Broke ground Saturday on a robotics research facility in Taiwan
Image: Honda.com
Here's one way to solve your labor problems.
Hon Hai Precision Industry, the company whose Foxconn division assembles most of the electronic products sold in the U.S. -- including Apple's (AAPL) iPhones and iPads -- broke ground Saturday on a new R&D unit in Taichung, central Taiwan.
"The investment marks the beginning of Hon Hai's bid to build an empire of robots," the Central Taiwan Science Park authorities said in a statement.
The project was unveiled by Hon Hai chairman Terry Gou, who announced last August that he hoped to build 1 million robots to do the "simple work" now being done by Chinese workers.
Foxconn, which has been hit by a cluster of worker suicides in its Chinese assembly plants, plans to replace 500 000 workers with robots over the next three years according to AFP.
But the world's largest electronics manufacturer is not complaining
iPad 2 disassembly. Photo: iFixit
Hon Hai chairman Terry Gou, whose Foxconn subsidiary does the final assembly on the lion's share of Apple's (AAPL) product line, addressed the growing disparity Wednesday between his profit margins and his client's.
Why did Apple's net income grow 70% in its last fiscal year while Hon Hai's rose less than 2%?
Because, he told investors at a shareholders MORE
Philip Elmer-DeWitt - Jun 9, 2011 6:57 AM ET
An advocacy group claims the factory's latest workplace casualty followed a 34-hour shift
Foxconn workers. Photo: Device Magazine
Hong Kong-based SACOM (Students & Scholars Against Corporate Misbehavior) has added fresh details to another death -- the 11th this year -- among the 420,000 workers at Foxconn's massive factory complex in Shenzhen, China.
As we reported earlier this week (see Foxconn needs a better trade union), the family of the latest victim claims MORE
Philip Elmer-DeWitt - Jun 4, 2010 1:54 PM ET
A flurry of public relations activity in China after the ninth fatal fall this year
A Foxconn factory. Credit: REUTERS/James Pomfret
[UPDATE: A tenth Hon Hai employee -- a 23-year-old man -- jumped to his death from the seventh floor of a workers dormitory only hours after Hon Hai executives took journalists on an unprecedented tour of one of their plants and promised to outfit the dorms with safety nets.]
Terry Gou, MORE
Philip Elmer-DeWitt - May 26, 2010 7:15 AM ETEvery morning, discover the companies, deals and trends in tech that are moving markets and making headlines. SUBSCRIBE
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