It's started: Robot Uprising Begins as China Turns to Machines to Fill in Gaps in the Workforce

[ChineseToTheBone]

We should export such robots to Japan. Our trade balance will shift from a deficit to a surplus right away.

 

[shadows888]

We should export such robots to Japan. Our trade balance will shift from a deficit to a surplus right away.

yes, plus there are so many creative ways you can use this for and not just industrial work applications.

 

[kankan326]

China is becoming an innovative country. Another sign

 

[Hamartia Antidote]

https://www.festo.com/group/de/cms/12745.htm

It's a pretty big arm.

 

[TaiShang]

China to upgrade robot industry in next few years
Xinhua, April 6, 2017

China is poised to elevate the domestic robotics industry, according to a senior official.

More than 800 enterprises that provide products and services spanning electronics, machinery, chemicals and medical services have already laid sound foundations for the upgrade, said Xin Guobin, deputy head with the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology.

China produced 72,400 industrial robots in 2016, up 34.3 percent year on year. Sales are expected to exceed 50 billion yuan (about US$7.26 billion) in 2020, according to industry insiders.

Xin said the ministry will further integrate new technology, support the recruitment of talent, increase the quality and credibility of key machine components, and support the use of robots in emerging industries.

The ministry will expedite related regulations and industry organizations will offer guidance to local authorities, all in accordance with the "Made in China 2025" plan.

The ministry will also set the criteria for market entry and consummate the evaluation system for robotics, to boost industrial development, according to the vice minister.

The "Made in China 2025" blueprint was announced in May 2015 as a way to move manufacturing up in the value chain, promoting development in 10 key sectors including robotics.

 

[dingyibvs]

yes, plus there are so many creative ways you can use this for and not just industrial work applications.

Particularly the Japanese, they're known to find creative ways of using tentacles

 

[ChineseToTheBone]

The "Made in China 2025" blueprint was announced in May 2015 as a way to move manufacturing up in the value chain, promoting development in 10 key sectors including robotics.

Found the list of key sectors.

1. New advanced information technology.
2. Automated machine tools and robotics.
3. Aerospace and aeronautical equipment.
4. Maritime equipment and high-tech shipping.
5. Modern rail transport equipment.
6. New-energy vehicles and equipment.
7. Power equipment.
8. Agricultural equipment.
9. New materials.
10. Biopharma and advanced medical products.

 

[TaiShang]

Robots to go fishing in Dalian
By ZHANG XIAOMIN in Dalian, Liaoning | China Daily | Updated: 2017-04-07

Workers of Zoneco Group Co Ltd sort and pack sea cucumbers in Dalian, Liaoning province. NANGONG AOQING / FOR CHINA DAILY

A leading Chinese fishery company and the Dalian University of Technology have established a laboratory to develop underwater robots, which are expected to take the place of divers to catch precious seafood.

The robots will also likely perform seabed monitoring tasks at fishing grounds in Dalian, Liaoning province.

"We're dedicated to developing robots that can work as flexibly and efficiently as experienced divers in the complicated circumstances under the sea," said Wu Hougang, president of Zoneco Group Co Ltd, which is listed on the Shenzhen bourse.

The company employs dozens of divers to pick up precious seafood such as trepang (a type of rare sea cucumber), sea urchins and abalone from the sea floor about 20 to 30 meters from the surface. They work about three to four hours per day.

"The robots will help reduce risks and costs," said Wu.

According to the agreement between the two parties, the lab will carry out innovation of underwater robots focusing on tasks such as environmental perception, underwater observation and ecological monitoring.

The company and the university will also work together to solve technological problems, develop products, and promote the application of technological results.

The lab is expected to be a model for the integration of technology with finance, as well as the collaborative research and development between research institutions and big companies.

Zoneco will provide 300,000 yuan ($43,480) annually to the lab.

The National Natural Science Foundation of China will support the construction of the lab, said Deng Fang, a project director with the foundation.

