Chapter 268 Southeast Asia Observation Sample
Mid- and low-end manufacturing industries have been continuously flowing into Southeast Asia.
This is almost the consensus between China and Amerikan.
America hopes to move manufacturing outside of China, while Chinese companies hope to avoid some tariff issues and reduce labor costs by moving factories to Southeast Asia.
Huaguo is also happy to see this scene, because they hope to upgrade and transform their manufacturing industry, and the departure of some low-end manufacturing industries will help them achieve this goal.
However, in fact, when the scale of low-end manufacturing is large enough, it can also use smart factory technology to upgrade and transform.
Because the essence of upgrading and transformation is to increase profits, speed up capital operation, and improve industrial quality.
The low-end manufacturing industry is called low-end because it is determined by many aspects such as scale, labor quality, and technical content.
The scale is too small, and any disturbance in the market will be affected. Profits will be swallowed up, customers will decrease, and then it will close down.
The quality of the labor force is low. Of course, the price of labor is relatively low, but the price in Southeast Asia is even lower than yours.
The technical content is limited and the risk of being replaced is extremely high.
These low-end manufacturing problems can be solved through a combination of scale and intelligence.
The most classic field should be the textile industry. Since 2015, companies like Adidas and Nike have been slowly migrating the textile industry overseas.
Relocate to places like Bangladesh and Vietnam where labor costs are lower.
Later, some places in China even actively wanted these companies to move away. The reason was that they wanted industrial upgrading and more valuable companies to move in and no longer need these low-end industries.
However, in the textile industry today, there are more and more unmanned chemical factories. It can be turned into a super-large-scale unmanned cluster factory just like agriculture.
Just as the four major grain merchants control the lifeblood of global grain, they firmly grasp the textile industry, promote the transformation and upgrading of enterprises, give birth to several world-class companies in this field, and control the global textile market.
Intelligence is not a mindless pursuit of high-tech industries. Some industries that originally have little technical content can also achieve the same effects as high-tech.
It can even be combined with the financial industry to make two kinds of money by trading commodities in the futures market.
A very interesting data is that in places like Bangladesh, starting from 2022, more than 80% of factories will begin to purchase automation equipment to replace labor.
In one and a half years, Bangladesh lost 200,000 textile industry jobs.
In fact, China should not clear out the so-called low-end industries, but should actively help low-end industries carry out large-scale intelligent transformation.
Now, Alpha is doing this in Malaysia.
At the end of last year, Alpha and Adidas signed contracts respectively. This sports brand giant is expected to invest more than US$1 billion in the construction of a super unmanned factory in Johor Bahru City in the next two years.
“Adidas has always had plans to build an acceleration factory. We launched a project called Speedfactory in 2016.
Through this project, we built Adidas automated factories in Ansbach, Germany, and Atlanta, Amerikan.
The core purpose of the project is to shorten the cycle between order and product delivery. Reduce production volume and increase production times, thereby reducing inventory and improving responsiveness to customer needs. ”
In the history of Adidas, the purpose of accelerating the factory plan is to manufacture what users need.
Demand forecasts from first-line stores are quickly responded to by local factories.< br>
In fact, this is a high-level application of data analysis. Based on existing data, future sales of shoes and clothing categories are analyzed, and then targeted production is accelerated by the factory.
Originally I produced 100 pairs of A shoes, and it took me one month to sell 80 pairs. The remaining 20 pairs were sold out within the next year. But now I predicted the data in advance, and I only produced 80 pairs for the first time. After they are sold out, they will be produced in batches of 5 pairs at a time.
This way the product turnover days are reduced to 1 month.
For sports brands like Adidas, turnover rate means profit.
The higher the turnover rate, the shorter the turnover days, and the higher the profit margin.
Because they turned goods into money, and money has interest.
There is no way to generate interest on goods.
Adidas's accelerated factory is essentially to solve the turnover rate problem, because even if the automated factory is built in Germany and America, its cost will not be any lower than building it in Southeast Asia.
“Obviously our accelerated factory plan ultimately failed, but we learned a lot from that failure, and we have an internal focus on understanding the evolution of the apparel supply chain and its requirements for logistics services and automation issues With a new understanding
This time I believe that through cooperation with Alpha Technology, Alpha Technology can combine our understanding with their capabilities in the field of artificial intelligence to make up for the shortcomings in the original accelerated factory plan. The flexibility part.
Yes, what is popular in our factories in Southeast Asia is the so-called combination of medium technology and manual labor, but this time we and Alpha’s factory in Johor Bahru will be completely experimental. , which will almost eliminate the human factor.
A completely unmanned factory, if it operates well, Adidas will continue to increase investment in Malaysia in the future and hand over all production capacity in Southeast Asia and even the Asia-Pacific region to Malaysia. ”
At the signing meeting, Adidas CEO Bjorn Goulden attended in person, Oraz attended as the CEO of Alpha Technology, and Princess Amina not only helped Johor Bahru City platform, but also helped Alpha Technology Platform.
She never thought that Alpha Technology could also play a role in attracting investment.
If it weren’t for Alpha Technology, projects like the Adidas unmanned factory would never have reached Xinshan. , Kuala Lumpur is always the first choice for these multinational companies, followed by Penang and then Johor Bahru.
