That was true at one point, but is becoming much less true today. There are labor shortages in some parts of China and the cost of labor has increased enough that automating makes sense.
Heck, just a few weeks ago, there was a rumor on this site that Foxconn was planning to buy something like 300,000 industrial robots next year and a million over the next 3 years. While I believe the numbers are very wrong for the reasons I laid out at the time, clearly, robots and automation are being installed in Chinese factories.
How many Chinese factories have you been in? I've been in several - and almost all of them has at least some level of automation.
I have been in a number of them myself, it is not that automation is not allow, it just not allow to replace a human worker that is all, if the task can not be done by a human then the government allows it. They will also allow it as long as there is human involved with the machine. One time I visited 4 factories, one in mainland china, one right outside hong kong, and another in Thailand and last one in Korea. They all produce the exact same end product, and their cycle times were nearly the same and they all used about the same type of automatic manufacturing equipment and test equipment.
In the main land china facility they had nearly 10,000 workers, they had a worker at every station in the the process and most of them were just sitting there watching the automated equipment do the work, at some stations all they did was press a button to start/stop the operation if they saw something was wrong or the equipment indicated something was not correct. Then there were others running around loading each station with material and such, then there were others running around checking everyone's work and so on. Most all the line workers were 20something female, most of the supervisors and quality and automation equipment operators were males.
Then I went to the facility in Honk Kong, far less workers, still have people at each station but less people running around, they allow the automation to do most of the work. Work force was mostly female again. This was a much old factory and had been there for a long time.
Then went to Thailand, at that factory there were about 5000 to 6000 workers, ages were 20something to 30something line worker were a mix of female and males, mostly females, The interesting part, some number of women were pregnant. (do not see this in china). This factory did not have people at every station, and mostly the people were just moving material around, not too much hands on work except for things that definitely need human involvement. The automation system control the flow of material and made pass fail decisions and shut down a station if something was not right.
Finally went to Korea, that factory only had about 2000 workers, most all were older in their late 30s or 40s, a good mix of woman and men. These people appeared to be mostly highly skill workers, they monitor what was going on and were activity involve with the process and making necessary adjustments. Very few stations actually had someone standing watch over the operations, the product went from station to station with very little human interaction. Most of the stations did not require someone loading material, this was completely automated as well.
The interesting part, two of the companies were US companies, which had the most workers in their factories. Both these companies maintain prototype line in the US. Those lines almost run without any humans involved, almost a lights out operation. So you could make the stuff in the US and be completely automated, however, it is still too costly since all the piece parts would still need to be shipped into the US and the cost associated with that and the other capital costs in the US does not make it cost effective.
So in China it is all about the labor, labor is so cheap that companies can afford to use extra workers which they otherwise do not need and still make it cheaper than fully automating it. The reason China has labor shortage right now is due to the fact of the 1 Child laws from the 1980's and the fact most companies do not want to hire men, and this is for various reason, women are preferred and they are not so many of them compared to men. Lastly women come to work from the country sides and work from age 17 to ~27 and they go back to the country side with their savings to get married and have their families.
Comments
That was true at one point, but is becoming much less true today. There are labor shortages in some parts of China and the cost of labor has increased enough that automating makes sense.
Heck, just a few weeks ago, there was a rumor on this site that Foxconn was planning to buy something like 300,000 industrial robots next year and a million over the next 3 years. While I believe the numbers are very wrong for the reasons I laid out at the time, clearly, robots and automation are being installed in Chinese factories.
How many Chinese factories have you been in? I've been in several - and almost all of them has at least some level of automation.
I have been in a number of them myself, it is not that automation is not allow, it just not allow to replace a human worker that is all, if the task can not be done by a human then the government allows it. They will also allow it as long as there is human involved with the machine. One time I visited 4 factories, one in mainland china, one right outside hong kong, and another in Thailand and last one in Korea. They all produce the exact same end product, and their cycle times were nearly the same and they all used about the same type of automatic manufacturing equipment and test equipment.
In the main land china facility they had nearly 10,000 workers, they had a worker at every station in the the process and most of them were just sitting there watching the automated equipment do the work, at some stations all they did was press a button to start/stop the operation if they saw something was wrong or the equipment indicated something was not correct. Then there were others running around loading each station with material and such, then there were others running around checking everyone's work and so on. Most all the line workers were 20something female, most of the supervisors and quality and automation equipment operators were males.
Then I went to the facility in Honk Kong, far less workers, still have people at each station but less people running around, they allow the automation to do most of the work. Work force was mostly female again. This was a much old factory and had been there for a long time.
Then went to Thailand, at that factory there were about 5000 to 6000 workers, ages were 20something to 30something line worker were a mix of female and males, mostly females, The interesting part, some number of women were pregnant. (do not see this in china). This factory did not have people at every station, and mostly the people were just moving material around, not too much hands on work except for things that definitely need human involvement. The automation system control the flow of material and made pass fail decisions and shut down a station if something was not right.
Finally went to Korea, that factory only had about 2000 workers, most all were older in their late 30s or 40s, a good mix of woman and men. These people appeared to be mostly highly skill workers, they monitor what was going on and were activity involve with the process and making necessary adjustments. Very few stations actually had someone standing watch over the operations, the product went from station to station with very little human interaction. Most of the stations did not require someone loading material, this was completely automated as well.
The interesting part, two of the companies were US companies, which had the most workers in their factories. Both these companies maintain prototype line in the US. Those lines almost run without any humans involved, almost a lights out operation. So you could make the stuff in the US and be completely automated, however, it is still too costly since all the piece parts would still need to be shipped into the US and the cost associated with that and the other capital costs in the US does not make it cost effective.
So in China it is all about the labor, labor is so cheap that companies can afford to use extra workers which they otherwise do not need and still make it cheaper than fully automating it. The reason China has labor shortage right now is due to the fact of the 1 Child laws from the 1980's and the fact most companies do not want to hire men, and this is for various reason, women are preferred and they are not so many of them compared to men. Lastly women come to work from the country sides and work from age 17 to ~27 and they go back to the country side with their savings to get married and have their families.