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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, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 03 2015, @10:12PM
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_