TAIPEI, Taiwan- Few days ago, factory in Kunshan exploded. Caused at least 70 dead and 200 injured. This makes some factories tend to use robot in production line.
In 2011, Foxconn’s factory in Chengdu also exploded. Caused 3 dead and 61 injured. After this, Terry Kuo, CEO of Foxconn said that he would build a million “robotic army” in three years. Now there are 30 thousand robots served in Foxconn’s production line, responsible for grind polish, punching press, laser carving and metal working.
FOXBOT, from assembling to key components, are all made in Taiwan. The critical component of six axis robotic arm, main control panel is designed and produced by ITRI. Supply to Foxconn at about 20 thousand kits per year.
Not only Foxconn, but also Taiwan’s largest ball-screw manufacture HIWIN are now devoted into Robot field. The different thing is that HIWIN’s robots are for medical use. Some hospitals are trying to operate surgery with these robots. If HIWIN’s robot succeed in replacing Intuitive Surgical’s product, there might be 20 to 30 percent price cut or even more.
Today, the micro process technology is so small that some chips might have to be weld by as tiny as a width of hair on the PCB board. Some factories in Shenzhen are now using robot in some simple task, such as packing and moving process. “Step by step, there will be more robot replace human labor. But that will be at least after iPhone 6,” said George Zhang, Chief Scientist of ABB. Although there are still long way to go, but some day there will be fully automatic production in the future.
