ZTE (Photo : Reuters)
ZTE's mobile phone factory could now churn out a phone just within 40 minutes with the use of fully automated equipment. This is what automated industry 4.0 can do, and it is designed to get even better in the future.
Leading phone manufacturing brand ZTE's factory is now at the forefront of a global automation trend. ZTE even promises to overtake Apple in the smart manufacturing industry with this novel automated equipment.
"We will overtake Apple in the smart manufacturing of industry 4.0 in the future," claims Zeng Xuezhong, CEO of ZTE's terminal product department. With this automation trend, the manufacturing industry can be boosted by $720 billion to $1.45 trillion.
Even though it has not taken over Apple yet in terms of production, the automated equipment is already benefiting ZTE greatly. It is one of the reasons behind ZTE's rapid development in recent years.
Productivity of ZTE was up by 40 percent, while labor costs were reduced by half. As it currently stands, the automation at ZTE is already much higher than the automation taking place at Foxconn's factories, where Apple units are being manufactured.
In Foxconn, robots are only used on precision plate pasting at the front end as well as at the assembly and transport at the rear end. Majority of the operations at the middle of the production line are still conducted manually.
Huawei, another leading mobile phone manufacturer in China, is set on joining this automation race soon. It has now devoted more resources to the automation of its production lines.
