10,000 Chinese robots to build new iPhone...
Introducing the iPhone 6, made in China by a robot Apple
will reportedly be the very first customer of Foxconn's latest robots
By Reilly Dowd, The Fiscal Times | 12:11pm ET
The worst kept secret of Apple and its Taiwanese
manufacturer Foxconn isn't their poor labor conditions. It isn't even the fact
that they use robots to help bring together all the pieces that make up an
iPhone. It's that their robots are now performing more and more human-like
functions.
In the past, it's always been people that put the
finishing touches on the popular devices. Well, that's all about to change.
Foxconn parent company Hon Hai is set to deploy an army
of 10,000 assembly-line robots to help meet the demands of producing the highly
anticipated iPhone 6. Hon Hai CEO Terry Gou revealed in a recent shareholder
meeting that Apple would be the very first customer of Foxconn's latest robots.
"Robots are going to enhance and speed up the
manufacturing process," said Tim Bajarin, CEO of market research firm
Creative Strategies. "The really big issue here is that the demand for the
iPhone continues to grow. It's grown every quarter since it came out."
From a business standpoint, it makes sense. "When you
are dealing with creating millions of smart phones per month, efficiency is
critical," said Bajarin in an interview. "Robotics gives you that
level of efficiency, which in the end, is very important for the bottom
line."
Throughout its various factories in China, Foxconn
employs more than 1.2 million workers. They have reportedly hired an additional
100,000 workers in China — yes, human ones, to work alongside the robots.
"I wouldn't be surprised if sometime in the next
five years, robots will even take care of the final touches," said
Bajarin.
Some analysts see this trend toward robotics transforming
labor markets globally. Marshall Brain, founder of How Stuff Works and author
of Robotic Nation, says the push towards automation is happening much faster
than people realize. "Within a couple of decades," said Brain in an
interview, "there won't be a single job that robots can't do better than
humans."
But phasing out human labor altogether is easier said
than done. Foxconn's original commitment to implement one million robots by
2014 has hit its fair share of roadblocks. By 2011, the company had reportedly
rolled out 10,000 robots to work in their Jincheng, Shanxi Province factory,
but several production line workers complained that the machines were incapable
of doing the most basic human tasks.
Known as "Foxbots," the machines were part of a
larger effort to help offset increasing labor costs. Hon Hai's 2013 financial
report stated, in part, "To remain cost competitive, we have been
continuously controlling manufacturing overhead to attain better operating
leverage and improving efficiency and yield rate through automation using robot
arms and industrial engineering methods like production cell management."
The shift to automation will undoubtedly lead to
substantial productivity gains for companies, but as that happens, jobs will be
increasingly at risk.
"We have been dealing with robots on manufacturing
lines for almost 50 years, said Bajarin. "The fact that they are getting
faster, smarter, and able to do more intricate tasks is a concern in the sense
— as it was 50 years ago — that it impacts job creation."
Larry Summers, former U.S. Treasury secretary during the
Clinton Administration and former head of Obama's National Economic Council,
predicts technology will have a profound effect on the average employee.
"We are seeing less and less opportunity for what average people — people
lacking in certain skills — are going to be able to do," said Summers in
May at the Conference on Inclusive Capitalism.
"It is not true that innovation always makes more
employment…There is nothing in the logic of the market or human experience to
suggest that it must necessarily be so that there will be jobs for all at
acceptable wages, no matter how technology evolves."
Job-killing technology is hardly new. From 2000 to 2010,
over a million secretary jobs were eliminated from the U.S. labor market as
answering machines and computers replaced them at lower costs. But robots could
put the trend into overdrive. Now, people may not have to worry about their job
going to someone overseas, but to something right down the street.
"Right now, there's a big process of automating all
of the warehouses in the United States. It used to be you had people running
around picking stuff out of warehouses and putting them in warehouses,"
said Brain in an interview. "That whole process is going to be pretty much
completely automated within the next couple of years. No one really pays
attention to it because warehouses aren't in places we normally go. But that's
going to happen."
Producing some of Apple's products is already an almost
completely automated system. In 2013, the company began producing its Mac Pro
at the Flextronics Americas factory in Northwest Austin. They may get to
engrave "Made in USA" on their products, but some argue it does more
harm than good. "It's located in Texas, which makes everybody feel
good," said Brain, "but it's not providing any jobs."
It makes geography, and the debate about outsourcing
jobs, almost entirely insignificant. "If robots are taking more and more
of the manufacturing jobs," said Bajarin, "it actually doesn't matter
whether it's here or in Asia."
Brain predicts the trend is heading in this direction
globally — and beyond low-skill factory work.
Indeed, Foxconn isn't just in the business of putting
labels on chicken soup cans. They recently manufactured a robot in Japan that
might serve as more of a companion at home than as a coworker on the assembly
line. Designed by French robotics company Aldebaran, it's a semi-humanoid robot
named "Pepper," who is reportedly equipped with some social skills,
too.
In a twist worthy of the movie She, where a man falls in
love with a computer generated "friend," Pepper has an "emotion
engine" that can reportedly understand human emotion, interpret it, and
react accordingly.
Japanese telecom giant SoftBank commissioned the
construction of Pepper, and plans to sell what they refer to as "the
newest member of the SoftBank crew" in Japan next February. The price tag
for your newest 1.2 meter tall little friend? Just under $2,000.
SoftBank was built on the philosophy of 'Information
Revolution – Happiness for everyone.' "To realize our vision," said
SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son in a statement, "We have made a new entry into
the robot business with the aim of developing affectionate robots that make
people smile."
Of course, many doubt workers will be smiling when those
robots take their jobs.
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