Industrial IoT Tech Drives Incredible Production, Creates Potential Problem

Chinese IoT company Jiangxi Outrace Technology has deployed M2M technology to enhance production capacity at an LED lighting facility, and also cut thousands from its workforce.

The fully automated production facility has maximized capacity through a cyber-physical production system and now claims to produce a finished product every three seconds on average. The daily output of the production line is now at nearly 450,000 units.

This cyber-physical production system (CPPS) is based on M2M communication, Outrace said, and has allowed the company to create smart factory workshops outfitted with fully automated end-to-end production capability. Outrace has 456 production lines, more than one-third of which are fully automated. Most of the automated lines are new and came through the company’s own development. Thanks to the automation, the company has also reduced headcount by 15,000, and saved $96.6 million in labor costs. That savings is the chief reason for the market competitiveness of the start-up.

To successfully establish a presence in the international market, Outrace has also improved quality control standards across the full range of products since last year. The firm has passed the ISO9001 international quality management system certification.

Although the incredible production rates from the plant are impressive, the drastic reduction in workforce is a troubling concern. As the IIoT grows, some manufacturing and monitoring jobs will naturally fade into obsolescence. As developers and early adopters, companies putting this tech in place need to be careful to train workers for the new jobs in data analytics, software development and IT in order to be competitive in the long run.

Remember, the workforce you alienate today will be the consumers who go to your competitors tomorrow.