How does intelligent manufacturing affect China's employment?

In recent years, manufacturing companies have adopted smart manufacturing as the commanding heights for the development of advanced manufacturing. The United States has vigorously promoted the strategic layout of intelligent manufacturing characterized by "Industrial Internet" and "New Generation of Robots". Germany has launched the "Industry 4.0" program, and Singapore has proposed the "Smart Country" program. China is also in the "Made in China 2025" proposed "to 2025, the key areas of manufacturing to achieve intelligent intelligence" strategic goals.
Among the traditional manufacturing enterprises in China, companies such as Changhong and Haier began to explore interconnected factories a few years ago. Haier has built an industrial 4.0 demonstration plant in four major industries, and users can customize it at any time through Haier's mobile terminal.
There is no doubt that intelligent manufacturing has penetrated into various manufacturing processes such as factory design, production, management, and service. Intelligent manufacturing improves production efficiency, but it also produces machine-to-human replacement. It can't help but ask us: How does smart manufacturing affect China's employment? How to deal with these effects?
Will the robot steal the "rice bowl"?
In the short term, smart manufacturing will lead to substitution effects and industrial transfer effects, leading to the loss of some jobs.
In recent years, the labor costs of some of the more developed provinces and cities in China are rising by nearly 10% per year. The recruitment and labor recruitment and other factors have promoted the production line of local auto, electronic information, electrical machinery and equipment manufacturing industries. people". According to the statistics of China Robot Industry Alliance, in 2014, China's industrial robot sales accounted for 25.3% of global industrial robot sales, and it has become the world's largest consumer of robots for two consecutive years. Among them, more than 90% of the robots are used in loading and unloading, handling, welding, painting, assembly and other aspects.
On the other hand, intelligent manufacturing has the functions of self-awareness, self-decision and self-execution, which can save a lot of management personnel and make the management flat and de-intermediate. For example, in 2013, Haier Company cut 18% of its employees after the business intelligence, mainly the middle management.
In addition, with the increase in labor costs in China. Some high-end manufacturing foundry factories will return to developed countries, resulting in the loss of more front-line jobs in China.
But in the long run, smart manufacturing forces industrial restructuring and creates new jobs. On the one hand, industrial restructuring has brought about an adjustment in employment structure. Although enterprises have reduced the demand for first-line labor positions and management positions, with the large-scale application of intelligent manufacturing, intelligent manufacturing equipment such as data analysis, industrial software development, system integration, user interaction design, equipment debugging operation and maintenance will be increased. And the needs of the service sector. Just as the automation of the industrial field in the United States in the 1950s and 1960s caused serious unemployment, new jobs such as technology and paperwork required a lot of manpower and there was a “labor shortage”. On the other hand, entrepreneurship increases employment. The “less people” of the production process, low cost, and distributed manufacturing methods of 3D printing bring unprecedented opportunities for entrepreneurship and the development of small and medium-sized enterprises, and bring more employment opportunities.
Subverting the traditional labor mode Intelligent manufacturing will change the laborer's original working paradigm, and put forward higher requirements for the professionalism, initiative, flexibility and collaboration of laborers.
First, professionalism. Intelligent robots can replace some of the "low-skilled" labor, but the command, operation, and operation of intelligent production lines and big data systems require more skilled laborers to make up for the lack of machinery. Workers need to be able to apply what they have learned to build real-world industrial systems to cope with automation system failures.
Second, initiative. Changes in the work content of smart factories require employees to have multiple job skills.
Third, flexibility. The manufacturing plant will be able to quickly adjust its production adaptability according to market demand and reduce the physical and psychological pressure of manpower; the new form of collaborative factory makes virtual work and mobile work a reality; multi-modal, user-friendly interface intelligent assist system will assist employees Work to help workers achieve a more flexible form of employment.
Fourth, collaboration. On the one hand, it is “everyone's collaboration”, and the division of labor between different occupations will gradually be replaced by the cooperation model. Intelligent manufacturing will make the links between manufacturing more closely, and different professional divisions will require more communication and cooperation. On the other hand, it is “human-machine collaboration”. In a smart factory, people, machines and resources are like communication and cooperation in a social network. They cooperate with each other to reshape the manipulation and passive reaction between people and production equipment in the traditional manufacturing factory mode. Mechanical relationship.
Laborers will flow to the service industry. Intelligent manufacturing can achieve high efficiency and precision of manufacturing, but it is mostly used to deal with simple, mechanically repeating operations. Those who think about complex, creative and flexible services still need manpower. Competency is an important direction for future employment of workers.
In the context of intelligent manufacturing, the mid-end of the manufacturing smile curve—the added value of processing and assembly, and the two ends of the value chain—the front end of R&D and design, and the services of brand, logistics, and sales. Integrated as the back end of the content - more steep. The extensive use of intelligent manufacturing will mainly reduce the employment space in the mid-end production chain of manufacturing, while the front-end and back-end service links require more manpower support.
Specifically, there are three main types of work that require a large number of workers: one is creative design, product brand building, customer service, etc., using creative, imaginative, and dynamic work; the second is the operation and maintenance of intelligent systems and equipment, such as intelligent systems ( Such as electrical automation, digital modeling) and high-end CNC machine tools, robots, additive manufacturing and other intelligent manufacturing equipment operation, commissioning, maintenance and transformation; third, new management personnel, especially through data technology, analysis of multinational companies around the factory floor Production activities, as well as managers who can provide clear recommendations and guidance for optimizing a production process.
China should rely on the "China Manufacturing 2025" and "Internet" Action Plan and other strategic initiatives to further create a good policy environment for "mass entrepreneurship and innovation". First, encourage innovation and entrepreneurship of scientific research institutions, deepen the interaction between research institutes and enterprises, accelerate the transformation of scientific research results, and promote innovation and entrepreneurship in smart products such as intelligent transportation, intelligent engineering machinery and service robots. Second, accelerate the construction and improvement of the "four public" support platform, and encourage innovation and entrepreneurship through multiple channels. Give full play to the beneficial role of the Internet in the allocation of innovative resources, and realize the connection between production factors such as scientific research, human resources and material resources and entrepreneurs through new models such as “four people”. Third, it provides legal system guarantee for innovation and entrepreneurship. By improving China's laws on intellectual property rights, quality supervision, and social security, we will create an enabling environment for the development of entrepreneurship and high-end manufacturing in the field of smart manufacturing.