"Currently, industrial robots and aerial robots are enjoying rapid development in China while the research and development of underwater robots is relatively slow," said Deng.

Some other universities and research institutes, including Peking University, Harbin Engineering University and Beijing-based Beihang University, will provide technical support to the lab.

Guo Dongming, president of the Dalian University of Technology, said the cooperation will promote industrial upgrading through new technology, make progress in the areas of underwater robots and maritime information, and help boost the maritime economy in China.

 

[ahojunk]

The following highlights the impact of automation/robots on employment and pay.

========
Robots Are Slashing U.S. Wages and Worsening Pay Inequality

Robots have a real impact on jobs and wages, new research shows

by Jeanna Smialek, Bloomberg
March 29, 2017, 12:30 AM GMT+11

Robots have long been maligned for job-snatching. Now you can add depressing wages and promoting inequality to your list of automation-related grievances.

Industrial robots cut into employment and pay for workers, based on an new analysis of local data stretching from 1990 and 2007. The change had the biggest impact on the lower half of the wage distribution, so it probably worsened America's wage gap.

Today's economic research wrap also looks at labor market slack, student loan defaults in times of crisis, and where rates might be headed in coming years. Check this column every week for new and interesting studies from around the world.

The pessimists's guide to the robot invasion

Industrial robots have had a "large" and negative effect on U.S. employment and wages in local labor markets, according to new research by Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Daron Acemoglu and Boston University's Pascual Restrepo.

One additional robot per thousand workers reduces the employment-to-population ratio by 0.18 percentage points to 0.34 percentage points and slashes wages by 0.25 percent to 0.5 percent, based on their analysis. To put that in context, the U.S. saw an increase of about one new industrial robot for every thousand workers between 1993 and 2007, based on the study.

"The employment effects of robots are most pronounced in manufacturing, and in particular, in industries most exposed to robots; in routine manual, blue collar, assembly and related occupations; and for workers with less than college education," the authors write. "Interestingly, and perhaps surprisingly, we do not find positive and offsetting employment gains in any occupation or education groups."

Worth noting: the authors estimate that robots may have increased the wage gap between the top 90th and bottom 10 percent by as much as 1 percentage point between 1990 and 2007. There's also room for much broader robot adoption, which would make all of these effects much bigger.

Robots and Jobs: Evidence from U.S. Labor Markets
Published March 2017
Available on the NBER website

 

[bobsm]

申通快递 sto-express

 

[ahojunk]

Man versus machine: Evidence that robots are winning the race for jobs
Claire Cain Miller
MARCH 29 2017

Who is winning the race for jobs between robots and humans?

Last year, two leading economists described a future in which humans come out ahead. But now they've declared a different winner: the robots.

The industry most affected by automation is manufacturing. For every robot per thousand workers in US factories, up to six workers lost their jobs and wages fell by as much as three-fourths of a per cent, according to a new paper by the economists, Daron Acemoglu of MIT and Pascual Restrepo of Boston University. It appears to be the first study to quantify large, direct, negative effects of robots.

The paper is all the more significant because the researchers, whose work is highly regarded in their field, had been more sanguine about the effect of technology on jobs.

In a paper last year, they said it was likely that increased automation would create new, better jobs, so employment and wages would eventually return to their previous levels. Just as cranes replaced dockworkers but created related jobs for engineers and financiers, the theory goes, new technology has created new jobs for software developers and data analysts.

But that paper was a conceptual exercise. The new one uses real-world data - and suggests a more pessimistic future. The researchers said they were surprised to see very little employment increase in other occupations to offset the job losses in manufacturing.

That increase could still happen, they said, but for now there are large numbers of people out of work, with no clear path forward - especially blue-collar men without college degrees.

"The conclusion is that even if overall employment and wages recover, there will be losers in the process, and it's going to take a very long time for these communities to recover," Acemoglu said.

