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.
Taiwanese suppliers to Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC, 台積電) are expected to follow the contract chipmaker’s step to invest in the US, but their relocation may be seven to eight years away, Minister of Economic Affairs J.W. Kuo (郭智輝) said yesterday. When asked by opposition Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Niu Hsu-ting (牛煦庭) in the legislature about growing concerns that TSMC’s huge investments in the US will prompt its suppliers to follow suit, Kuo said based on the chipmaker’s current limited production volume, it is unlikely to lead its supply chain to go there for now. “Unless TSMC completes its planned six
Intel Corp has named Tasha Chuang (莊蓓瑜) to lead Intel Taiwan in a bid to reinforce relations between the company and its Taiwanese partners. The appointment of Chuang as general manager for Intel Taiwan takes effect on Thursday, the firm said in a statement yesterday. Chuang is to lead her team in Taiwan to pursue product development and sales growth in an effort to reinforce the company’s ties with its partners and clients, Intel said. Chuang was previously in charge of managing Intel’s ties with leading Taiwanese PC brand Asustek Computer Inc (華碩), which included helping Asustek strengthen its global businesses, the company
Power supply and electronic components maker Delta Electronics Inc (台達電) yesterday said second-quarter revenue is expected to surpass the first quarter, which rose 30 percent year-on-year to NT$118.92 billion (US$3.71 billion). Revenue this quarter is likely to grow, as US clients have front-loaded orders ahead of US President Donald Trump’s planned tariffs on Taiwanese goods, Delta chairman Ping Cheng (鄭平) said at an earnings conference in Taipei, referring to the 90-day pause in tariff implementation Trump announced on April 9. While situations in the third and fourth quarters remain unclear, “We will not halt our long-term deployments and do not plan to
NOT OVERLY PESSIMISTIC: While consumer electronics demand remains volatile, MediaTek CEO Rick Tsai said that tariffs would have limited effect on the company Chip designer MediaTek Inc (聯發科) yesterday said revenue this quarter would contract by 4 percent sequentially in the worst-case scenario on softer smartphone demand. Revenue is expected to be between NT$147.2 billion and NT$159.4 billion (US$4.6 billion-US$4.98 billion), compared with NT$153.31 billion last quarter, the company said. MediaTek said demand for smartphone chips would be flat or slide sequentially this quarter, while demand for smart devices and power chips would go up. Mobile phone chips made up 56 percent of the company’s total revenue last quarter. Gross margin of 46 to 49 percent is forecast for this quarter, compared with 48.1 percent last
RSS