The rapid rise of Chinese intelligent factories

Japanese media said that due to strong global demand for industrial robots, most industrial robot companies have increased their production in China. KUKA (Germany), a unit of China's home appliance giant Midea, will set up two new factories in China and plan to increase its domestic production capacity four times the current by the end of 2019. Demand for industrial robots in China has exploded due to the rising labor costs and the strengthening manufacturing policies, and China is rapidly emerging as a robot factory.

According to "Nihon Keizai Shimbun" website that, in addition to Germany, KUKA also has a factory in Shanghai, China. And in January 2018, the second plant will be put into operation in Shanghai with the annual production capacity up to 25,000 units. After that, it will build a new factory in Guangdong by the end of 2019, raising its annual production capacity in China to 50,000 units.

Stefan Lanpa, chief executive of KUKA Robotics, said that he hopes to get the robot needs of the automotive industry in Shanghai and the robot needs of the motor and electronics industries in Guangdong. After the new factory put into operation, in addition to China, it will also export to other Asian countries. It also planned to continue to increase the production capacity of German factories to increase the total annual production capacity to more than 100,000 units by 2020.

According to the forecast by the International Robot Union, the global sales of industrial robots will substantially increase 77% by 2016. In China, the manpower shortage in the manufacturing industry is outstanding due to the increase in labor costs. In addition, the Chinese government's proposal of strengthening manufacturing industry has also prompted enterprises to speed up the introduction of industrial robots.

Reported that China is the largest market for industrial robots, and Japanese companies are also constantly launching the offensive. Yaskawa Electric Co., Ltd. not only started to increase output in its Chinese factories, but also officially started its cooperation business with Midea Group. Kawasaki Heavy Industries and Fuji Vietnam have also decided to implement increase production in China factories.

Swiss company ABB intends to more than double its industrial robots worldwide capacity in the next one to two years. According to reports, ABB has factories in Europe, China and other regions, and plans to increase production capacity in the future.