Man versus machine in the job market: There's evidence now that machines could be winning. Photo: Bloomberg

"If you've worked in Detroit [making cars] for 10 years, you don't have the skills to go into health care," he said. "The market economy is not going to create the jobs by itself for these workers who are bearing the brunt of the change."

The paper also helps explain a mystery that has been puzzling economists: why, if machines are replacing human workers, productivity hasn't been increasing. In manufacturing, productivity has been increasing more than elsewhere - and now we see evidence of it in the employment data too.

Robots are to blame for up to 670,000 lost US manufacturing jobs between 1990 and 2007, it concluded, and that number will rise as industrial robots are expected to quadruple. Photo: The Age

The study analysed the effect of industrial robots in local labour markets in the United States. Robots are to blame for up to 670,000 lost manufacturing jobs between 1990 and 2007, it concluded, and that number will rise because industrial robots are expected to quadruple.

The paper adds to the evidence that automation, more than other factors like trade and offshoring that President Donald Trump had waged his campaign on, has been the bigger long-term threat to blue-collar jobs.

The researchers said the findings - "large and robust negative effects of robots on employment and wages" - remained strong even after controlling for imports, offshoring, software that displaces jobs, worker demographics and the type of industry.

Robots affected both men's and women's jobs, the researchers found, but the effect on male employment was up to twice as big.

The data doesn't explain why, but Acemoglu had a guess: Women are more willing than men to take a pay cut to work in a lower-status field.

The economists looked at the effect of robots on local economies and also more broadly. In an isolated area, each robot per thousand workers decreased employment by 6.2 workers and wages by 0.7 per cent. But across the United States, the effects were smaller, because jobs were created in other places.

Take Detroit, home to automakers, the biggest users of industrial robots. Employment was greatly affected. If automakers can charge less for cars because they employ fewer people, employment might increase elsewhere in the country, like at steel-makers or taxi operators.

Meanwhile, the people in Detroit will probably spend less at stores. Including these factors, each robot per thousand workers decreased employment by three workers and wages by 0.25 per cent.

The findings fuel the debate about whether technology will help people do their jobs more efficiently and create new ones, as it has in the past, or eventually displace humans.

David Autor, a collaborator of Acemoglu's at MIT, has argued that machines will complement instead of replace humans, and cannot replicate human traits like common sense and empathy.

"I don't think that this paper is the last word on its subject, but it's an exceedingly carefully constructed and thought-provoking first word," he said.

Restrepo said the problem might be that the new jobs created by technology are not in the places that are losing jobs.

"I still believe there will be jobs in the years to come, though probably not as many as we have today," he said. "But the data have made me worried about the communities directly exposed to robots."

The next question is whether the coming wave of technologies, like machine learning, drones and driverless cars, will have similar effects - but on many more people.

.

 

[Mista]

Not all is pessimistic.

Panasonic moves global HQ for unit to Singapore

Refrigeration compressor manufacturing plant will be 'smart factory' using big data, robots

http://www.straitstimes.com/busines...nasonic-moves-global-hq-for-unit-to-singapore

In a first for Japanese electronics giant Panasonic, the company has moved the global headquarters for its refrigeration compressor business to Singapore.

Minister for Manpower Lim Swee Say announced the company's first such relocation outside of Japan in recent decades yesterday at the official opening of Panasonic's refrigeration compressor business unit (RCBU) in Singapore.

The manufacturing plant here, which makes refrigeration compressors, will also be transformed from a traditional manufacturing plant into a "smart factory", which will make use of big data and make processes more automated.

Although workers could be worried about being replaced by robots, Mr Lim said Panasonic "shows us that while technology may replace some jobs, it can also create new and better ones".

Even as Panasonic's operation has become more manpower lean, it did not retrench local workers, but instead retrained them to work alongside robots, noted Mr Lim.

Retraining benefits workers, he said, adding that Panasonic's retraining of its local staff has resulted in a 35 per cent jump in the median salary over the last five years.

