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