China’s ‘workshops’ turn to robots to improve productivity

BEIJING — China, once the manual labour “workshop of the world”, has become the biggest buyer of industrial robots as rising wage costs and growing competition from emerging economies have forced manufacturers to turn to technology.

It bought one in five robots sold globally last year, overtaking tech-savvy Japan for the first time, as it attempts to drive productivity gains.

China bought 36,560 industrial robots last year, a rise of almost 60 per cent against 2012, figures from the International Federation of Robotics (IFR), a Germany-based industry group, showed.

In contrast, Japan bought 26,015 robots, with the United States in third place with 23,679.

“China has the fastest-growing robot market. In a few years’ time, China will be significantly larger than the second- and third-largest robot market,” said Mr Per Vegard Nerseth, head of robotics for ABB.

Robot sales to China have on average increased 36 per cent every year from 2008 to 2013, IFR data showed.

The increased demand for robots in China is being driven primarily by large multinationals, especially in the automotive sector. China’s car industry, the world’s largest, accounts for about 60 per cent of robot demand in the country, research by management consultancy Solidiance showed.

“Many Chinese companies would still rather watch somebody break their back trying to lift a heavy box than pay for an expensive lifting table,” said Ms Pilar Dieter, who heads Solidiance’s Asia Pacific practice.

However, advances in sensors, hydraulics, mobility and artificial intelligence are helping to make robots more flexible, precise and autonomous, enabling them to be used in a wider range of applications.

While China is the fastest-growing market for robots, Japan still has, by far, the highest number of industrial robots in operation, with more than 310,000 in 2012, compared with 96,000 in China and 168,000 in the US. The Financial Times