China has opened the world's first intelligent factory for humanoid robots in Liuzhou, Guangxi. Built by UBTECH Robotics with Siemens, the 14,000 sq metre plant can produce 10,000 robots a year, one every 10 minutes. It mainly makes the Walker S and Cruzr series. The factory uses a digital "smart brain" system to manage orders, materials and quality checks, with full traceability for each robot. It follows a "robots building robots" model, where humanoid robots like the Cruzr Y1 and S2 handle tasks such as loading, palletising and moving materials.
Assembly uses collaborative robots and rotating tables for flexible production. Each robot goes through over four hours of testing and a 360-degree inspection. The site also has a compact automated warehouse that stores 112 robots in just 65 sq metres, and a fleet of driverless vehicles manages logistics across the factory. The company says it marks a shift from lab prototypes to large-scale manufacturing.
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Pang Jianxin, vice president of UBTECH, said in an earlier interview with the Global Times that mass production is inseparable from the support of China's supply chain. "Without the Chinese supply chain, mass-producing complex components would be extremely difficult unless cost advantages were completely sacrificed," Pang noted.
"Chinese robots have already entered the global first tier. This foundation rests on the large number of engineers, scientists, and application scenarios accumulated in China over the past 10 to 20 years, which have formed a very strong supply-chain base, manufacturing capability, as well as research and development strength. In industrial applications, China is also at the forefront because it possesses the richest scenarios," Pang said.
In July, China's industrial robot output reached 98,677 units, representing a year-on-year increase of 30.2 per cent. From January to July, production totalled 635,056 units, up 28.5 per cent, data from the National Bureau of Statistics showed.
