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TECHNOLOGY A23
Friday 25 September 2015
Robot revolution sweeps China’s factory floors
KELVIN CHAN In this June 26, 2015 photo, workers assemble parts next to robot arms at an auto parts manufac- Companies such as elec-
AP Business Writer ture factory in Dafeng city in east China’s Jiangsu province. tronics maker TCL Corp. are
SHENZHEN, China (AP) — In using robots to produce
China’s factories, the ro- Associated Press higher-value goods. At one
bots are rising. factory in Shenzhen, TCL
For decades, manufac- “What we are doing here mation as well as develop- ate from university, result- uses 978 machines to pro-
turers employed waves is a revolution” in Chinese ment of a homegrown ro- ing in a dwindling supply duce flat screen TV panels.
of young migrant workers manufacturing, said Pboll botics industry. of unskilled workers, annual At another TCL plant in He-
from China’s countryside Deng, Rapoo’s deputy Some provinces have set double-digit percentage fei, near Shanghai, steel re-
to work at countless fac- general manager. up their own “Man for Ma- increases in the minimum frigerator frames are bent
tories in coastal provinces, The company began its chine” programs aimed at wage and rising labor un- into shape before being
churning out cheap toys, push into automation five replacing workers with ro- rest. plucked by a blue Yasaka-
clothing and electron- years ago. Rapoo installed bots. Deng said Rapoo’s wage wa robot arm that stacks
ics that helped power the 80 robots made by Swe- Guangdong, a manufac- bill rising 15-20 percent a them in neat rows for fur-
country’s economic as- den’s ABB Ltd. to assemble turing heartland in south- year was one big factor ther assembly.
cent. mice, keyboards and their ern China, said in March driving its use of robots. Fridges and big washing
Now, factories are rapidly sub-components. The ro- it would invest 943 billion “Frontline workers, their machines have heavy in-
replacing those workers bots allowed the company yuan ($148 billion) to en- turnover rate is really high. ternal components, so “if
with automation, a pivot to save $1.6 million each courage nearly 2,000 large More and people are un- you use automated robots
that’s encouraged by ris- year and trim its workforce manufacturers to buy ro- willing to do repetitive jobs. to make them, they also let
ing wages and new official to less than 1,000 from a bots, the official Xinhua So these two issues put the you cut your labor intensity
directives aimed at helping peak of more than 3,000 in news agency reported. manufacturing industry in by a lot,” said TCL Chair-
the country move away 2010. Guangzhou, the provincial China under huge pres- man Tomson Li.
from low-cost manufactur- Such upgrading under- capital, aims to have 80 sure,” he said. China held the title of
ing as the supply of young, scores the grand plans percent of manufacturing China’s auto industry was world’s biggest market for
pliant workers shrinks. China’s communist leaders automated by 2020. the trailblazer for automa- industrial robots for the sec-
It’s part of a broader over- have for industrial robotics. A relentless surge in wages tion, but other industries are ond straight year in 2014,
haul of the economy as President Xi Jinping called is adding impetus to the au- rapidly adopting thetech- with sales rising by more
China seeks to vault into in a speech last year for a tomation revolution. China nology as robots become than half to 56,000, out of a
the ranks of wealthy na- “robot revolution” in a nod relied on a seemingly end- smaller, cheaper and eas- total of 224,000 sold glob-
tions. But it comes as the to automation’s vital role in less supply of cheap labor ier to use. It now only takes ally, according to the Inter-
country’s growth slows raising productivity. for decades to power its on average 1.3 years for an national Federation of Ro-
amid tepid global demand Authorities have an- economic expansion. That industrial robot in China to botics. There’s plenty more
that’s adding pressure on nounced measures such as equation is changing as pay back its investment, room for explosive sales
tens of thousands of manu- subsidies and tax incentives the country’s working age down from 11.8 years in growth. China has about
facturers. over the past three years to population stops growing 2008, according to Gold- 30 robots for every 10,000
With costs rising and profits encourage industrial auto- and more Chinese gradu- man Sachs. factory workers compared
shrinking, Chinese manu- with 437 in South Korea and
facturers “will all need to 152 in the United States.
face the fact that only by The global average is 62.
successfully transitioning Beijing wants China’s num-
from the current labor-ori- ber to rise to 100 by 2020.
ented mode to more au- The switch to robots has
tomated manufacturing raised fears that it will
will they be able to survive contribute to slowing job
in the next few years,” said though there are few signs
Jan Zhang, an automation that’s happening yet.
expert at IHS Technologyin Deng said Rapoo hasn’t
Shanghai. had to resort to layoffs.
Shenzhen Rapoo Tech- Rather, the company is just
nology Co. is among the not replacing workers who
companies at ground zero quit. “It’s not simply replac-
of this transformation. At its ing the operation of work-
factory in the southern Chi- ers by robot. We do more
nese industrial boomtown than that. We are making
of Shenzhen, orange robot a robot platform” in which
arms work alongside hu- humans and machines
man operators assembling work together to make
computer mice and key- production more flexible,
boards. qhe said.q
