Apple pushes for automated iPhone assembly, plans to cut 50% of the workers.

As part of its goal to increase automated production, Apple hopes to introduce automated production processes in the next few years to reduce the number of iPhone assembly workers by up to 50%, according to foreign media reports.

According to The Information, Apple is working to further automate the iPhone production process, with the ultimate goal of reducing the number of iPhone assembly workers by up to 50%.

The report pointed out that the policy was issued by Sabih Khan, Apple's senior vice president of operations, and the decision was made shortly after the conflict between workers at Foxconn's Zhengzhou plant in November 2022.

The incident occurred at a factory operated by Foxconn, Apple's largest manufacturing partner. The video circulated on social media, and the shutdown caused a shortage of iPhones, causing the smartphone's sales to decline during that holiday season. To this end, Sabih Khan issued an order to halve the number of people on the iPhone general assembly line.

But it remains to be seen how this automation will affect the Chinese labor market, which provides millions of workers for Apple's supply chain.

According to data published in Apple's annual supply chain report, the total number of employees monitoring working hours compliance among its manufacturing partners has dropped from 1.6 million in 2022 to 1.4 million in 2023.

International Electronic Business News learned that in order to reduce the total number of workers, Apple is promoting supply chain and production automation projects, which were previously shelved due to high initial construction costs.

It is understood that the machines required for automated iPhone production may cost hundreds of millions of dollars each year. In some cases, Apple will pressure manufacturing partners to make such upfront investments with varying degrees of success.

In order to achieve supply chain automation, Apple has also facilitated two acquisitions, namely the acquisition of DarwinAI and Drishti, whose technology can analyze video clips of assembly lines to identify bottlenecks and production problems in real time.

Apple's exploration of production line automation deployment has not been smooth. For example, for the iPhone 16 to be launched this year, Apple initially planned to use automation to install iPhone buttons and other components, but due to the high defect rate, this plan has been temporarily shelved.

It is worth mentioning that there have been reports that Apple's iPhone 15 series production has achieved "a lot" of automation, but automation still poses challenges to Apple due to the complexity of production.

Despite many obstacles, Apple continues to promote factory automation deployment, with the ultimate goal of reducing the number of workers on the iPhone assembly line by 50% in the next few years.

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