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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: 4, Insightful) by Nuke on Monday August 03 2015, @09:56AM
The whole point of so much manufacture moving to China was that the workers were cheap and (supposedly) more diligent than ones in the West. [As an aside, the are not more diligent in my experience. Most Chinese stuff I buy - usually I have no choice - turns out to be crap, and they are too far away to be able to complain].
Hopefully, this development will mean that factories can be moved back to the West, at least for Western markets, where transport costs will be less.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Monday August 03 2015, @11:05AM
I lived in China in Beijing and Harbin, in Manchuria. I have seen the care they take with everything. Slapdash is about the nicest way you can put it. If there were an opposite end of the quality spectrum from the Swiss/Dutch/Germans, who have an obsessive need for everything to be genau ("exact"), China would be it, or at least tie for last place. There is individual genius there, of course there is, but it is heavily weighed down by a cultural heritage of, "Oh, the tower fell down because we used tissue paper for the main supports? Well, throw another 10,000 peasants at it, that'll do the trick!" And that is compounded by the Chinese Communist Party's propaganda-fueled insistence that that fine quality be delivered at half the recommended minimum safe time.
Eh, who knows? Maybe it doesn't make a difference. A Zerg swarm will often overcome the Protoss.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Runaway1956 on Monday August 03 2015, @11:20AM
Sometimes, it is not the workers to blame. There is an entire infrastructure required to keep any plant running. Engineering, maintenance, sales, etc. Sales can be blamed for some of the junk - if they write out contracts for low grade junk, then any plant can produce that low grade junk. No plant is capable of producing products superior to the engineer's best efforts. If maintenance isn't reliable, the equipment will be unreliable, and the production line worker can't be blamed for the shit products. The logistics train is often at fault - if they aren't acquiring the proper quality of parts, the finished product will again be shit. The best of workers will make mistakes, and produce inferior products. If QC/QA isn't on the job, those inferior products make it to store shelves instead of being rejected.
I REALLY don't believe that a Chinese worker is in any way superior or inferior to an American or a European worker. I am quite certain, though, that China lacks the infrastructure that we used to enjoy here in the US.
And, finally, you've got to consider management. I've seen cases in which the QC department did it's job, rejecting finished products, only to be over ridden by management. "I've got to have 250,000 parts, and they've got to be shipped today. Get those ten boxes on the truck, don't worry about it." Sometimes, those ten boxes of rejects are sent back from the customer's plant - sometimes they are not. Our customer often uses our reject parts to assemble consumer ready products that are inferior. So, when you go to WalMart, and pick up brand "X", and it falls apart in days or weeks, it just MIGHT not be brand "X"s fault that it fell apart.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Monday August 03 2015, @04:21PM
> I am quite certain, though, that China lacks the infrastructure that we used to enjoy here in the US.
Even if you can't fly to Beijing, Shanghai, or Shenzen, I'd recommend you point your google that way and realize how wrong you are. Then browse around to find a few smaller cities: when you've got up a few million employees to bring to work and feed every day, and then export the junk-to-high-tech gizmos they make, infrastructure happens.
Try a few major African capitals too, while we're on the topic of misunderstood realities.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Monday August 03 2015, @05:11PM
Are you referring to the internal infrastructures of companies and corporations - or to the governmental infrastructures, like highway systems, electricity grids, dams, and such?
It is a pretty well known fact that China has produced some terribly bad products in the past few decades. Remember the poisoned milk products? There is an example of a missing governmental infrastructure, namely, a Food and Drug Administration. Or, at the least, an EFFECTIVE FDA.
But, I was talking specifically about internal infrastructure. It takes, literally, decades to build up a supply chain. Comparing cost, quality, and availability of needed supplies across a spectrum of potential vendors can't be done over the internet, and certainly not overnight. The corporation's own logistics train is an infrastructure, in and of itself - and a very important structure. A smaller company can be destroyed if they rely on a vendor whose gadgets or widgets are substandard. Even major corporations can take a big hit, if they rely on a crap vendor, as evidenced by all those faulty capacitors back in - uhhhh - '99 to '07 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capacitor_plague [wikipedia.org]
There is no doubt in my mind that China's government run physical infrastructure probably rivals our own, today. China has been improving theirs, while we have allowed our own to deteriorate. If the trend continues, I suspect that by 2020, China's infrastructure will definitely be superior to ours, in the US.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Monday August 03 2015, @05:36PM
1978 [wikipedia.org] was a long time ago
WPG [wpgholdings.com] is scaring the [bleep] out of Avnet and Arrow (probably triggering the purchase of NuHo).
And in case you missed it: Hon Hai's factories [wikipedia.org] "together assemble around 40 percent of all consumer electronics products sold", including just about every consumer high-tech product you'd get as answers on Family Feud. About 2/3rds of their employees are in China.
And that's only the big guy. thousands of competitors surround it.
They've got the supply chain figured out, for sure, even if sometimes bad parts happen (to US/Euro companies too). There aren't too many places left in the world where you can ramp production as quickly as China. A few bad accelerators don't prevent Toyota from being number 1 any more than a few bad caps derail Shenzen.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Tuesday August 04 2015, @12:05AM
I do doubt it. I doubt it a lot. Yes, they build a lot, but it is so poorly built it almost has to be condemned the moment the ribbon is cut. It's like the high speed rail line they built down the coast but immediately had a horrible derailment because the contractor cut corners.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by Nollij on Tuesday August 04 2015, @05:49AM
I beg to differ - if Brand X is using shit parts, without proper QA, then it is absolutely their fault. They need to hold their supplier accountable. It's part of Supply Chain Management.
I will grant that it's often a management problem, rather than the boots on the ground.