Manufacturing at a distance

　　隔離式制造

　　Still made in China

　　仍是中國(guó)制造

　　Covid-19 is changing factories. Some of the new ways of doing things will be permanent

　　新冠肺炎正在改變工廠。一些新的工作方式將成為常態(tài)

　　MANY OF THE robots on factory floors operate in cages, fenced off from their human colleagues. The separation prevents the machines, in the routine and mindless pursuit of a bolt, from crushing the leg, hand or chest of a worker who happens to get in the way.

　　工廠車間里的許多機(jī)器人都在籠子里工作，與它們的工人同事隔開(kāi)。這種隔離是為了避免機(jī)器在按部就班地尋找零部件時(shí)，撞到碰巧擋了道的工人的手腳或胸口。

　　Now factory operators do not just need to keep human workers at a safe distance from robots; they have to keep them at a safe distance from each other, too. In China, fences between workers are among the measures bringing factories back to life.

　　現(xiàn)在，工廠經(jīng)營(yíng)者不僅要讓工人和機(jī)器人保持安全距離，還必須讓工人彼此之間也保持安全距離。在中國(guó)，在工人之間設(shè)置柵欄成了讓工廠復(fù)產(chǎn)的措施之一。

　　Most Chinese factories are now back to operating at around 80% of capacity. Some are pushing 100%. Foxconn, the Taiwanese contract manufacturer which assembles the majority of Apple’s iPhones in China, says that with the help of tests for the virus and chest x-rays it has been able to get all its operations on the mainland back up and running with no risk to the health of its workers. In a call to investors on April 1st it reported that it was on target to provide Apple with all the 5G iPhones it needs for the launch of the device this autumn.

　　大多數(shù)中國(guó)工廠現(xiàn)已復(fù)產(chǎn)，恢復(fù)到正常產(chǎn)能的80%左右。有些工廠正在努力實(shí)現(xiàn)100%復(fù)產(chǎn)。在中國(guó)組裝了大部分蘋果iPhone手機(jī)的臺(tái)灣代工企業(yè)富士康表示，通過(guò)病毒檢測(cè)和胸透檢查，在中國(guó)大陸的所有業(yè)務(wù)已經(jīng)在不危及員工健康的情況下恢復(fù)運(yùn)營(yíng)。在4月1日的投資者電話會(huì)議中，富士康表示正按計(jì)劃生產(chǎn)，將能為蘋果足量供應(yīng)于今年秋季推出的5G版iPhone。

　　Many of the measures that made China’s great reopening possible were boring-but-important changes to existing protocols; more hygiene measures, more separation between workers, and screening (companies in China and elsewhere are trying to get their hands on a lot of tests for SARS-CoV-2 infection).

　　中國(guó)得以大規(guī)模復(fù)工復(fù)產(chǎn)的許多措施都是對(duì)既有工作規(guī)范做出的枯燥但重要的改動(dòng)：更多衛(wèi)生措施、拉大工人間隔，以及篩查(中國(guó)和其他地方的公司都在盡量實(shí)施大量新冠病毒感染檢測(cè))。

　　But there has also been investment in automation and remote operation that has brought forward improvements not expected for some time to come. Anna Shedletsky, the boss of Instrumental, a firm which uses machine learning to help manufacturers improve their processes, says that in electronics manufacturing “We’re going to do five years of innovating in the next 18 months.”

　　但在自動(dòng)化和遠(yuǎn)程操作方面也有所投資，帶來(lái)了原本預(yù)計(jì)還要一段時(shí)間才能出現(xiàn)的改進(jìn)。使用機(jī)器學(xué)習(xí)幫助制造業(yè)改進(jìn)流程的公司Instrumental的老板安娜(Anna Shedletsky)表示，在電子制造方面，“我們要在未來(lái)18個(gè)月內(nèi)完成五年的創(chuàng)新�！�

　　Modern high-tech factories already have systems in place to control who comes in or out and what they have on their person. The procedures which identify workers now take their temperatures, too. Many factories are also relying on a variety of “health code” apps developed by provincial Chinese governments. These run through portals inside WeChat and AliPay, two payment apps, to determine the worker’s health status and travel history. Willy Shih of Harvard Business School, who studies Chinese factories and supply chains, says such techniques were developed during the outbreaks of SARS and H1N1, in 2003 and in 2009, respectively. “Normally you change out of street clothes and go through a security check,” he says. “In many respects the [new protocols] are a small incremental addition.”

