ABB, the Swiss multinational technology company, has announced that it will open a factory in Shanghai (China) where robots will create other robots. The factory will open its doors at the end of 2020 and will build robots for China and the rest of the Asian market.
The company has made this decision considering that China is its second market after the US. The construction of the factory will cost 150 million dollars; that is, approximately U$S 150,000,000. A large investment that will result in the "most advanced, automated and flexible robotics factory in the world".
Obviously, the robots do not do the job completely alone; they work together with humans. The new factory will feature units of YuMi, the robot world famous for conducting an orchestra; However, its main function will be to assemble small parts to manufacture ABB robots.
The SafeMove2 software will also be used in the factory, which allows people and robots to work safely; that is, preventing machines from harming humans. In addition, the highest levels of productivity and flexibility are achieved.
During the year 2017, one of every three robots sold in the world went to China, which bought approximately 138,000 units. The figures do not deceive and show that in the Asian country is committed to technology at another level.
Ulrich Spiesshofer, executive director of ABB, explains that China should be taken as an example in the rest of the world by the way to transform the manufacturing process. AI, advanced robotics and cloud computing are the pillars of this progress.
Surely many do not like that the machines are subtracting so many jobs from humans; however, there is no doubt that productivity and flexibility increase significantly.
It is a matter of time before humans disappear almost entirely from the factories. The few humans who remain in them will be dedicated simply to supervise that the tasks are executed correctly.
I would dare to say that for this to happen there are a couple of decades left; but, I have no doubt that it will take place. This huge change will also have repercussions in other areas of life and the human being will have to devise new jobs that we still do not know.
The robots are already present and will be the future of the factories and of our life in general.
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