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posted by takyon on Monday August 03 2015, @08:00AM   Printer-friendly
from the coutsourcing dept.

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.
...
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?


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  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by szopin on Monday August 03 2015, @08:14AM

    by szopin (5710) on Monday August 03 2015, @08:14AM (#217283) Homepage Journal

    Production per person from 8k to 21k, but persons down from 650 to 60, soooo... lower production over all? Or how was that counted?

    • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 03 2015, @08:42AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 03 2015, @08:42AM (#217291)

      Just wait until they build the first fully robotic factory. Then the production per person will be infinite even if they manage to produce only one item per year.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 03 2015, @09:03AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 03 2015, @09:03AM (#217297)

      By my math production is down nearly 80%. This level of spin indicates propaganda.

      Rather odd that "the People's Daily" would be proud of the destruction of the need for their huge population.

      • (Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 03 2015, @10:33AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 03 2015, @10:33AM (#217332)

        >By my math production is down nearly 80%. This level of spin indicates propaganda.

        No, it indicates an idiot drone at Techrepublic could not even retell a press release right.
        The mismatch is absent in original source: http://en.people.cn/n/2015/0715/c90000-8920747.html [people.cn]

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 03 2015, @11:39AM

          by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 03 2015, @11:39AM (#217346)

          Well, submitter and SN editor were non wiser.

        • (Score: 2) by mhajicek on Tuesday August 04 2015, @12:22AM

          by mhajicek (51) on Tuesday August 04 2015, @12:22AM (#217660)

          "Data shows that since the robots came to the factory, the defect rate of products has dropped from over 25 percent to less than 5 percent and the production capacity from more than 8,000 pieces per person per month increased to 21,000 pieces."

          ??

          --
          The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 03 2015, @09:13AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 03 2015, @09:13AM (#217300)

      Chairman mayo says SHUTTHEFUCKUP!!

  • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 03 2015, @08:16AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 03 2015, @08:16AM (#217284)

    "Is eliminating the work force the best way to solve labor unrest?".
    yes, as long as you keep paying the wages.

    • (Score: 2) by c0lo on Monday August 03 2015, @08:23AM

      by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Monday August 03 2015, @08:23AM (#217286) Journal
      Depends on how you eliminate them. E.g., for the present, transforming them in Soylent Green is still frowned upon.
      --
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
      • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 03 2015, @08:34AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 03 2015, @08:34AM (#217289)

        Soylent Green is the Final Solution to the Worker Problem. Hitler was a century ahead of his time.

        • (Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 03 2015, @08:44AM

          by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 03 2015, @08:44AM (#217292)

          Hitler was a century ahead of his time.

          Terrible wasteful, mein Herr, a barbarian in this respect.
          Think how much organic nitrogen locked in those jews was lost back into the atmosphere and how much greenhouse gas was generated by burning the coal to do it.

          • (Score: 0, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 03 2015, @09:02AM

            by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 03 2015, @09:02AM (#217296)

            No coal was used to burn anyone. Bodies were piled on top of each other and set on fire. They burned all by themselves and nothing remained (within half an hour). In open pits. There are living witnesses who saw this happen with their own eyes.

            • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 03 2015, @09:06AM

              by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 03 2015, @09:06AM (#217299)

              Bodies are terribly hard to light on fire. All that moisture and flame resistant skin you see. Easier to feed 'em to the pigs. Have to get the teeth out for the piggie's digestion first though. Nasty business, that.

              • (Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 03 2015, @09:32AM

                by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 03 2015, @09:32AM (#217309)

                Bodies are terribly hard to light on fire.

                You can't question the official story. Just because the official story relies on breaking the laws of physics is no reason to question them.

                • (Score: 2) by HiThere on Monday August 03 2015, @07:41PM

                  by HiThere (866) Subscriber Badge on Monday August 03 2015, @07:41PM (#217531) Journal

                  Well, if you dry them out first they would burn nicely, though not as well as if they contained more fat.