　　現(xiàn)代高科技工廠早已配備了控制人員進(jìn)出的系統(tǒng)，同時(shí)也可檢測(cè)他們隨身攜帶的物品。這些識(shí)別工人身份的程序中現(xiàn)在也加上了測(cè)量體溫。許多工廠還依賴中國(guó)各省政府開(kāi)發(fā)的各種“健康碼”應(yīng)用。健康碼通過(guò)兩大支付平臺(tái)(微信和支付寶)中的入口使用，用來(lái)確定工人的健康狀況和旅行史。哈佛商學(xué)院研究中國(guó)工廠和供應(yīng)鏈的(Willy Shih)表示，這些方法是在2003年非典和2009年H1N1疫情期間開(kāi)發(fā)的�！巴ǔＤ阋獡Q下自己的衣服，然后通過(guò)安檢。”他說(shuō)�！霸诤芏喾矫�，(新的程序)只是稍微增加了些內(nèi)容而已。”

　　Once inside the factory, the changes required depend on what the workers are making. Those in car factories are already spread out and do not need much repositioning—though some manufacturers are using fences to enforce separation. The parts the workers handle are regularly disinfected as they pass through the assembly process, says Tu Le, a consultant. At a phone factory in Guangdong province, though, changes in layout are immediately apparent. Workers no longer cluster around each step of the assembly process in dense U-shaped cells; instead they are spread out, increasing their safety at the expense of some speed.

　　進(jìn)入到工廠里頭后的改變則取決于工人生產(chǎn)的是什么產(chǎn)品。在車廠里，工位原本就比較分散，不需要太多重新部署，但也有一些制造商用柵欄強(qiáng)制隔開(kāi)工人。咨詢師樂(lè)途(音譯)說(shuō)，工人經(jīng)手的零部件會(huì)在裝配線上不斷消毒。不過(guò)，在廣東一家手機(jī)廠，工位布局的變化一目了然。工人不再按每個(gè)裝配步驟分批擠在U型單元里，而是分散開(kāi)來(lái)，犧牲一些速度以換取更高的安全性。

　　Making it better

　　精益求精

　　The obsessive and precise standards of modern global production make it comparatively easy for factories to adapt in such ways. However well a production process is adapted, though, things can still all go to pot if less cautious suppliers have to shut down and the parts the factory needs from them run out. As a result factories around the world have been stockpiling ferociously since news of the outbreak broke in January, going against the nature of modern just-in-time supply chains.

　　現(xiàn)代全球化生產(chǎn)嚴(yán)苛而精確的標(biāo)準(zhǔn)使得工廠相對(duì)容易適應(yīng)這種改變。然而，無(wú)論生產(chǎn)流程調(diào)適得多好，一旦有供應(yīng)商出現(xiàn)疏漏而被迫關(guān)停，導(dǎo)致工廠所需的零部件斷供，一切努力仍可能付之東流。正因如此，1月疫情爆發(fā)的消息傳出后，世界各地的工廠開(kāi)始瘋狂囤貨，完全背離了現(xiàn)代“及時(shí)”型供應(yīng)鏈的特性。

　　Another problem is new product introduction (NPI), a vital part of the business cycle in the electronics industry which is roughly 10% of Chinese manufacturing by value. During NPI, engineers from companies abroad fly in to tweak and tune the development of new products—something which today’s all-but-closed Chinese border makes impossible.