“Alfa Technology is also very happy to cooperate with Adidas. We are happy to inject the latest artificial intelligence technology from Alpha into Adidas. , helping it improve the automation level of clothing production and achieve complete automation in production and material handling.
We expect that the Adidas super unmanned factory in Johor Bahru can shorten the delivery cycle by more than 80%"
"Mr. Oraz, happy cooperation, help me say hello to Mr. Samad, Alpha is in artificial intelligence technology The lead shocked us. "At the dinner after the press conference, Goulden was very enthusiastic. A press conference like this does not involve products, and there are no hot spots. It is usually reported by local media, and it can be regarded as a benchmark for investment promotion in Malaysia.
There was not even a splash after the report, and the public had no idea that the cooperation between Adidas and Alfa would trigger great changes in Malaysia and even Southeast Asia.
"Sa. Mr. Mudd has always been mysterious, which is his characteristic. "Olaz is already very skilled in dealing with this kind of situation. Gulden is not the only big shot he has met. He has met many business bosses.
After the reception, the other party said that Temasek could increase its investment in Alpha, but Samad refused after learning about it.
Now Alpha is not short of money at all. After receiving Hornbill’s technology license, Tencent and Microsoft are continuously contributing cash flow to Alpha.
“I fully understand that mystery has become Mr. Samad’s label, or it is his personal trait. I fully respect Mr. Samad’s personal preference.
I hope that in In the future, we can see Adidas putting its entire manufacturing in the Asia-Pacific region in Johor Bahru." Goulden is very excited.
Just seeing the model factory built by Alpha Technology and the local garment factory in Johor Bahru made him excited enough. If Adidas could complete such a transformation in his hands, he would be recorded in the history of Adidas.
"I believe this day will come soon. Alpha's technology is even more incredible than what you see." Oraz is very confident. To be precise, Oraz is very confident in Samad.
Originally, Oraz didn’t believe that Samad was from Malaysia. He really didn’t believe that Malaysians could develop such powerful artificial intelligence.
Now he believes it. If he were not a Malaysian, how could he insist on moving the factory to Malaysia? To be more precise, it is to Johor Bahru City. How strong is the hometown sentiment? This kind of requirement.
If it weren’t for such special requirements, Adidas would even plan to build 20 unmanned factories around the world in cooperation with Alpha Technology to achieve close-range supply.
For example, one is built in Brussels and one in Germany to be responsible for the supply of goods throughout Europe.
Such special requirements have made Alpha's artificial intelligence expansion much slower.
Oraz believes that Samad is not only a Malaysian, but also a native of Johor Bahru and an out-and-out patriot.
Including Malaysian people, the voice that Samad is a Malaysian is getting louder and louder.
The cooperation between Alpha Technology and Adidas has not attracted much attention among the public, but it has attracted considerable attention in the field of sporting goods.
Nike, Puma and other foreign sports brands are waiting to see the effect of Adidas's approach.
It's because Adidas has been having a hard time in recent years that it made such a radical transformation.
Like Nike, they lack motivation.
From the cooperation between Alpha and Adidas, we can see that not only jobs in China are being eliminated one after another, but jobs in Southeast Asia are also not guaranteed.
And with Adidas’s proofing, jobs in the entire textile industry will shrink sharply in the future.
We don’t even talk about the impact on China, we only talk about Southeast Asia.
In Southeast Asia, approximately 10 million people are engaged in textile industry-related jobs.
A report made by the International Labor Organization in 2020 shows that the five ASEAN countries (Cambodia, Indonesia, Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam) face the risk of 56% of employment being replaced by automation in the next two decades.
Most of the affected workers are those with lower wages and lower education levels. These jobs are most vulnerable to automation, so these workers are the most affected.
In fact, after Alpha began to show his fangs, the speed was not 20 years, but 5 years.
The proportion of employment opportunities replaced by automation is not 56%, but more than 80%.
Economically, capital will be more efficient, and for individuals, this is an out-and-out hurricane.
Alfa Technology has begun to prototype for China in the south of China.
The improvement in capital efficiency brought by Alpha Technology will also affect China's local textile industry.
A large number of international brands’ textile industry will move to Malaysia, which will also be a fatal blow to those engaged in the textile industry in China.
(Such a scene will no longer exist)
Without Alpha, the unmanned textile industry has been advancing. However, with Alpha, the entire process has been accelerated, just like when you watch a movie with the option of 5x or even 10x speed.
The whole scene is as crazy as a ghost.
If you look at the ASEAN report "The Future of Work in ASEAN", it is mentioned that employment in Southeast Asia will shift sharply from agricultural and manufacturing jobs to high-value service jobs.
Yes, there is no Alpha, they all mentioned the word sharp.
As for whether these employed people originally engaged in agriculture and manufacturing can adapt to high-value service industry jobs? No one cares.
They can't do it anyway, there are plenty of people who can do it.
As for what they will do if they lose their jobs, this report did not even mention it.
Technological progress is macroscopic, and the individuals affected are microscopic.
When Lin Jia mentioned her idea, Chen Yuanguang also hoped that the sample he made in the south would give China a stone to cross the river by feeling.
We can take a look at what consequences will happen to the entire society after the 10 million people in the textile industry in Southeast Asia are suddenly unemployed.
In this way, Chen Yuanguang believes that this is the limit of what he can do to promote the welfare of the people at the bottom of China.
There can't be a case in front of us, and we have to rush into it.
(End of this chapter)