                  OTOH, piles of moist oily rags can undergo spontaneous combustion, so perhaps a large enough pile of corpses would also. You should, however, expect this to take awhile.

                  --
                  Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
              • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 03 2015, @10:04PM

                by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 03 2015, @10:04PM (#217618)

                Easier to feed 'em to the pigs

                brick top, is that you?

                "never trust any man that owns a pig farm"

            • (Score: 2) by Nuke on Monday August 03 2015, @09:48AM

              by Nuke (3162) on Monday August 03 2015, @09:48AM (#217311)
              No coal was used to burn anyone. Bodies were piled on top of each other and set on fire.

              Open pits were used in the early days, but later it was much better engineered than that. Coal was not used, not later at least.

              The heat from burning one batch was used to pre-heat the next batch. That melted the fat out of it which was run down to burn in the furnace. These furnaces still exist at Auchwitz in a museum role, I understand. Can't help thinking that all this technology, learning from the Holocaust, will be put to use again one day when expanding populations start fighting each other for dwindling space and resources. There are genocidal views already among Muslim extremists. Hitler ( and the Kaiser before him, [telegraph.co.uk] who actually declared a Jihad) had significant empathy with Muslims.

              Sorry to sail close to Godwin, but it is seriously relevent here, and it wasn't me who brought him into it.
              • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 03 2015, @01:20PM

                by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 03 2015, @01:20PM (#217383)

                Entire stories can be made up, complete with details. Then one must wonder why the obviously efficient techniques developed were never used again. There have been a number of disease outbreaks in animals: Foot and mouth disease etc and these already perfected efficient techniques were never used, where one body provides the fuel to burn the next body.

                http://wildpro.twycrosszoo.org/S/00Man/VeterinaryTechniques/FMDVetIndTech/FMDCarcass_Burn_Technique.htm [twycrosszoo.org]

                It mentions (among other things), two days are necessary to complete burning of the carcasses.

                And for incineration of the animal carcass: One piece of heavy timber, 203 KG coal per carcass, ....

                • (Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Monday August 03 2015, @01:58PM

                  by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Monday August 03 2015, @01:58PM (#217397) Journal

                  Hitler used dedicated structures for the purpose. He shipped the victims to the structures. Farmers and ranchers don't have these dedicated structures, specially engineered for the disposal of carcasses. The comparison is rather silly, IMHO. A wood bonfire, laid on open ground, is never going to get as hot as a coke fire in a well engineered blast furnace. Never. Yes, it takes two days to burn a cow carcass. And, you're still left with the heaviest bones to dispose of.

                  • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 03 2015, @02:32PM

                    by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 03 2015, @02:32PM (#217404)

                    Even a replica of the original structures has not been made or used. I'm sure that during the last 80 years someone would have developed a furnace on similar principles if it really was real, but no. It only ever existed on paper, where it will always remain.

                    • (Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 03 2015, @03:35PM

                      by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 03 2015, @03:35PM (#217425)

                      Maybe the need for replicating it didn't arise?

                    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 03 2015, @08:00PM

                      by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 03 2015, @08:00PM (#217546)

                      I'm sure that during the last 80 years someone would have developed a furnace on similar principles if it really was real, but no.
                      Probably because the general public and law enforcement frown at the idea of heating your home with people.

            • (Score: 3, Informative) by c0lo on Monday August 03 2015, @09:50AM

              by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Monday August 03 2015, @09:50AM (#217313) Journal

              How ecological of them!! </sarcasm>

              Unfortunately, that's not true. Really now: more than 66 furnances. [wikipedia.org]
              As ghastly as is sounds. here are some details [nizkor.org].

              In comparison, the incineration of the Nazi victims of homicidal gassing at Auschwitz was done with no such restrictions. This can be seen in the Operating Instructions for Coke-Fired Topf Double-Muffle Incineration Furnace:

              "As soon as the remains of the corpses have fallen from the chamotte grid to the ash collection channel below, they should be pulled forward towards the ash removal door, using the scraper. Here they can be left a further 20 minutes to be fully consumed, then the ashes should be placed in a container and set aside to cool.... In the meantime, further corpses can be introduced one after the other into the chambers." (Technique p.136.)

