Notebook ODM Inventec, in order to increase automated production, will invest US$20-30 million to procure additional robotic arms to raise the total from 200-300 at present to 3,000 in a year, according to the company.

Inventec started executing the 3-year Inventec Industrial 4.0 Plan (II4.0) in July 2014 in a bid to hike efficiency. The first year (July 2014-June 2015) focused on system integration, solution to problems, and automating equipment, the company said. The second year will focus on collaboration of systems and integration with Internet-based functions including ERP (enterprise resource planning) and PLM (product lifecycle management), and the third year on designing robotic arms and transferring in-house-developed technologies to interested makers as a business model, Inventec indicated.

A robotic arm can replace at least 1-2 workers and the cost can be recouped in 7-8 months, Inventec said. Collaboration between robotic arms and workers can increase efficiency in production by 20-30% initially and a maximum of 40% eventually, Inventec indicated.

Inventec maintains target shipments of 100 million devices for 2015, chairman Richard Lee said at the 2015 shareholders meeting on June 16. Target shipments consist of 50 million handsets, 20 million hand-held smart terminal devices, 25 million PCs and five million networking/communication devices for cloud computing including 2.5 million servers, Lee said. Of server shipments, 20% will be used in data centers and 80% by enterprises.

For 2015, Inventec gives more importance to profitability than revenue growth, and therefore 2015 consolidated revenues may decrease on year, Lee indicated.

Inventec has obtained orders for smart wearable devices from three vendors and will start shipments soon.

At the meeting, shareholders approved the distribution of a cash dividend per share of NT$1.75 (US$0.056) for 2014.