Long story short, I have just 2 and 1/2 hours to film this sponsored tour of the
Hisense TV factory behind me. Before my dust covers turn to glass slippers, my
head turns into the Great Pumpkin, and I get shipped back to Canada. We've got to
get through backplane prep and assembly, backlight installation, mainboard and
power supply installation, panel mounting, QA and validation, packaging.
Good grief, even miracles take a little time. And the longer we stand here, the
less we're going to have. That's another 5 seconds. LET'S GO GO GO.
This is going to be cool. The production line we're about to see has seven
first-of-their-kind machines. A third of
it is assisted by AI or machine learning in some capacity, and it has a total
automation rate of over 70%.
Wow. This level of automation isn't just to
save on labor costs, but also to improve quality. These back panels being loaded
onto the assembly line used to be done by squishy humans, but as you guys might
have seen in our recent video taking delivery of a Hisense 116-in
RGB backlit TV, panel sizes have gotten
kind of out of control, which means that when you've got people lifting these
backplanes, there's a significant risk of deformation. Since they switched to
this automated system that grabs them, shakes off the protective corner pieces,
then places them onto the line, they've reduced their defects by over 90% Next
door, the backplanes are treated for any static build-up, then they're flipped
over to prepare them for the next step.
Now you probably think of major components like the panel, power supply,
and processing chips as the big drivers of cost for large TVs. But here's the
thing, for televisions to be one of the only seemingly inflation-proof consumer
goods, manufacturers need to dig deeper than that. Behind me is an automated
glue dispenser that relies on an AI model to control flow rate, pressure,
movement speed, and more to apply hundreds of glue points for LED light
bars, and this results in a savings of 9% on glue.
Nice. After a quick trip through the spray gluing machine and a pass under
this UV curing lamp, we're going to apply our LED strip and lens arrays that
are going to serve as our backlight. This is one of the few steps that is
still manual, but if what we've seen so far is anything to go by, it probably
won't be for long. The glue theme that we've kind of established so far
continues behind me with their automatic primer coating machine. The backplane is
going to be joined to our front panel by a foam tape to reduce light leakage, but
that requires a primer to be sprayed in order to improve adhesion. By using
machine vision to verify their coatings in real time and an AI model to make
adjustments, they were able to reduce their primer consumption by 58% while
also dramatically reducing defects. Unfortunately, this machine is patent
pending, so if you're watching this video right away, it's going to be blurred. But once they get their patent,
we're hoping to replace that blurred footage, so come back in 6 months. As
TVs get bigger and bigger, maintaining efficiency and backlight uniformity are
major challenges. So behind me, Hisense is applying a reflective film to the
backplane to make the absolute most out of any light from the backlight LEDs.
They're also using automated spring-loaded applicators to apply the
sheet more evenly, which reduces the risk of dark spots in the finished
product. You'll still need your diffusion layer and optical sheet, and of course, even
the best processes are imperfect. So that's where this station comes in,
where they're using machine vision and AI to analyze the backlight for
uniformity. Hisense somewhat sheepishly
admitted that industry norms used to be to have a person look into the backlight
and go, "Yeah, that looks pretty even." So it makes sense that this change
resulted in a major improvement to inspection accuracy. By the way, you
might have noticed this is a white backlit TV, whereas Hisense's cutting
edge is RGB backlighting. We're going to be taking a closer look at their RGB
backlight technology a little bit later in the video.
Now that our backplanes are validated, it's time to apply the foam tape that's
going to seal them to the panel. This is also automated, which Hisense boasts
they are the first in the industry to do.
Now it's time for a big moment, panel assembly. This is yet another process
that has become simply impractical to do by hand with modern monstrous TV panels.
The old way involves two operators with suction cups attempting to line up the
panel with the backplane and stick it down exactly the same every time.
Breakage was a real problem. This new way brings the fresh panels in on a
conveyor, moves them over to an automated peel machine to remove the
protective covering that's on the back of the panel,
picks them up and places them onto the backplane with better than 0.02 mm
precision. Now we're looking up at those same
robots that we were just in front of. At this station, the source board gets
folded up and then covered with the front plastic bezel.
Next, behind me, these two robots affix the front bezel with screws. And this is
a lot cooler than you might realize. I mean, it wasn't that long ago that I was
here in China being told that screws,
especially little ones, were still too hard to do economically with robots. Not
anymore. And not only is it more economical, but this is apparently
responsible for a 44% reduction in the
defect rate at this step. >> [music] >> The final step for what they call module
assembly is these foam rollers pressing down the panel on the backplane to
secure the foam tape. >> [music] >> With the foam secured, the TVs are
flipped onto these soft carrier pads for the rest of assembly.
Now it's time for our straw men to get a brain, or a mainboard with a processor,
and also a power supply.
You might have noticed that each of those boards only got one screw securing
them to the back panel. That is not because Hisense went to the Linus school
of how to install printed circuit boards. >> This is why I usually only put half the
screws in radiators. >> It's because the rest of them are going
to be installed next door right here. >> [music] >> Why it made sense to divide this into
two steps, I don't know, but that doesn't matter because I don't design
assembly lines. Now next, we've got a very rare animal
indeed, a manual step. Sorry, I'm not even going to try to do the accent. The
point is that they do have a robot for speaker placement, but it is currently
undergoing maintenance and trials, so they still have a person manually
placing the speakers, but not for long. >> [music] >> Now it's time to install cable and
wiring harnesses. As you can see, this requires three people in order to keep
up with the speed of the production line. Hisense says that the handling and
delicate installation of these parts is still best done by human hands, but they
are researching ways to automate this, and who knows, it might not be that far
off.