              What this means is in reality the incineration of the victims didn't take just "20 minutes" (or 30 minutes, etc.) but an additional 20 minutes to be fully consumed in the ash channels of the furnaces.

              ...

              "Müller claimed that there was a direct relation between increased use and increased economy. If the cold furnace required 175 kilograms (kg) of coke to start up a new incineration, it needed only 100 kg if it had been used the day before; a second and third incineration on the same day would not require any extra fuel thanks to the compressed air; and those that followed would call for only small amounts of extra energy..." (Anatomy, pp.185-186.)

              How small is "amounts of extra energy?" Two kg of coke's worth?
              It is also interesting to note that according to the Operating Instructions for Coke-Fired Topf Double-Muffle Incineration Furnace that:

              "After each incineration, the temperature rises in the furnace. For this reason, care be taken that the internal temperature does not rise above 1100C (white heat).... This increase in temperature can be avoided by introducing additional fresh air." (Technique, p.136.)

              This, of course, supports the assertion that the combustion of the corpses acted as fuel for the incineratoin process, thus reducing the amount of coke needed to heat the furnace.

              True, open air cremation was used sometimes [blogspot.com], when crematoria weren't operational

              --
              https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 03 2015, @07:55PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 03 2015, @07:55PM (#217540)

      So why not build robots to do all the jobs, elimate money, and we all could enjoy our lives?

      • (Score: 2) by mhajicek on Tuesday August 04 2015, @12:35AM

        by mhajicek (51) on Tuesday August 04 2015, @12:35AM (#217667)

        No profit in it.

        --
        The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
    • (Score: 2) by mhajicek on Tuesday August 04 2015, @12:28AM

      by mhajicek (51) on Tuesday August 04 2015, @12:28AM (#217663)

      If they're unemployed, they're no longer workers. Therefore less worker unrest. Besides, it's difficult for the unemployed to afford decent weapons.

      --
      The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 03 2015, @08:24AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 03 2015, @08:24AM (#217287)

    The work force will solve itself by starving to death.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 03 2015, @09:20AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 03 2015, @09:20AM (#217305)

      Which, of course, they'll do quietly and orderly, and nothing bad will happen as a result.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 03 2015, @09:54AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 03 2015, @09:54AM (#217317)

        With enough troops, it doesn't matter how they do it. Ask Joe Stalin.

    • (Score: 2) by PinkyGigglebrain on Monday August 03 2015, @09:52AM

      by PinkyGigglebrain (4458) on Monday August 03 2015, @09:52AM (#217314)

      Starving peasants have been the trigger for several of the most well know revolutions in recorded history. The French revolution comes to mind, and unless I'm recalling it wrong the revolution in China that led to the current government coming to power had a starving populace as one of its triggers.

      A revolt is the last thing a government wants, because there are always more presents than there are loyal guards.

      --
      "Beware those who would deny you Knowledge, For in their hearts they dream themselves your Master."
      • (Score: 2) by curunir_wolf on Monday August 03 2015, @10:15AM

        by curunir_wolf (4772) on Monday August 03 2015, @10:15AM (#217326)

        Nah, the Communist party that took over China was lead by young wealthy intellectuals that used a populist messaging to oust the republic and establish a communist dictatorship. The starvation of Chinese that you're thinking of was caused by Mao Zedong when he implemented his "Great Leap Forward" program to "fundamentally transform" China from an agrarian economy to an industrial one. It caused widespread famine and millions of Chinese died. Five years later it was hailed as a huge success.

        --
        I am a crackpot
        • (Score: 3, Insightful) by ikanreed on Monday August 03 2015, @01:25PM

          by ikanreed (3164) Subscriber Badge on Monday August 03 2015, @01:25PM (#217387) Journal

          And, here's something a lot of people gloss over: in a nearby time period, across the globe, it's quite possible millions of Americans starved to death in the great depression(we think. There wasn't enough observation to have statistical confidence the number reaches the millions for sure).

