Foxconn, the Taiwanese manufacturing giant behind
Apple’s iPhone and numerous other major electronics
devices, aims to automate away a vast majority of its
human employees, according to a report from
DigiTimes . Dai Jia-peng, the general manager of
Foxconn’s automation committee, says the company
has a three-phase plan in place to automate its Chinese
factories using software and in-house robotics units,
known as Foxbots.
FOXCONN PRODUCES 10,000 FOXBOTS A YEAR FOR
AUTOMATION PURPOSES
The first phase of Foxconn’s automation plans involve
replacing the work that is either dangerous or involves
repetitious labor humans are unwilling to do. The
second phase involves improving efficiency by
streamlining production lines to reduce the number of
excess robots in use. The third and final phase involves
automating entire factories, “with only a minimal
number of workers assigned for production, logistics,
testing, and inspection processes,” according to Jia-
peng.
The slow and steady march of manufacturing
automation has been in place at Foxconn for years.
The company said last year that it had set a
benchmark of 30 percent automation at its Chinese
factories by 2020
. The company can now produce around 10,000
Foxbots a year, Jia-peng says, all of which can be used
to replace human labor. In March, Foxconn said it had
automated away 60,000 jobs at one of its factories.
In the long term, robots are cheaper than human labor.
However, the initial investment can be costly. It’s also
difficult, expensive, and time consuming to program
robots to perform multiple tasks, or to reprogram a
robot to perform tasks outside its original function.
That is why, in labor markets like China, human
workers have thus far been cheaper than robots. To
stay competitive though, Foxconn understands it will
have to transition to automation.
FOXCONN HOPES TO AUTOMATE 30 PERCENT OF ALL
FACTORY WORK BY 2020
Complicating the matter is the Chinese government,
which has incentivized human employment in the
country. In areas like Chengdu, Shenzhen, and
Zhengzhou, local governments have doled out billions
of dollars in bonuses, energy contracts, and public
infrastructure to Foxconn to allow the company to
expand. As of last year, Foxconn employed as many as
1.2 million people, making it one of the largest
employers in the world. More than 1 million of those
workers reside in China, often at elaborate, city-like
campuses that house and feed employees.
In an in-depth report published yesterday, The New York
Times detailed these government incentivizes for
Foxconn’s Zhengzhou factory, its largest and most
capable plant that produces 500,000 iPhones a day and
is known locally as “iPhone City.” According to
Foxconn’s Jia-peng, the Zhengzhou factory has some
production lines already at the second automation
phase and on track to become fully automated in a few
years’ time. So it may not be long before one of
China’s largest employers will be forced to grapple with
its automation ambitions and the benefits it receives to
transform rural parts of the country into industrial
powerhouses.
There is, however, a central side effect to automation
that would specifically benefit a company like Foxconn.
The manufacturer has been plagued by its sometimes
abysmal worker conditions and a high rate of employee
suicide
. So much so in fact that Foxconn had to install suicide
netting at factories throughout China and take
measures to protect itself against employee litigation.
By replacing humans with robots, Foxconn would
relieve itself of any issues stemming from its treatment
of workers without having to actually improve living and
working conditions or increase wages. But in doing so,
it will ultimately end up putting hundreds of thousands,
if not millions, of people out of work.


SOURCE : www.theverge.com/2016/12/30/14128870/foxconn-robots-automation-apple-iphone-china-manufacturing

Rubbish