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In Dongguan City, located in the central Guangdong province of China, a technology company has set up a factory run almost exclusively by robots, and the results are fascinating.
The Changying Precision Technology Company factory in Dongguan has automated production lines that use robotic arms to produce parts for cell phones. The factory also has automated machining equipment, autonomous transport trucks, and other automated equipment in the warehouse.
There are still people working at the factory, though. Three workers check and monitor each production line and there are other employees who monitor a computer control system. Previously, there were 650 employees at the factory. With the new robots, there's now only 60. Luo Weiqiang, general manager of the company, told the People's Daily that the number of employees could drop to 20 in the future.
The robots have produced almost three times as many pieces as were produced before. According to the People's Daily, production per person has increased from 8,000 pieces to 21,000 pieces. That's a 162.5% increase.
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The growth of robotics in the area's factories comes amidst a particularly harsh climate around factory worker conditions, highlighted by strikes in the area. One can only wonder whether automation will add fuel to the fire or quell some of the unrest.
Is eliminating the work force the best way to solve labor unrest?
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 03 2015, @09:17AM
If only a handful of factories do this then profits for them will increase. When everyone uses robots for production then no one makes any more profits than they used to because of competition.
Also this is a good way to shut out newcomers because newcomers may not have the capital to invest in robots.
Things are getting more brutal all the time: 1 cent too expensive, you're out. It has already happened in third-world fabrics factories.
(Score: 2) by mhajicek on Tuesday August 04 2015, @12:52AM
There's also the matter of having enough people able to afford buying your product.
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 1) by aqui on Tuesday August 04 2015, @01:53PM
Germany has been doing this for decades, and its happening in North America too.
I've worked for companies with high levels of automation in Germany and their average worker is twice as productive as a North American one (in terms of units of goods produced per worker) but their wage costs are also approximately double. Its high capital investment, with fewer labour costs (with higher salaries) vs. low capital investment with lots of slave labour.
I remember visiting a "lights out" plant ( called that because you could turn the lights off and production would continue, because robots don't need light) in the late nineties. There were 2 workers on a line (final inspection), and several teams of technicians and engineers that supported the whole system.
The automation of manufacturing is no different than the mechanization of farming. Back then 60%+ of the population farmed, now its less than 5%... All most all of those people adapted found jobs in new industries. The same will happen now but the type of jobs will change. Some will be high paying high value design, coding and engineering jobs (skilled), some will be service jobs (unskilled).
All the robots need technicians to maintain them, program them, set them up, etc... The type of jobs will change, with higher qualifications. Or people will work in other industries (services).
The people that are in trouble in the short term are those with no education. They'll have a longer climb as they will need to go to school and get more training (aka how to run robots)...
The cost of those products will eventually also have to drop if the market matching them changes. Rich people can buy only so many TVs.
That being said we've had a jobless recovery out of the last few recessions. Ultimately its a division of wealth question.
We need to start having the conversation around how we define our identities / roles and society if we no longer define it around our work, and how we divide up the wealth generated by higher productivity.
The Capitalist will tell you that those that have money get everything, those without get screwed...
How that will work in a democracy with many poor with votes and time will remain to be seen.
I suspect we will see a power struggle between those with capital and those without, and things will probably move left in the political spectrum (aka social democracy with more free education, basic income etc...). I think a sustainable model requires a healthy middle class to consume the things produced, and that means the role work takes in our lives will change, likely we will work less for the same money and spend more time in school, or doing things that aren't value generating in the traditional manufacturing sense but service oriented.
That is until the singularity occurs ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technological_singularity [wikipedia.org] ) and we're all replaced by robots. ;)