          That's no an indictment of the US, and the Great Leap Forward killed tens of millions almost certainly.

          • (Score: 2) by curunir_wolf on Monday August 03 2015, @07:34PM

            by curunir_wolf (4772) on Monday August 03 2015, @07:34PM (#217523)
            Quite true, the lesson being, governments kill. And the greater the central consolidation of power by governments, the greater their ability to kill their own people.
            --
            I am a crackpot
            • (Score: 2) by ikanreed on Monday August 03 2015, @07:38PM

              by ikanreed (3164) Subscriber Badge on Monday August 03 2015, @07:38PM (#217528) Journal

              No, my friend, those people starved because there was no one there for them in the harsh world of capitalism.

              It prompted our government to fix itself in that particular way.

              • (Score: 2) by curunir_wolf on Monday August 03 2015, @08:31PM

                by curunir_wolf (4772) on Monday August 03 2015, @08:31PM (#217562)

                LOL. Okay, dude. Thought you could read.

                Nobody ever starved under feudalism, right? We should go back to that, I suppose.

                Or are you referring to FDR's "fix" that took control of food production by burning and destroying food [answers.com] instead of distributing it to the poor?

                Governments are evil. A necessary evil, but evil nonetheless. And should therefore be limited, like all evils.

                Since you support consolidation of power, I assume you prefer dictatorship and the most preferred form of government?

                --
                I am a crackpot
                • (Score: 2) by ikanreed on Monday August 03 2015, @08:46PM

                  by ikanreed (3164) Subscriber Badge on Monday August 03 2015, @08:46PM (#217573) Journal

                  I'm talking about welfare and later food stamps. Virtually no one starves to death in the US anymore. There are places people do, and they're not characterized by large governments. Well, maybe North Korea.

                  And plenty of people starved under feudalism.

        • (Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 03 2015, @10:12PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 03 2015, @10:12PM (#217622)

          wealthy intellectuals

          Smart? Yes; Educated? Yes; Rich? No.
          Under the Kuomintang regime, China still had a working meritocracy.
          If you were smart and ambitious, you got a good education gratis; you didn't have to be rich to get schooling in line with your abilities.

          to oust the republic

          Can we admit that the "democratic" regime was quite corrupt and needed replacing?

          a communist dictatorship

          An oxymoron.
          Communism is a bottom-up system, not top-down.
          Communism requires Democracy at its heart.
          (The people who think the terms are opposites don't understand one--or perhaps either--of the terms.)
          What every nation which has ever called itself "communist" has had is State Capitalism, [wikipedia.org] replacing one cadre of overlords with another.
          That's nothing like the Communism that Marx described.

          [Mao's] "Great Leap Forward" [...] caused widespread famine

          ...and, in the process, produced mostly low-grade [alphahistory.com] steel. [mu.edu]
          More [google.com]
          It certainly was a boondoggle that ended in tragedy.

          -- gewg_

      • (Score: 3, Interesting) by PinkyGigglebrain on Monday August 03 2015, @09:14PM

        by PinkyGigglebrain (4458) on Monday August 03 2015, @09:14PM (#217592)

        Thanks for all the replies to my comment. learned some things I didn't know and adjusted my worldview in response.

        Good way to start the week :)

        --
        "Beware those who would deny you Knowledge, For in their hearts they dream themselves your Master."
  • (Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 03 2015, @09:03AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 03 2015, @09:03AM (#217298)

    They just need to build a robot Steve Jobs to convince all the other robots to buy the stuff they're making.

