Amazing Tesla Robot!

Recently, the humanoid robot made its debut at the World Artificial Intelligence Conference, showing a new joint design structure.

Some analysts pointed out that Tesla is expected to use Chinese components to manufacture robots with higher cost performance and replicate the advanced ecosystem of Apple's industrial chain .

Recently, the Tesla humanoid robot made its debut at the World Artificial Intelligence Conference, showing a new joint design structure. Some analysts pointed out that Tesla is expected to use Chinese components to manufacture robots with higher cost performance and replicate the advanced ecosystem of Apple's industrial chain . Recently, the Tesla humanoid robot made its debut at the World

Artificial Intelligence Conference, showing a new joint design structure. Some analysts pointed out that Tesla is expected to use Chinese components to manufacture robots with higher cost performance and replicate the advanced ecosystem of Apple's industrial chain. 1. Replication and reconstruction

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Apple has spent more than two decades and billions of dollars building an unprecedentedly complex supply chain model in China, helping it to have 1.2 billion users worldwide and ship 226 million units in 2022.

Today, as a new epoch-making product, Tesla's humanoid robot, with the help of huge market order expectations, is also trying to reshape a new manufacturing system for humanoid robots in China and create a supply chain miracle with the "Tesla standard".

Comparing the practices of the two companies, we will be surprised to find that it is often difficult to obtain an excellent product by adding or subtracting existing parts on the market. Forward design and industry chain collaboration are the basic elements for further leaps in corporate products and comprehensive strength.

Looking back at the early stages of Apple's supply chain development, when Cook came to Apple in 1998 and began to take charge of production operations, the approach seemed unique and difficult to understand.

At the time, Apple did not use ready-made components, but chose to customize them in large quantities, which would significantly increase costs.

But Apple insists on designing the manufacturing process of these components itself, and assembling these customized parts into extremely complex systems with unprecedented scale and flexibility .

This is obviously not easy. To this end, in the past fifteen years, Apple has, on the one hand, obtained more orders through marketing to attract and reward suppliers, and on the other hand, has gradually established an extremely complex, in-depth and high-cost supply and production system in China.

To ensure the stability and controllability of this process, Apple has been sending its top product designers and manufacturing design engineers to China to improve and polish the product manufacturing process.

After arriving in China, these apples will spend several months collaborating to design new production processes and oversee the improvement of production details until production is running smoothly and normally. At the same time, they will also pay close attention to whether the supplier's production is compliant.

Equipment is also part of Apple's investment. In addition to a large amount of human resources investment, Apple also spent billions of dollars to purchase customized equipment with suppliers and develop some exclusive professional technologies. For example, the aluminum alloy body one-piece molding technology and the application technology of special welding wire materials shocked the world at that time.

Statistics show that as iPhone production grew in the early years, the value of Apple's "long-term assets (mainly equipment used for manufacturing)" in China soared from US$370 million in 2009 to US$7.3 billion in 2012.

At the time, this figure exceeded the combined value of all of Apple’s building assets and retail stores, a large portion of which was advanced CNC machine tools purchased by Apple.

Therefore, Apple's standards and supply chain system became the product of Apple's entry into the global market and establishment of technological competitiveness, and have also had a profound impact on Apple and China in the years to come.

In other words, Cook transferred the production of Apple products from the United States to China and built an extremely efficient supply chain system in China, truly completing Jobs' design and laying the foundation for Apple's rise.

Today, Tesla is re-trying to design a full-body robot that is unique on the market. Musk has also come to China to find some new opportunities to restructure the industrial chain from Chinese suppliers.

From conception to modeling, and then to processing into a working robot, the Tesla Robotics team not only incorporates advanced car-making concepts into robot manufacturing, reshaping the art with efficient R&D speed, but also attempts to establish its own standards in the selection and procurement of parts.

Screening for parts and suppliers is not as easy as one might imagine. When Apple first started looking for suppliers, it adopted a “fit principles” approach to tracing back.

At that time, Apple would inquire and negotiate with suppliers for several hours, and then let engineers and suppliers commit to and determine the number of customized parts required for mass production of Apple, but the condition was that it was necessary to effectively grasp the supplier's technology research and development roadmap and fully understand any problems that might arise in various links such as cost, design and mass production.

However, if the cooperation is confirmed, Apple will help suppliers to jointly improve and upgrade production lines, which is equivalent to placing the equipment it bought in other people's factories. This move also makes Apple favored by more suppliers.

By adhering to this strict supply chain screening and training process, Apple has grown with its suppliers for about ten years before establishing today's mature industrial chain system.

2. The power of systematization

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Prior to this, close cooperation with Apple had brought huge benefits to suppliers, which also made suppliers willing to follow Apple's instructions and suggestions.

For example, in 2000, Foxconn's revenue was about 3 billion US dollars. In 2010, Foxconn's revenue reached 98 billion US dollars, exceeding the combined revenue of its five largest competitors. By 2022, Foxconn's revenue reached 214.2 billion US dollars.

With the enhanced bargaining power and voice driven by orders, the control over component details enables Apple's supply chain to maintain efficient operation.

While others are busy negotiating specifications with suppliers, Apple engineers are already very good at asking more detailed questions about suppliers' standard specifications. They believe that if they ask enough questions, they will soon find out where the problem lies and solve it quickly.

This also enables Apple engineers to quickly move from the overall picture to the details, and then improve the overall picture from the details, ultimately pushing suppliers to passively accept these small improvements in details.

In addition to equipment, Apple has also achieved extreme control over the flow of resources.

The turnover rate of Apple suppliers is very high, with at least 23.6 million workers moving through Apple's supply chain since 2008. Suppliers have formed a certain skill set of labor resources and a certain form of production support combination in surrounding cities and regions to meet Apple's needs, and then refined them.

Finally, this industry chain includes both subcontractors for various jobs and companies in various specialized fields.

This modular labor ratio can achieve a more flexible combination of productivity resources, and also enables Apple to quickly find corresponding resources after expanding production or improving processes, completing the construction of a highly developed manufacturing ecosystem. Some analysts believe that now Apple only needs 14,000 people to supervise and control the weekly work of 1.5 million workers in the global supply chain, which is a systematic force.

Ultimately, the huge system advantage is reflected in inventory turnover. Apple always stands out. From the data, Apple's inventory turnover rate is 2.5 times that of Nokia at the time and 12 times that of Coca-Cola.

Therefore, some analysts are concerned that humanoid robots, which have more complex costs and production processes, may find it difficult to achieve a high inventory turnover rate. To solve this problem, Tesla may need to invest in system construction for a longer period of time before it can continue to iterate towards the 10 billion robots mentioned by Musk.

3. Tesla’s forward design

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The good news is that Tesla is now screening and helping its own suppliers, and has begun preliminary comparisons and testing of samples sent by suppliers.

The difference is that, thanks to advanced technologies such as virtual reality and 3D printing, Tesla has adopted a barbell-style vertical development process from R&D to production. That is, it focuses on prototype design and virtual simulation testing at both ends. This allows Tesla to devote more energy to product improvement and parameter optimization in the early stages of design, rather than the intermediate manufacturing process.

For example, when studying the actuators of Tesla's robot Opmus, Tesla is trying a drive system with a gear set, further parameterizing and virtualizing the gear set for modeling and testing, thereby completing the redesign and reconstruction of every detailed component.