China powers up future work force
It seems China may just be completely handing over its factories to robots.
In May, Shenzhen Everwin Precision Technology, an electronics producer based in Dongguan in South China’s Guangdong province, announced plans to replace 90 percent of its 1,800 employees with robots in the near future. And Shenzhen Everwin is not the only factory turning to robots.
China is expected to install more industrial robots than any other country by 2017, according to the International Federation of Robotics (IFR), an association based in Frankfurt, Germany.
In 2014, Chinese factories accounted for about 25 percent of the global share of industrial robots, a 54 percent increase over the previous year, the IFR said.
Midea, a leading manufacturer of home appliances based in Guangdong, plans to replace 6,000 workers in its residential air-conditioning division — about a fifth of the work force — with robots by the end of this year.
Foxconn, a maker of consumer electronics for companies including Apple, plans to automate about 70 percent of factory work within three years. It already has a fully robotic factory in Chengdu, in China’s southwestern Sichuan province.
According to the Dongguan Economy and Information Technology Bureau, more than 500 factories in the industrial city have invested a total of 4.2 billion yuan ($659 million) in robots with the aim of replacing up to 30,000 workers.
By 2016, around 1,500 enterprises in the city are expected to begin replacing humans with robots.
Henrik Christensen, a professor at the Georgia Institute of Technology in the United States and director of the Center for Robotics and Intelligent machines, explained the main reasons for China’s growing appetite for industrial robots.
“China is the largest market in the world for industrial robots, and the two drivers are labor cost and the search for better product quality,” Christensen told China Daily Asia Weekly.
Driven by rapid economic growth, there has been near double-digit growth in the national average annual wage for urban employees since 2004, according to the National Bureau of Statistics of China, with the average yearly wage reaching $9,000 in 2014.
Over the last 10 years, salaries in China have increased remarkably, whereas in Europe and in the US the number is more or less the same, Christensen said.
There are other challenges in terms of the environment and competition from other countries, especially from Southeast Asia, prompting China to use more robots in its factories.
Analysts view automation as a way for the country to keep industries that might otherwise move offshore, or even to lure them back.
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It seems China may just be completely handing over its factories to robots.
In May, Shenzhen Everwin Precision Technology, an electronics producer based in Dongguan in South China’s Guangdong province, announced plans to replace 90 percent of its 1,800 employees with robots in the near future. And Shenzhen Everwin is not the only factory turning to robots.
China is expected to install more industrial robots than any other country by 2017, according to the International Federation of Robotics (IFR), an association based in Frankfurt, Germany.
In 2014, Chinese factories accounted for about 25 percent of the global share of industrial robots, a 54 percent increase over the previous year, the IFR said.
Midea, a leading manufacturer of home appliances based in Guangdong, plans to replace 6,000 workers in its residential air-conditioning division — about a fifth of the work force — with robots by the end of this year.
Foxconn, a maker of consumer electronics for companies including Apple, plans to automate about 70 percent of factory work within three years. It already has a fully robotic factory in Chengdu, in China’s southwestern Sichuan province.
According to the Dongguan Economy and Information Technology Bureau, more than 500 factories in the industrial city have invested a total of 4.2 billion yuan ($659 million) in robots with the aim of replacing up to 30,000 workers.
By 2016, around 1,500 enterprises in the city are expected to begin replacing humans with robots.
Henrik Christensen, a professor at the Georgia Institute of Technology in the United States and director of the Center for Robotics and Intelligent machines, explained the main reasons for China’s growing appetite for industrial robots.
“China is the largest market in the world for industrial robots, and the two drivers are labor cost and the search for better product quality,” Christensen told China Daily Asia Weekly.
Driven by rapid economic growth, there has been near double-digit growth in the national average annual wage for urban employees since 2004, according to the National Bureau of Statistics of China, with the average yearly wage reaching $9,000 in 2014.
Over the last 10 years, salaries in China have increased remarkably, whereas in Europe and in the US the number is more or less the same, Christensen said.
There are other challenges in terms of the environment and competition from other countries, especially from Southeast Asia, prompting China to use more robots in its factories.
Analysts view automation as a way for the country to keep industries that might otherwise move offshore, or even to lure them back.