Recently, news of Midea's acquisition of German industrial robot manufacturer KUKA and mobile phone manufacturer Foxconn's Kunshan factory introducing industrial robots and laying off 60000 employees has once again pushed the Chinese industrial robot market into focus.
Kong Bing, President of Shanghai Demaco Automotive Equipment Manufacturing Co., Ltd. and former President of KUKA China in Germany, stated in an interview with Caixin reporters in Shenzhen on November 3 that according to the robot density of 10000 industrial workers, China still lags behind the world's leading developed countries such as Japan and Germany, but its market size and growth rate have become the world's largest, and "in fact, the cost critical point has been reached".
Taking the automotive industry as an example, there are approximately 700 to 800 industrial robots per 10000 workers, while China only has 20 to 30. However, China has become the world's largest country in terms of installed industrial robots, and it is expected that the total installed capacity of industrial robots may reach 70000 this year.
Kong Bing pointed out that the true large-scale popularization of industrial robots in China began in 2009. With the increase of labor costs and the transformation of attitudes among the new generation of young workers, the use of industrial robots has continued to increase. From the traditional automotive industry to industries such as food, beverage, mobile phones, and computers, the cost of robots has been significantly reduced. On the contrary, the cost of hiring workers has been constantly rising.
If subsidies, benefits, etc. are included, the labor cost of three shift workers is already equivalent to the cost of industrial robots in two to three years. Therefore, for some factories, replacing labor with robots is an easy decision. Industrial robots work longer hours, can accept harsher working environments, and also consider more stable product quality and reduced safety accidents, "Kong Bing said.
Faced with the widespread popularity of industrial robots, many voices are concerned that it may lead to a "wave of unemployment" for workers. Kong Bing believes that this is unlikely to happen and instead will promote the upgrading of workers' skills, especially in the field of operating industrial robots, where there is still a significant talent gap.
One of the main challenges at present is whether there are qualified personnel to operate these robots. These talents need to understand programming, operation, and maintenance skills. Currently, the related gap is still relatively large, which may be a bottleneck in the short term. However, with the continuous development of industrial robots, operations will become more intelligent and not a big problem
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