US - petrodollar.... using dollars abroad helps support the dollar and their ability to print print and print money which is to all intents worthless.
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Foxconn Set to Deploy Robots to Help Assemble the iPhone
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US - petrodollar.... using dollars abroad helps support the dollar and their ability to print print and print money which is to all intents worthless.
Skynet has begun, lol
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I would guess it is per month. Then again that would never meet demand so it would need to be per week or less.
Come back and post after they have taken YOUR job
Bingo.
This is nothing about "poor choices" and everything about rendering anyone who isn't the 1% of the 1% into the role of a serf.
They're even programming a computer to become a doctor.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/bruceupbin/2011/05/25/ibms-watson-now-a-second-year-med-student/
Is that also a poor choice too, Shrink?
Apple pays Foxconn a fixed price for each iPhone assembled, so they don't really care how much the workers are paid, or how many it takes.
It's Foxconn who cares. Over the past few years, they've had to greatly increase wages. Partly because of bad publicity. Partly because workers are getting harder to find. And partly because they need better workers for the future and are willing to pay for them.
At the same time, those higher wages have cut into their profit margin, so robots are their solution.
The robots can only do part of the job, still so many manual processes that still require people. Its only a matter of time before it is all done by robots. Ever watch a TV series called Total Recall 2070.
Interestingly, Foxconn has been in talks with various States about setting up robotic factories in America.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-01-27/foxconn-in-talks-with-u-s-states-to-build-factories.html
There was an interesting concept robot called Frida from ABB a few years back, it was built to be working alongside humans on a production line with humanoid proportions (two arms).
Here's a demo video from 2011:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=70V6J4Y8hnc
Now, imagine Foxconn expanding and updating on the concept.
Here's a demo video from 2011:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=70V6J4Y8hnc
Now, imagine Foxconn expanding and updating on the concept.
Not just the cheapest energy costs. There is also environmental compliance costs. Which are also virtually non existent in many countries.
Yes. Companies outsourcing to China actually helps Chinese workers, but they also get to trash the environment in ways that would be illegal in the U.S. because their government allows it just to draw business. That's a reason why I hate the Chinese government.
Watch out Foxconn and China in general. Companies build things in china only because of the cheap human labor. Replace humans with robots and the location a product is manufactured is no longer driven by mass amounts of cheap human labor. This will someday sway the future of global manufacturing and Apple among many others knows this.
I look forward to the days that manufacturing is brought back to the US. I believe it will happen in the not to distant future. It will not resemble the assembly lines of the past, but really the US doesn't want those jobs back anyway. Obviously as they will all be outsourced one day to robots.
The best career advice that anyone can give someone is if your job can be automated either mechanically and/or with software, then you should consider plans for a future where your skills will no longer be needed.
I look forward to the days that manufacturing is brought back to the US. I believe it will happen in the not to distant future. It will not resemble the assembly lines of the past, but really the US doesn't want those jobs back anyway. Obviously as they will all be outsourced one day to robots.
The best career advice that anyone can give someone is if your job can be automated either mechanically and/or with software, then you should consider plans for a future where your skills will no longer be needed.
Back then it was even rumored that Foxconn might license Frida...
http://spectrum.ieee.org/automaton/...replace-human-workers-with-one-million-robots
I just remembered the connection again. Here's an updated demo video of Frida from 2013:
http://youtu.be/A80YuNZxMzY
The wages are very good for China. I'm not sure where this non sense comes from.
I'm not sure what the article refers too but can comment with my experience working on robots and automation in general. Robots don't last forever and can often be a bitch to repair. That being said 30,000 iPhones is nothing, so maybe they are referring to daily rates. Frankly even 30,000 a day isn't much for an automated line, so I'm the end if you can't ask the guy some questions you will have to guess a bit.
That is a good question! I would suspect Apple. Apple would certainly own all custom tooling. By the way, robots by themselves don't make a production line, there will be huge costs for custome machinery to tie everything together.
Because the bulk of the electronics industry is now in China. That is a sad reality, to move production else where would require building up local support manufacturing. Most of that sort of industry was decimated with the mad rush to China by American manufactures. It is sad really but you have to go well out of your way to buy anything American made for the consumer market. Even the basics like Frying pans require careful shopping as former US made products now come from China.
Your question could result in me pulling the thread way off topic but let's just say it would take a very long time to get 100% made in America iPhones.
The market supplies the proper wage to those workers. If it didn't they wouldn't be lining up I'm droves for those jobs.
Come back and post after they have taken YOUR job
I doubt it would happen, but if it did, then it's my fault for not staying marketable as an employee.
How many people do you think make an active career choice to work in a job such as a Foxconn factory?
Also the end result of all this technology/robots replacing humans in jobs could be a small problem for Apple. When there's no longer a mass market of consumers who can afford your products, the need to make them faster and cheaper becomes a little less important.
No it doesn't. Welfare without mandatory birth control just leads to the decline of our cities. You see this in any state where welfare is championed as a solution to the plight of the poor and stupid. To put it another way if I can remember the phrase "idle hands are the play ground of the devil".
Apple engineers probably took that into account with iPhone 6 and made it more robot friendly.
Tim Cook probably got tired of the leaks, labor questions and people diving off the roof.
To what extent, we won't ever know what the robots are doing.