Foton's efforts

Strategies to replace manpower with machines have been enforced by the Foton Shandong Multifunction Plant in the high-tech zone to support its long-term growth.

A manufacturing execution system was introduced to support Foton's smart production in September 2016.

Yin Baoyin, who once worked in the order-sorting department of Foton's Weifang plant, said that the new system can sort orders much more accurately and effectively than human beings.

"The system will prepare all order-related data and sort orders automatically," said Yin. "The order sorting time has been reduced from 2 hours to only 40 minutes."

Smart technologies have been used in processes such as painting, welding and gluing at Foton's plant over the past two years.

The figures provided by the company show that the first-time pass rate of products from assembly lines increased by more than 60 percent compared with previous years.

Foton said that technologies have helped the company to reduce production costs by 41.83 million yuan in 2015 and 2016. The number of employees on Foton's production lines dropped from 2,433 in 2015 to 2,281 in 2016.

The employees who left their positions were re-trained and acquired new skills to support the company's growth in other job positions, according to the company. For instance, Yin is now responsible for monitoring production statuses on the site.