Now we're at the end of the line, or are we? For space efficiency, Hisense has
the production line laid out in a U-shape. I asked Hisense if I could ride
on one of the TVs to the other side, and they said yes, but then it turns out
they misunderstood my question. They couldn't imagine anyone could ask something so stupid. I tried for you
guys, I tried. Next, Hisense invited me to participate in the production line.
They asked me to do the internal inspection step. So I'm supposed to mark
all the various connectors and tapes and
screws. So this one this one. Oh, all the screws?
No. There's not enough time.
Which I guess was kind of their point. I guess that's why Hisense replaced this
technology with this technology. They're
using AI and machine learning to constantly update their capabilities to
detect even the smallest errors. If an error is identified, hey, human hands
are still the king, it gets fixed right next door, then the back covers get
installed. Kind of a cool element of Hisense's culture is that no matter what position
you apply for, if you get a job, you'll spend the day here on the final
inspection line so that you can get an appreciation for what goes into these
devices that you're marketing or selling or whatever it is you're doing.
Before heading into QA, every panel is burned in for 10 minutes on the line to
help eliminate any of those uh first part of the bathtub curve
failures. At this point, our TV is basically assembled, and it's time for
QA. This station behind me uses precision 3D machine vision and an
eight-axis plug-in and plug-out robot
with ultra-high precise force control in order to satisfy Hisense's customers.
They even have a robot here that can push buttons turning the TV on. Nobody
tell my wife about either of these innovations. The rear covers get screwed
on, the labels get engraved, then we're off to a particular passion of mine.
Packaging. After automated testing and
validation, the TVs are brought back downstairs to be wrapped, padded, and
boxed.
This is yet another area where automation is not only a huge
time-saver, but a huge back ache saver.
Hisense estimates that the average weight of a consumer TV has reached 54
kg. That is well over 100 lb. The
solution? Have the robots move them around. Way better.
What a ride, man. There's even more that we didn't get a chance to show you, like
the system that monitors material supply levels at the stations and then uses
these autonomous vehicles to scurry over with more screws or connectors or
cardboard sleeves or whatever. And we didn't even touch on the monitoring
system that shows machine health for the entire facility in real time, advising
them proactively when things might need maintenance.
I couldn't show you guys all that cuz they're in the process of applying for some patents, but bottom line, I think
we've seen enough to know that humans we're basically obsolete in a
cutting-edge production environment. Let's go somewhere that we're still
needed then. The R&D center, where we can take a closer look at the RGB
backlight technology in Hisense's cutting-edge TVs. I've discussed
Hisense's RGB mini LED backlight technology a couple of times on this
channel, both when they launched at CES and when I unpacked their 116UX at home,
but I've never gotten a chance to see under the hood. Before we take a closer
look though, let's do a brief history of backlight technology. Originally,
backlights were designed to as evenly illuminate the back of an LCD panel as
possible. This made them nice and thin compared to old-school CRTs, but they
weren't the best at producing blacks. They were really more like gray. That's
because even the best LCD allows a significant amount of light to pass
through. The solution? Full array local dimming, which places
many smaller lights across the entire
back of the panel. These can be brightened or dimmed in zones according
to the type of content in front of them, dramatically increasing perceived
contrast. Over the years, they leveled up a lot with smaller LEDs, more
numerous zones, and high-energy blue backlights that can excite quantum dot
films to achieve image quality that gives even self-emissive display
technologies a run for their money. But what if instead of a single color
backlight, whether it's white or blue, you could have an RGB backlight,
allowing you to shine red light directly behind the red pixel for the most
vibrant sports car you've ever seen? That is where RGB mini LED comes in.
Now, it's still early days for this technology and there is room for it to
improve, especially by adding even more zones to the backlight. But Hisense has
been on the forefront of development and when we measured the 116UX, we were
absolutely blown away by its color gamut. Bottom line, RGB mini LED results
in incredible color saturation and unreal brightness that really makes HDR
content pop and it's so cool to see this
side-by-side with the fully assembled unit, so you can really see how the
image sausage is made. This Oh, this fire scene looks so good, right?
Hisense's rise to prominence in North America has been more recent, but
they've actually been around since these were current, 56 years to be precise,
and are now a major player in everything from TVs, laser TVs and projectors to
cloud services to fridges. In fact, this
was a one of their early acquisitions, which they pointed out to me when we
walked in, actually still works.
Ah, refreshing. They asked me to highlight their ongoing
goal of becoming a world-class provider of multi-scenario display solutions and
to highlight their construction of China's first zero carbon factory. You
can learn more about Hisense in the video description. And while you're down there, hey, maybe leave a nice little
comment to show your appreciation for them opening up their factory so we can
all understand a little bit better where our shiny gadgets come from. Speaking of
shiny gadgets, if you want something else to watch, maybe check out my unboxing and first look at the 116UX
116-in RGB mini LED TV. It is
out of this world.