Foxconn’s $10 billion Wisconsin Electronics Factory Could Be First of Many

Foxconn the world’s largest electronics manufacturer and perhaps Apple’s most well-known supplier has announced a plan to build a factory in Wisconsin (U.S.) which has the potential to create up to 13,000 jobs. The total investment in the plant which would be the first U.S. based advanced LCD manufacturing plant could be as much as $10 billion. The entire campus may span 15 buildings and 20 million square feet once complete. Foxconn which employs over a million people has had a clear strategy to automate a significant part of its production processes for some time. In 2011 the company announced a plan to replace 500,000 workers with 1 million robots in the long-term, at the end of 2016 the company had around 40,000 robots know as ‘Foxbots’ in their operations. What is clear is that this new U.S. factory even though it could employ 10,000 of people wouldn’t be possible without high levels of automation. We would expect it to be one of the most efficient and most highly automated LCD manufacturing plants in the world when finished.