WONG CHAP WING, a native of Hong Kong, runs a factory in Dongguan, an industrial city north of Shenzhen. Hip Fai, his privately held firm, stamps metal parts for things like printers and copiers. The energetic septuagenarian started dye- and mould-making in 1966, and recalls a time when migrants were grateful for a job. “There are not enough technical workers now,” he complains. Young people turn up their noses at factory work. He used to pay 600 yuan a month, but now they demand 5,000.

Wong chap wing是香港人，在深圳北部的工业城市东莞经营一家工厂。Hipfai是他的人个公司，主要业务是给打印机和复印机等设备提供印有图案的金属部件。这位精力充沛的七旬老人从1966年开始染料和制造模具，现在他不禁回忆起那时移民香港的人对工作的感激之情。他抱怨道：“现在没有的技术工人远远不够。”年轻人对工厂的工作嗤之以鼻。他以前付工人600元的月薪，现在他们索要5000元。

The future is not bright for workshops that cannot upgrade. Mr Wong looked into shifting to a cheaper location inland but decided that the savings were too small. He says that many low-end subcontractors in his area are closing down. Looking at the antiquated equipment and the throngs of workers in his factory, it seems this greasy and noisy place, too, may face extinction.

如果工厂不升级发造，未来将不再明朗。Wong想把工厂转入内陆成本更低廉的地方，但是，发现能省下来的的钱还是太少了。他表示，与他同地区的许多次级合同商正在逐渐关厂。望着陈旧的设备和他工厂里的工人，这个看起来油腻嘈杂的地方也会面临倒闭的风险。

Turn a corner, though, and you spot the future: a hybrid assembly line where shiny Japanese robots are mingling with human workers. Peter Guarraia of Bain, a consultancy, explains that the big global trend in factory automation is “co-bots”: robots designed to collaborate safely with workers. They will look out for people and can be programmed by line workers.

转身到另外一边，你会发现未来：一条混合的装配线——外形亮闪闪的日本制造的机器人和工人在一起工作。咨询机构Peter guarraia 解释称，工厂自动化的全球大趋势是”与机器人合作“：机器人将设计成为可以用来与人类安全合作。他们将为工人做质检，同时生产线的工作能对他们进行编程。

Dongguan has an official policy of encouraging automation, part of a national strategy to upgrade manufacturing.

东莞官方制订了鼓励自动化的政策，这也是国家产业升级战略的一部分。

Mr Wong spent 200,000 yuan on each robot but expects to get his money back within three years because his reconfigured assembly line is much more productive. Looking back, “I could not imagine my factory full of robots,” he reflects. “I came here for the cheap labour.”

Wong在每个机器人上花费20万元且，预计在三年内收回他投资的钱，原因是这条重新装配的生产线生活力更高。回顾过去，“我不敢想象这里充满机器人，”他说道，“我来这里的原因是因为廉价的劳动力。”

Dongguan has an official policy of encouraging automation, and has set aside 200m yuan a year to help its factories eliminate jobs. This is part of a national strategy to upgrade manufacturing through automation. The governments of the PRD are leading the charge. Guangdong has pledged to spend 943bn yuan to boost the manufacture and adoption of robotics in the province. Guangzhou optimistically hopes to automate the jobs of four-fifths of the city’s industrial workforce by 2020.

东莞官方制定了鼓励自动化的政策，每年拨出2亿来帮助工厂减少工作岗位。这是国家战略的一部分，通过自动化升级制造业。珠三角地区的政府是这种变化的领先者。广东省政府承诺投入9430亿元来促进本省机器人的生产和应用。广州很乐观地希望，到2020年有五分之四的工作实现自动化。

The sprawling headquarters of Midea in Foshan, a city near Guangzhou, look as though that day has already come. The firm was started in 1968 with 5,000 yuan, operating from a workshop measuring just 20 square metres. He Xiangjian, the founder, and his team scrounged what they could from Mao’s tattered economy to make plastic bottle caps, glass bottles and rubber balls. Today Midea is a Fortune 500 company and one of the world’s biggest white-goods manufacturers, selling everything from internet-controlled kitchen appliances to smart washing machines. Mr He, who retains a controlling stake in the firm, is a multi-billionaire. Last year Midea gobbled up Kuka, a German robotics firm, in a deal worth nearly $5bn. It also has a joint venture with Yaskawa, a Japanese robotics outfit. It is spending 10bn yuan to develop robots, both to use in its own factories and to sell to others.

美的总部盘踞在广州附近的佛山，看起来自动化的那一天似乎已到来。该公司在1968年以5000元起家，工厂仅为20平方米。在彼时经济衰退的情形下，创始人何祥建带领伙伴搜罗一切资源来制造塑料瓶盖，玻璃瓶和橡胶球。 如今，美的成为了“世界500强”企业，是全球最大的白色家电制造商之一，销售从网络厨房电器到智能洗衣机等一切产品。手握控股权的何祥建现在是一位亿万富翁。 去年，美的开价近50亿美元，要吞并德国机器人公司Kuka。另外，该公司还与日本机器人装备安川合资建厂，将投入100亿元开发机器人，用于自己的工厂或是出售。

There are two main reasons to think the delta’s factories need to upgrade. First, the level of automation in China remains low compared with some of its competitors. In 2015 the average for the country as a whole was fewer than 50 robots per 10,000 factory workers, compared with about 300 in Germany and Japan and more than 500 in South Korea.