　　另一個(gè)問(wèn)題是新產(chǎn)品導(dǎo)入(NPI)，這是電子產(chǎn)業(yè)商業(yè)周期的關(guān)鍵一環(huán)，而電子產(chǎn)業(yè)約占中國(guó)制造業(yè)產(chǎn)值的10%。在新產(chǎn)品導(dǎo)入期間，海外公司的工程師要飛過(guò)來(lái)微調(diào)和優(yōu)化新產(chǎn)品的開(kāi)發(fā)——如今在中國(guó)幾乎完全關(guān)閉邊境的情況下已經(jīng)不可能了。

　　This has afforded Ms Shedletsky’s company a nice opportunity. The firm sells a system which uses machine learning to examine images of every single item a factory makes at every single stage of its assembly. It lets users explore the causes of any flaws, thereby increasing yields and reducing wasted time, money and materials. The amount of detail captured by the system also lets engineers from client companies inspect and manage production from halfway around the world—which under covid-19 has become a primary selling-point.

　　這對(duì)Shedletsky的公司來(lái)說(shuō)是一個(gè)良機(jī)。這家公司銷售的系統(tǒng)采用機(jī)器學(xué)習(xí)，檢查工廠組裝線上每個(gè)環(huán)節(jié)生產(chǎn)的每件物品的圖像。這讓該系統(tǒng)的用戶可以探查任何缺陷發(fā)生的原因，從而提高良品率，減少時(shí)間、金錢和物料的浪費(fèi)。該系統(tǒng)采集的大量細(xì)節(jié)也可以讓客戶公司的工程師在地球另一端參與生產(chǎn)的檢查和管理——在新冠肺炎疫情期間這已成為一個(gè)主要賣點(diǎn)。

　　Engineers at P2i, a client of Instrumental’s which makes nanotechnology coatings for electronic devices, can sit at their headquarters in Oxford inspecting work at factories in China at a level of detail previously only accessible to someone on the spot. (Some of them have done the same while quarantined in hotels just down the road from the plant in question.) Neal Harkrider, the firm’s chief operating officer, says it has started connecting its manufacturing equipment to the internet, so that it can make the adjustments that Instrumental’s system recommends remotely, closing the developmental loop.

　　Instrumental的客戶P2i專為電子器件提供納米涂層技術(shù)。現(xiàn)在該公司的工程師可以坐在牛津的總部檢視中國(guó)工廠里的生產(chǎn)狀況，而這樣細(xì)致的檢查以往只能在現(xiàn)場(chǎng)進(jìn)行。(一些工程師在那家工廠附近的酒店里隔離時(shí)也曾這么操作過(guò)。)公司的首席運(yùn)營(yíng)官(Neal Harkrider)表示，公司已經(jīng)開(kāi)始將生產(chǎn)設(shè)備連上互聯(lián)網(wǎng)，以便根據(jù)Instrumental系統(tǒng)的建議遠(yuǎn)程做出調(diào)整，實(shí)現(xiàn)了閉環(huán)開(kāi)發(fā)。

　　There is a near miraculous irony to the idea that the nanotechnology embodied in the protuberant proteins and RNA programming of SARS-CoV-2 is changing, through its decidedly macroscopic effects on human health and the world economy, the processes of a company like P2i that fashions its own wares back down on the virus’s own scale. But in truth it is merely accelerating a transformation that the world’s manufacturers were undergoing already. As products become more complex and their components more minute, there comes a point when human hands and eyes cease to be useful instruments for their assembly.

