Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Will Your Next iPhone Be Built By Robots?

Posted by timothy on from the certainly-hope-so dept.

itwbennett writes "Foxconn has ambitious plans to deploy a million-robot army on its assembly lines. But while robots already perform some basic tasks, when it comes to the more delicate assembly work, humans still have the edge. George Zhang, senior principal scientist with ABB, a major vendor of industrial robots, thinks Foxconn will eventually replace human workers for much of its electronic assembly, but probably not in time for the iPhone 6. For now, humans are still a cheaper and more practical choice."

3 of 251 comments (clear)

  1. Robots in China? by maxwell+demon · · Score: 5, Insightful

    If the work is done by robots anyway, then what is the advantage of producing in China (except when producing for the Chinese market)? You don't have the advantage of cheap workers (robots don't get wages), but you have the disadvantage of higher transport cost.

    --
    The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
    1. Re:Robots in China? by scamper_22 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Supply chains, factory skills, skill workers, operators...

      Do you know how long it took China to build its industry? It took decades. It takes a lot to move big systems.

      Why is Ontario or Michigan still a huge player in the automotive game despite their high cost? There's a huge system there that is hard to move. Lots of suppliers, skilled people that know what they're doing...

      You will note it is FoxConn working on this. There's nothing of course stopping a Western country from working on it.... but do you know the first thing about assembling mobile phones? No... it takes knowledge. Knowledge that right now resides in China. They know all the tasks people need to do to assemble the smartphone and can then build and task robots to do it.

      And most likely it won't happen all at once. Maybe one part of the assembly gets automated. So that robot is placed in the FoxConn factory in China. A lot of parts suppliers are probably in China too (transport costs there as well). To move the automated factory to the west would cost a lot of time and money... is it worth the shipping costs? Believe it or not... shipping costs... even with todays gas prices are still quite low relative to the costs of everything else.

      I'll leave it to the companies to figure out the optimal cost... but it's just not obvious that you'd want to assemble locally for such small items.

    2. Re:Robots in China? by alen · · Score: 4, Insightful

      No one wants toxic waste dumped here in the USA