However, Mr Lim said companies may still need specific expertise which they cannot find in Singapore. In the case of Panasonic, they had to hire foreign workers with skills in advanced element design and process innovation.

Citing "the complementarity of our local and foreign manpower", Mr Lim said the foreign experts "helped to train and strengthen our locals to master these skills", improving the local workforce.

At a press conference yesterday, the company's top management pledged to keep the jobs of its 650-strong Singapore workforce, even as it turns its operations in Bedok South into a smart factory.

Panasonic Appliances Refrigeration Devices Singapore's manufacturing centre director Leong Mun Chong said: "When we talk about automation, the understanding is to reduce the number of jobs. This is true because, currently, we are relying on foreign workers... If we transform into a smart set-up, the reliance on foreign workers will be reduced and we can employ locals to manage advanced technology."

Mr Leong said that, overall, the transfer of the headquarters to Singapore from Kusatsu city, Shiga Prefecture, will result in an increase in staff numbers in the RCBU unit.

It could double the size of its research and development team to about 120 engineers in five years. "As a whole, it's an increase of staff. On the other hand, while implementing projects, we will be reducing the number of manual, operating jobs," said Mr Leong.

The company's phasing out of manual jobs will mainly affect its foreign workforce of about 350 workers, mostly from China.

Panasonic wants to cut this workforce by 200 workers in the next three to five years, said Mr Leong.

Panasonic Appliances Refrigeration Devices Singapore's managing director Atsunao Terasaki said: "We believe we can strengthen product competitiveness to gain better profit from customers.

"We can also increase our volume after moving our headquarters from Japan to Singapore."

He expects the move to double the company's profit ratio.

 

[onebyone]

Robots sorting system in Chinese express company

http://www.hikrobotics.com/en/robot_solution_info.aspx?k1=2&k2=10&k3=45&id=106

 

[Mo12]

That is amazing.

Poor people for those who will be losing their jobs and I fear for mine.

 

[TaiShang]

Robot revolution taking place in Changsha
(chinadaily.com.cn)
Updated: 2017-04-06

Changsha National Economic and Technical Development Zone is honing its intelligent manufacturing industry by using robots in most plants.

The automobile industry has become the most intelligent manufacturing sector with almost fully-automated production lines for all assembly processes. Only two or three workers are needed in a workshop to produce a whole car.

Fewer workers are needed in the assembling workshops at GAC Mitsubishi Motors in Changsha. [Photo/csxnews.com]

"Robots operating on the machines can not only reduce labor costs, but also make the assembly process quicker and more accurate," said Wang Fei, Labor Union chairman at Changsha branch of Shanghai Volkswagen.

The human interaction system used in the Changsha arm of German tool manufacturer Bosch is also noted in the Changsha National Economic and Technical Development Zone.

The intelligent production line is equipped with cameras that collect operating data to a storage cloud to share information among the whole Bosch Group.

"Manufacturing efficiency and quality has increased by 30 percent thanks to the robotic production line," said Zhang Bisheng, production technical director of Bosch in Changsha.

Apart from using robots in manufacturing, Changsha National Economic and Technical Development Zone encourages businesses to innovate in producing intelligent robots to develop itself into an intelligent manufacturing center.

Robotic wielding systems with 3D visual senses are developed at Bluesky Robot, a robotics company based in Changsha National Economic and Technical Development Zone. [Photo/csxnews.com]

Bluesky Robot has developed the first robotic welding system with a 3D visual sense that makes the robots "see" gaps and locate them automatically, which greatly reduces the programming time of the robot operators.

Systems integrator Hunan Yuhuan Intelligent Equipment can customize intelligent manufacturing production lines and workshops for different companies in the fields of mobile phone manufacturing, medical care, food and other industries.

An engineer debugs an intelligent manufacturing device in a workshop of Hunan Yuhuan Intelligent Equipment. [Photo/csxnews.com]