  • (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 03 2015, @09:17AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 03 2015, @09:17AM (#217303)

    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

      by mhajicek (51) on Tuesday August 04 2015, @12:52AM (#217673)

      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

      by aqui (5069) on Tuesday August 04 2015, @01:53PM (#217911)

      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. ;)

  • (Score: 5, Informative) by Runaway1956 on Monday August 03 2015, @09:19AM

    by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Monday August 03 2015, @09:19AM (#217304) Journal

    Our plant used plastic injection machinery to produce parts for equipment. Our worst problem over the years, involved plastic chassis with metal inserts. An operator at the machine placed the metal inserts onto pins inside the mold each time the machine cycled. We had a fair amount of rejects, because the insert wasn't loaded. Worse, was when some operator loaded the insert backwards. In almost all cases, a backward-loaded insert caused damage to the mold. A production run that called for 120,000 parts by some certain date and time could be set back hours, or days, while the mold was out of the machine being repaired.

    Enter the robots. Sometimes, an insert fails to load, but they never get loaded backward. There is an immediate, tremendous savings, because the molds are not being damaged by an inattentive operator.

    Better yet, from the company's point of view, cycle times have been shortened. Previously, cycle time was a compromise between what the machine was capable of, and what the operator was capable of. Some parts are kicked out of the machine, and require no further actions on the part of the operator. Other parts require the operator to affix screws, pulleys, heat shields, or some other sub-assembly procedure. So, the operator might require 90 seconds to perform his other functions, before loading the mold with new inserts. The robot? It's always ready to load new inserts before the mold closes, so that 90 second cycle might be shortened to 80, or even 70 seconds. Or, a 240 second cycle might be shortened to 200 seconds. The increase in productivity, plus the savings on mold repairs are tremendous.

    That doesn't make me like the damned robots though. They can be a total pain in the ass as well. In one instance, the engineers failed to build strong enough supports for a trimmer station, and it gets out of adjustment pretty often. Another robot seems to be excessively sensitive to any fluctuation in power, and loses it's bearings, requiring a reset. Each robot has it's quirks, which means that some nights, I can run my ass off fixing problems.

    Except for the backward loaded inserts, I'd rather deal with humans. Humans are pretty easy to fix, most of the time. Just lay a wrench upside their heads to adjust their attitudes. Robots are much more complex than that.

    • (Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Monday August 03 2015, @10:46AM

      by Phoenix666 (552) on Monday August 03 2015, @10:46AM (#217335) Journal

      Thanks, Runaway, quite interesting.

      --
      Washington DC delenda est.
    • (Score: 4, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 03 2015, @07:10PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 03 2015, @07:10PM (#217512)

      I lived through a slow transition at a factory from old-school humans to full automation. Something I always found interesting was that the machines were treated better. The humans were just given a box of each part and shown how to do the job a couple times. The machines had humans or other machines to sort, orient, and stack parts for optimal efficiency. A human had to grab something from several boxes, orient, affix, then run the operation. All the machines had to do was grab blindly with the fixture and run the operation.

      When the pre-setup is not quite perfect for the machines they will happily slam wrong parts together, make runs of assemblies missing internal components, and do all sorts of things that will destroy themselves. That was my job. Stopping them from doing that, clearing damaged parts, ensuring sensor calibration (why do they get so off so fast?), tweaking and all around babysitting.

      To me, it always looked like if you don't give the humans (yeah I know how derogatory I have been, that is what factories are like) as much TLC as the machines get, it is not fair or business savvy to compare their output. There were no human technicians. There were no auto-loaders for the humans. When a human messed a few parts up on an easy operation they were canned on the spot. When a machine makes 1,000 bad parts without the QA alarm going off we spend time and money on figuring out why. We certainly don't scrap the machine for another.

      I always have wondered if there were actual real human engineers, not just managers and systems engineers. What would it be like for someone to be well-versed in psychology and manufacturing in a role of "human technician" and compare that environment to the coddling we give machines. What would it look like?

      • (Score: 2) by nukkel on Monday August 03 2015, @08:03PM

        by nukkel (168) on Monday August 03 2015, @08:03PM (#217549)

        This post made me pause and think.

