China will become the world's largest robot market

Within two years, China will become the world's largest robot market introduction: several efforts have been made to build Hejin into a national aluminum industry demonstration base. It is pointed out that the number of Chinese manufacturers purchasing advanced industrial robots jumped by 50% in 2011, reaching 22600. They also predict that China will overtake Japan as the world's largest robot market within two years. Wolf said that industrial robots will become the next hot spot in China

Foxconn, as one of China's largest private enterprises, has always played an important role in China's Labor reports, according to the U.S. science and technology review. It attracts multinational customers through cheap labor, but because of low wages and a series of controversial events, it faces the pressure of international and domestic media. At present, the company employs onemillion low paid migrant workers to manufacture products for famous companies such as apple, Nintendo, Intel, Dell, Nokia, Microsoft, Samsung, Sony, etc

nearly one million workers sit next to the conveyor belt every day, wearing white overalls, masks and hair, to prevent hair debris and dust from interfering with their simple but extremely fine work repeated over and over again. Each worker focuses on a monotonous action, such as pasting stickers on the front end of apple, or completing product packaging. According to ABC evening, assembling an iPad takes five days, with a total of 325 processes

such a structured and highly deterministic task is very suitable for automated production. Industrial robots are often equipped with a mechanical arm, which can be completed by using lasers or pressure sensors. A robot can run 160 hours a week. Even compared with the 12 hour shift of agile skilled workers, a robot can replace two workers, or even four

last July, when Foxconn CEO Terry Gou, a 61 year old but still tough billionaire, announced that the manufacturing giant would add onemillion industrial robots to its assembly line within three years of the high accuracy of this system, it shocked everyone. Its purpose is to realize the automatic assembly of electronic products, as companies in Japan, South Korea and the United States used to automate the production of cars

David Wolf, a strategic communication information expert from Beijing who has visited many production lines in China, believes that automation is a good thing in line with historical trends, and predicts that sooner or later China will experience a labor transformation similar to the United States. However, after the release of the statement, Gou did not provide any details, and his public relations company did not disclose the relevant process, which made the outside world doubt the authenticity of Foxconn's plan. Trading companies have not seen large-scale orders related to the industrial robots Foxconn needs, although some experts believe that the company is probably developing its own robots

Gou has reason not to make too much publicity, Wolff said. Keeping silent can inadvertently give Foxconn a lead over its rivals. Even considering that China's economy is declining, it is not politically recommended to over discuss the method of substituting robots for exports to emerging countries, which will greatly increase the proportion of exports to emerging countries, he said. Maintaining stability is China's top priority, and creating employment is often more urgent than improving efficiency. For example, wangmengshu, deputy chief engineer of China Railway Tunnel Group, said that even if conditions permit, labor-saving equipment is not often used. If all new tunnels are built with advanced equipment, it will reduce the employment needs of about 6million migrant workers. In order to solve the employment problem of the country, we do not expect China's rapid development in some areas, he said

industry analysts from Taipei also stressed that Foxconn cannot replace workers immediately, because the use of automatic equipment lines requires adjustments to all its manufacturing processes. In China, such a big change is even more impossible to achieve overnight. According to liukaiming, director of a Shenzhen based labor organization and the Shenzhen Institute of contemporary social observation, small Chinese factories cannot afford to invest in robots, and the relative wage level of factories is still very low, about US $per month in the Pearl River Delta

however, Foxconn is not the only Chinese manufacturer betting on robots. According to the data provided by the International Federation of robotics in Frankfurt, the number of advanced industrial robots purchased by Chinese manufacturers jumped by 50% in 2011, reaching 22, reducing the energy consumption of 100 million tons of standard coal by 600 pieces. They also predict that China will overtake Japan as the world's largest robot market within two years. Wolf said that industrial robots will become the next hot spot in China