This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
Ok, unlimited phones in a world that’s already flooded with the damn things….now what?
I my case, I use a 5 year old Xiaomi flagship, that still runs like a charm, and has a 1.5-2 day battery life. That means that having this phone has meant a 250% reduction in ewaste if we use the 24 month cycle average for the industry.
Ah shit, I only want a phone made by children.
Finishing an item on an assembly line every 6 seconds does not mean it only takes 6 seconds to assemble the item. It only means that the slowest step of the process takes a maximum of 6 seconds/item to complete.
Not even that. For example if there are 10 assembly lines in parallel that the slowest step takes 60 seconds, you still get a phone each 6 seconds
I was considering parallel processes in the same facility as a single production line in this case, as the article seems to consider the production mentioned as a single line...but yes, if it is indeed split between multiple lines producing the phones entirely and in parallel that is the case.
That was my reaction to the headline. Then I read the article:
Xiaomi said assembling a smartphone from circuit board to finished product takes about six seconds, and, at full capacity, the factory could produce more than 10 million devices annually
They are indeed stating each phone only takes 6 seconds to complete
With ~30 million seconds in a year, their output is 1 phone every 3 seconds
Xiaomi said assembling a smartphone from circuit board to finished product takes about six seconds, and, at full capacity, the factory could produce more than 10 million devices annually.
That sounds like the final assembly takes six seconds, which is entirely plausible given how fast robots move.
assembling a smartphone from circuit board to finished product
I disagree, that phrasing suggests from assembling the circuit board to finished product, which I believe is impossible in 6 seconds, simply due to soldering time for components alone. The 6 seconds is only achievable on a "per unit" basis because they can make multiple units in parallel on the production line.
You should really read the article
Literally the sentence after that points out the production output is 10 million per year, which is 1 phone every ~3 seconds
They are indeed claiming to put together a unit, start to finish, in 6 seconds. Implying they only have 2-3 parallel production lines
You should really read the article
I love the optimism.
You should really think more about what you say. We're talking about final assembly, not soldering individual components onto the board.
Also that’s not that impressive. 30 million devices is roughly one per second year round. Phone manufacturers make many times that in a year.
Yeah, the "6 seconds" part is just a clickbait. The "near-fully automated" part is interesting.
How is it clickbait?
An estimated 1.4 billion cell phones are sold each year.
Apple clears about 8 iPhones a second year-round, with ~250 million.
How many cell phones does one need?
I need 8 per second. Keep dropping them.
If it were 9 that would just be e-wasteful. 7-8 is the sweet spot.
Xiaomi said assembling a smartphone from circuit board to finished product takes about six seconds, and, at full capacity, the factory could produce more than 10 million devices annually
There are ~30 million seconds in a year. So this factory is only producing 2 phones at a time? Assuming the article is accurate, I'm very curious to hear why this was chosen as a design
I'm assuming there must be downtime for maintenance and quality checks.
Especially since it says 11 production lines...
11 lines = 57.8 million
57.8/~10 means their lines are down 38.5% of the time?!?!?
Edit: Maybe the nearly 40% downtime is retooling for different models?
What Elon wished he could achieve
He is the single human with the most manufacturing knowledge in the world, after all.