      • (Score: 1) by Murdoc on Tuesday August 04 2015, @01:57AM

        by Murdoc (2518) on Tuesday August 04 2015, @01:57AM (#217696) Homepage

        This is something I've been thinking about more over the past couple of years, that perhaps if we treated people more like machines, they'd be happier and more productive. I know, that sounds awful, but notice that I didn't say "exactly" like machines. I don't mean "do the same things to them that you would with an actual machine", but rather this approach: Here's an unknown machine that varies in it's productivity depending on how it is treated (just like every other machine). What do we have to do to make it more productive, and that includes making it last longer (and even want to stay)? It should be obvious that health and happiness would then become priorities (even though I know that yes, some people don't get that). Additionally, that each of these "machines" works differently, and needs to be treated differently (after all, they all come with different software and hardware). Over time and study of individual units, I'm sure that certain commonalities and even "types" may start to be noticed, but until these can be reliably and scientifically predicted, each unit should be treated individually.

        And yes, the other main difference is that we can't just throw these machines out if they displease us. Human rights and all that. ;)

      • (Score: 1) by Absolutely.Geek on Wednesday August 05 2015, @08:41AM

        by Absolutely.Geek (5328) on Wednesday August 05 2015, @08:41AM (#218398)

        I am a control systems engineer.

        I have only worked on process engineering not batched jobs such as you describe. But from my experience humans are terrible at reliability and great at reacting to unexpected situations.

        Humans get bored; I have yet to come across a level transmitter that gives the wrong indication because it was inattentive due to boredom. Humans are slow to react; and machines cannot make intuitive judgement calls based on the general state of the plant. Humans have a definate "operational capacity" aka they can only deal with a set amount of information in a given time; I have plants with 10's of thousands of sensors happily humming along; however if there is no code to handle a specific set of conditions who knows what will happen.

        Each is significantly better at doing what it is good at (and a good operator is worth their weight in gold). Increasing automation is the only way to compete with low wage economies.

        --
        Don't trust the police or the government - Shihad: My mind's sedate.
  • (Score: 2) by wonkey_monkey on Monday August 03 2015, @09:49AM

    by wonkey_monkey (279) on Monday August 03 2015, @09:49AM (#217312) Homepage

    Chinese Factory Replaces 90% of Humans With Robots

    Now that's a summer blockbuster waiting to be made.

    --
    systemd is Roko's Basilisk
    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 03 2015, @09:56AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 03 2015, @09:56AM (#217319)

      Now that's a summer ballbuster waiting to be made.

      FTFY.

  • (Score: 4, Insightful) by Nuke on Monday August 03 2015, @09:56AM

    by Nuke (3162) on Monday August 03 2015, @09:56AM (#217320)

    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

      by Phoenix666 (552) on Monday August 03 2015, @11:05AM (#217339) Journal

      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

      by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Monday August 03 2015, @11:20AM (#217343) Journal

      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

        by bob_super (1357) on Monday August 03 2015, @04:21PM (#217447)

        > 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

          by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Monday August 03 2015, @05:11PM (#217467) Journal

          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

            by bob_super (1357) on Monday August 03 2015, @05:36PM (#217473)

            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

            by Phoenix666 (552) on Tuesday August 04 2015, @12:05AM (#217655) Journal

            There is no doubt in my mind that China's government run physical infrastructure probably rivals our own, today.

            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

        by Nollij (4559) on Tuesday August 04 2015, @05:49AM (#217785)

        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.

        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.

  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by Rich on Monday August 03 2015, @10:42AM

    by Rich (945) on Monday August 03 2015, @10:42AM (#217334) Journal

    Quite some time ago, I saw a report about how mainboards were made at Iwill and at Gigabyte. (Just looked, but it seems not to be on Youtube?!).

    Iwill was on the 2nd floor of some average commercial building in Taipeh, where everything was handled in an automated way, while Gigabyte had this huge factory in mainland China, where human workers did exactly the same job as the Iwill robots (mostly placement). Turned out that back then, chinese workers must have been cheaper than robots, as Iwill disappeared around 2007. Interesting to see that the mainland chinese now turn to robots. Either their workers have become more expensive, the robots got cheaper, or both.

    But in any case, we only can wonder what happens when "the factory of the world" becomes robotized; especially if it's the robots being so cheap that moving the labour to Vietnam oder Bangladesh isn't worth the effort anymore.

