Foxconn, the Taiwanese manufacturing giant behind Apple’s iPhone and numerous other major electronics devices, aims to automate away a vast majority of its human employees, according to a report from DigiTimes. Dai Jia-peng, the general manager of Foxconn’s automation committee, says the company has a three-phase plan in place to automate its Chinese factories using software and in-house robotics units, known as Foxbots.
The slow and steady march of manufacturing automation has
been in place at Foxconn for years. The company said last year that it
had set a benchmark of 30 percent automation at its Chinese factories by 2020.
The company can now produce around 10,000 Foxbots a year, Jia-peng
says, all of which can be used to replace human labor. In March, Foxconn
said it had automated away 60,000 jobs at one of its factories.
(Source: DigiTimes, TheVerge)
