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