    • (Score: 2) by jmoschner on Monday August 03 2015, @01:53PM

      by jmoschner (3296) on Monday August 03 2015, @01:53PM (#217396)

      When manufacturing can be done for cheap anywhere, then it is a matter of whether it is cheaper to move the resources or the product and where they will pay most for the product.

      • (Score: 3, Insightful) by HiThere on Monday August 03 2015, @07:53PM

        by HiThere (866) Subscriber Badge on Monday August 03 2015, @07:53PM (#217536) Journal

        You left out government regulation. Some things that, e.g., pollute the environment, can only be done (or done cheaply) where they aren't regulated out of existence.

        --
        Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 03 2015, @11:50AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 03 2015, @11:50AM (#217351)

    full-scale chinese propaganda. no such factory exists.

    • (Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 03 2015, @01:28PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 03 2015, @01:28PM (#217388)

      I have no data either way, but it did seem odd that the original article (linked above, http://en.people.cn/n/2015/0715/c90000-8920747.html [people.cn] ) used a stock photo of a robot welding line for cars...not pictures of robots assembling electronic components.

      The first six pages of a Google search for Changying Precision Technology Company was not helpful, although there is plenty of news echo on this topic (some with different stock photos of robots). You may be right that this story is a fabrication...

      • (Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 03 2015, @03:41PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 03 2015, @03:41PM (#217429)

        You may be right that this story is a fabrication...

        But was it fabricated by robots?

      • (Score: 2, Informative) by hogger on Monday August 03 2015, @06:31PM

        by hogger (1090) on Monday August 03 2015, @06:31PM (#217491)
        This story [technews.co] is from May 6, and appears to be about the construction of that facility.
        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 03 2015, @10:10PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 03 2015, @10:10PM (#217621)

          Thanks for the technews link, which is earlier. Also mentions that it was translated.

          This is another stock photo, showing a robot picking cutting tools (milling cutters, drill bits, etc)--again, nothing to do with electronic assembly.

          Anyone here been to Dongguan who could verify any of this story?

  • (Score: 2, Interesting) by Murdoc on Tuesday August 04 2015, @02:20AM

    by Murdoc (2518) on Tuesday August 04 2015, @02:20AM (#217706) Homepage

    ...to deal with this trend of increased automation. It's been known for over a century that machines perform better than humans in nearly every physical job (ones that don't require flexibility anyway), and now we know that they are able to outperform us on a great number of mental jobs as well (like the physical ones, jobs that require lots of repetition and precision). So it should be obvious that we'll never be able to keep everyone employed at a sufficient level. It simply makes too much sense for a company to automate all they can. But like most microeconomic boons, this one hurts the macroeconomic sphere with lower employment. The economists won't believe it because they don't have a real answer for how to deal with it, so they just stick their fingers in their ears and "la la la can't hear you" believing that the magic of the economy will one day save us.

    The problem on a physical level is simple: Machines were created to do our work for us, but the more work they do for us, the less we can enjoy the fruits of that increased production, because of displaced labor. So what's the solution? Either you get rid of the machines and keep us all toiling away (something we've been trying to do but failing), make up jobs that don't really need to be done (there's plenty of that in the world today, but how much more ridiculous does it need to get?), or we simply unlink labor from income. Let the machines do their thing, produce goods and services like mad, and let us all enjoy a continuously increasing standard of living! It's not a difficult concept, but it flies in the face of our cultural tradition of "you can't get something for nothing" and all the nonsense excuses people come up with to try and prove it.

    And the benefits would be wide-ranging: Poverty, pollution, climate change, crime, even wars would all be beneficially affected. Believe it or not, we'd be able to live in the long-awaited post-scarcity world! We don't need to wait for AI, or perfect humanoid androids, or nanotech, or replicators. We could have this now. Heck, we could have had it decades ago. This kind of resource based economy has already been described [technocracy.ca] and ready to use once we can get enough people aware of it.