Hon Hai Group (鴻海集團) has installed about 60,000 robots on its global production lines as part of its efforts to use automation to improve efficiency.
Hon Hai executive vice president Lu Fang-ming (呂芳銘) on Tuesday said that the 60,000 robots have helped speed up the establishment of “smart” factories at a time when the global industry is moving toward “industry 4.0,” which aims to incorporate the Internet of Things (IoT) and expand automation.
The world’s largest contract electronics maker has a broad production base in China, employing about 1 million workers. It plans to set up 10 to 12 plants in India by 2020 and is also planning to invest in the US.
Speaking at Computex Taipei, Lu said that the robots have allowed Hon Hai to utilize five “lights-out” factories that are fully automated and require no onsite human presence.
Hon Hai, one of the Taiwanese companies that have been prioritizing automation, has been moving aggressively to lower its operating costs at its Chinese factories as wages in China continue to rise.
With the development of “smart” factories, manufacturers would be able to upgrade their core technology and global competitiveness, which in turn would help boost production output, Lu said.
Hon Hai is also focused on cloud-based networks, big-data processing, the 5G network, 8K high-definition images, huge data storage capacity and high power computing systems, he said.
When 5G technology is commercialized globally by 2020, the Internet will connect about 7 billion people worldwide, with 70 percent of the population using smartphones and 46 percent of devices connected through machine-to-machine functions, he said.
By 2025, the global economic value resulting from such developments will be US$11 trillion higher, of which US$3.7 trillion will be contributed by IoT-related industries, Ku said.
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