三角洲工厂需要升级的主要原因有两个。 首先，与其竞争对手相比，中国的自动化水平仍然很低。 2015年，全国平均人均每万名工厂工人的机器人少于50人，而德国和日本约为300人，韩国则超过500人。

Second, China’s supply of cheap labour is running out, which is pushing up wages steeply. China’s low birth rate, exacerbated by its one-child policy (now revoked), has meant that the working-age population has already peaked and is set to shrink significantly in the next few decades. The mass migration of poor rural dwellers from interior provinces to the PRD is slowing, and without that influx of labour, growth targets will be harder to hit.

二是中国廉价劳动力供不应求，大幅推高了工资。中国的低出生率由于独生子女政策（现已撤销）而加剧，这意味着劳动适龄人口达到顶峰，并将在未来几十年内大幅度减少。贫困农村居民从内陆省份到珠三角的大规模流动正在放缓，没有劳动力的流入，增长目标将更难受打击。

As a consequence, China urgently needs to beef up its productivity. Over the two decades to 2016, labour productivity has risen by an average of 8.5% a year, but in the past three years this growth has slowed to less than 7% a year, and the absolute level remains low, at only 15-30% of that in OECD countries.

因此，中国迫切需要提高生产力。 在2016年前的20年里，劳动生产率的年平均增长率为8.5％，但是，在过去三年，这一增长速度一直放缓至不到7％，而绝对水平仍然很低，只有OECD国家的15-30% 。

Yet automation should be market-driven, not subsidy-induced, and there are signs of a bubble. Thanks to the official push for “indigenous innovation”, Chinese automation firms are often subsidised even if their technology is not up to scratch.

然而，自动化应该是市场驱动的，而不是补贴引导性的，同时，还存在泡沫的迹象。 由于官方推动“本土创新”，中国自动化企业即使技术不够好也经常得到补贴。

In an era of rapid growth and cheap labour, Chinese bosses set up factories without much concern for efficiency or quality of tooling. If a problem arose, they would throw more men at the job rather than invest even in simple automation. Now many of them are uncritically replacing humans with hardware. AlixPartners, a consultancy, warns that China risks being “left behind as a failed low-cost-country-model economy”.

在一个经济快速增长和劳动力廉价的时代，中国的老板们建厂不用担心设备的效率或质量。如果出现问题，他们会雇佣更多人，而不是投资于简单的自动化。现在，很多人用硬件来代替人类。 咨询机构AlixPartners警告称，中国有可能“被列为失败的低成本国家模式经济”。

Karel Eloot of McKinsey, a consultancy, reckons that most Chinese firms are not even bothering to adopt such global best practices as Six Sigma, which uses statistical methods to ensure quality, and lean manufacturing, which emphasises efficiency and waste reduction. By one estimate, such tools could boost productivity by 15-30%. Instead, many firms are deploying robots to automate their current inefficient ways of working. Mr Eloot would like to see more data, measurement and analysis on the shop floor, with the lessons integrated into work routines.

咨询机构麦肯锡的Karel Eloot认为，大多数中国企业甚至不打算采用六西格玛这样的全球最佳实践——六西格玛采用统计方法来确保质量和精益生产，强调效率和减少浪费。 据估计，这些工具可以将生产力提高15-30％。相反，许多企业正在部署机器人来替代目前低效的工作方式。 埃洛特愿意看到来自车间的更多数据，测量和分析，将课程整合到工作流程之中。

That may sound too sophisticated, but the PRD’s firms are already showing the rest of China how to leapfrog on smart automation. Consider Ash Cloud’s factory in Shenzhen. This private company makes cheap plastic cases for mobile phones, each costing a few yuan. It sells about 35m of them a year, earning it about $35m in revenues. Although this is a brutally competitive niche, the firm’s profit margin is 10%.

这可能听起来太复杂了，但珠三角的企业示向中国其他地区显示如何跨越到智能自动化阶段。 以Ash Cloud在深圳的工厂为例。 这家民营企业制造低廉的手机壳，每件成本几元钱。 它每年销售约3500万个，收入约3500万美元。虽然这是一个残酷竞争的利基市场，但该公司的利润率为10％。

Fred Chen, its general manager, reveals his secret: “Most Chinese firms suffer from production losses, mistakes, scrap, communications and production errors, warehouse mismanagement and so on…our success is due to very good controls.” The firm’s genius is in its manufacturing management system. Every employee has access to it from scores of iPads found all over the factory. There are cameras and sensors everywhere. The iPads display in large type how much net revenue has been earned from each product during a given shift.

总经理Fred Chen透露了他的秘密：“大多数中国企业遭受生产损毁、错误、废料，沟通和生产失误，仓库管理不善等等......我们的成功是由于非常好的控制。”这家公司的优异之处在其制造管理系统。每个员工都可以从工厂里的数十个iPad来访问这个系统。工厂到处都有摄像头和传感器。 在每一个班次中，iPad会以大型字号显示每个产品的净收入有多少。

A manager explains the advantages: “We have no information islands…radical transparency means no secrets, no turf battles.” Since everybody sees the data in real time, all can change plans on the fly. For Mr Chen the conclusion is obvious: “It is time for Chinese factories to change their management habits.”

一位中层经理解释说：“我们信息都是共享的……全然的消息透明意味着没有秘密，没有草坪战斗。”由于每个人都能实时查看数据，所有这些都可以随时改变计划。 对于Fred Chen来说，结论很明显：“中国工厂现在必须改变管理方式。”

编译：高思伟 

审校：李燕燕

编辑：翻吧君

来源：经济学人