modifywhich you could see as bringing manufacturing closer and closer to software engineering and this is probably to be even more true in the year to come.
Large scale automation using mostly wireless technology, easily reconfigurable pick-and-place machine and robot conveyor, cheap additive manufacturing, easy to use and cheap CNC machining with precision which were until recently limited to very expensive models, we are quickly getting to a point where configuring a mostly automated short run is both manageable and cost effective provided you have invested in the tooling and have the engineers able to put it in place efficiently.
I think that when people talk about bringing back manufacturing, most think Ford Model T assembly line in 1900 when the norm is quickly becoming a SpaceX-like pacing. That's basically what you are competing against in South East Asia and it sadly has far less need for an uneducated workforce than many expect.
If you like visual media, the "Strange Parts" YouTube channel is an interesting source for glimpses into modern, mostly Chinese factories: https://www.youtube.com/@StrangeParts/
Since you're asking about pick and place specifically, https://www.opulo.io/ is an interesting example of how far/cheap you can push such machinery (and the design in and of itself is interesting from a manufacturing point of view). Not all that relevant from a mass-production point of view, though.
I'm also kind of curious as to know what kind of machine shops you base this on. Most production companies, labs and even small fabricators I've seen have continued to develop and to optimize their infrastructure and processes. To take the numbers discussed here: 50 years ago, (C)NC machines, CAD and CAM were in their infancy. And that stuff certainly has changed some things in the world of fabrication.
btw: If we understand "machine shop" as a mass production environment with modern, integrated production lines, it is my anecdotal experience that there is a massive amount of muckery and fuckery involved in getting such an environment to run (usually called "integration" or some such which probably looks better on business cards). There's also a good chance that over the years - or decades - different people will engage in further iterations of the muck-pile to modify the system for new requirements from high on up or weird edge cases, to replace components that are no longer available with other stuff or to do whatever else the day might call for.