　　新冠病毒的突起蛋白和RNA編碼體現(xiàn)了一種納米技術(shù)，它在宏觀層面上給人類健康和世界經(jīng)濟(jì)帶來(lái)了明確的影響，從而改變了P2i這類公司的生產(chǎn)流程，而P2i的工藝本身正是在類似病毒的級(jí)別上進(jìn)行，真是一種不可思議的諷刺。但事實(shí)上，這只不過(guò)是加速了世界制造業(yè)早已開(kāi)始的變革而已。隨著產(chǎn)品越來(lái)越復(fù)雜、組件越來(lái)越微小，到了一定程度之后，人的手和眼在組裝產(chǎn)品時(shí)已無(wú)用武之地。

　　For a glimpse of that future, look at the world’s most complex manufacturing operations, those that produce semiconductors. Chip factories have hardly felt the impact of covid-19 at all. This is because laying down nanometre-scale transistors by the billion is far too complex for human minds to contemplate, let alone human hands to achieve, and so humans do not need to gather together on a shop floor to do it.

　　要一窺未來(lái)的面貌，只需看看世界最復(fù)雜的制造工藝——半導(dǎo)體生產(chǎn)。芯片工廠幾乎完全沒(méi)有受到新冠肺炎的沖擊。這是因?yàn)橐�排布�?shù)十億計(jì)的納米級(jí)晶體管實(shí)在過(guò)于復(fù)雜，遠(yuǎn)非人類大腦所能想象，更不用說(shuō)靠人手來(lái)實(shí)現(xiàn)，所以根本不需要工人聚集在車間里工作。

　　The world’s leading contract manufacturer of semiconductors, Taiwan’s TSMC, runs its most advanced facilities from central control rooms in which humans manage machines that move the silicon being engineered around in a hyperclean environment that human workers rarely visit. In Wuhan, ground zero for the pandemic, Yangtze Memory Technologies, a Chinese chip company that is a darling of Beijing, kept operating throughout the months of lockdown which ended in April 8th, its controlling engineers shuttled in on special trains.

　　臺(tái)灣的臺(tái)積電是全球領(lǐng)先的半導(dǎo)體代工廠，其最先進(jìn)的工廠都是通過(guò)中央控制室來(lái)操控運(yùn)行的。員工在中控室操縱機(jī)器在超潔凈環(huán)境中加工硅器件，鮮少需要進(jìn)入生產(chǎn)環(huán)境。中國(guó)芯片公司長(zhǎng)江存儲(chǔ)科技位于這次疫情的震中武漢市，作為備受北京重視的企業(yè)，它在4月8日之前武漢封城的幾個(gè)月里一直保持運(yùn)作，其控制工程師乘坐專門列車分批進(jìn)入。

　　For the manufacture of chips and screens, all-but-complete automation is unavoidable. In other contexts, the cost of re-engineering systems and buying new kit has kept people in the loop and on the floor. They will not vanish overnight. But covid-19 has provided a new spur for more factories to approach the machinic perfection of chip foundries. That new distancing between human and machine is likely to long outlive the disease itself.

　　就芯片和屏幕制造而言，接近完全自動(dòng)化是不可避免的。在其他領(lǐng)域，重新設(shè)計(jì)系統(tǒng)以及購(gòu)買新設(shè)備都需要成本，因此在工藝流程和生產(chǎn)車間里仍然保留了人類員工。他們不會(huì)在一夜之間消失。但新冠肺炎給更多工廠提供了新的動(dòng)力去追求芯片廠那種完美的機(jī)械化。疫情終會(huì)過(guò)去，但人與機(jī)器之間進(jìn)一步的疏遠(yuǎn)應(yīng)該會(huì)長(zhǎng)久持續(xù)下去。

　　注：雙語(yǔ)全文源自EC0

　　下載焚題庫(kù)APP——翻譯資格考試——題庫(kù)——做題，包括章節(jié)練習(xí)、每日一練、模擬試卷、歷年真題、易錯(cuò)題等，可隨時(shí)隨地刷題�！�在線做題>>】【下載APP掌上刷題】

　　如果你基礎(chǔ)薄弱，自學(xué)能力差，復(fù)習(xí)盲目抓不住要點(diǎn)，迫切想獲取證書的考生，群內(nèi)老師提供備考指導(dǎo)。歡迎加入翻譯資格考試群：774340380還能和考友一起學(xué)習(xí)交流!