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From the assembly line in Dongguan to laboratories in the skyscrapers of Shenzhen, ITdaily examines the development and manufacturing process behind your smartphone at Oppo. According to our
From the assembly line in Dongguan to laboratories in the skyscrapers of Shenzhen, ITdaily examines the development and manufacturing process behind your smartphone at Oppo.
According to our numbers, you’re most likely to read this ITdaily article on your smartphone. This pocket computer contains motherboard, processor, cameras and memory, all housed in a nice and thin case behind a large screen. The smartphone connects easily to the mobile Internet, both here in Belgium and in another country, even if no two telecommunications networks are the same.
How are all the components assembled into a relatively robust whole? How does the software work anywhere in the world? And why are your selfies better than in a karaoke bar? ITdaily travels to Shenzen and Dongguan and looks for the answer in Oppo’s laboratories and factories.
The telephone manufacturer’s administrative headquarters is now located in a large bamboo shoot: a 400-meter-high skyscraper that is reminiscent of a sprawling building Cucumber from London and across Europe would dominate the skyline. In Shenzhen, the building is slightly taller than most of the surrounding towers, all of which are either brand new or still under construction.
Oppo wisely keeps its techies far enough away from its sellers and marketers.
Oppo wisely keeps its engineers far enough away from its sellers and marketers: another tower, half an hour’s drive away, houses the smartphone maker’s technical labs. Oppo ensures that Chinese phones can use a variety of telecommunications networks anywhere in the world. Of course, it all starts with the phone itself and it’s not assembled in Shenzhen.
We travel a little further, past the seemingly endless jungle of glass and steel that the Chinese call Shenzhen, to the lower, older and somewhat rougher buildings of Dongguan. Oppo was born in Dongguan and the city is still home to a huge campus with housing, restaurants, sports fields, laboratories and a large factory.
We dive into the well-secured production facility, past security officers who check the employees before they are allowed to penetrate deeper into the building. The factory consists of three parts: manufacturing the internals with the motherboard and CPU, integrating these internals into the final phone, and quality control of the smartphones that come off the assembly line.
In the hall where the hardware is connected to the motherboard, there are several long production lines consisting of different machines that pass components to each other. The band is several dozen meters long, but is only manned by a handful of people. Almost the entire assembly process is automatic.
We noticed the delivery of components. There are sort of huge film reels hanging from the machines in the assembly line, which do not contain the 70 mm version from Oppenheimer for those looking for cinematic added value, but rather thousands of processors that are plugged individually from the reel onto the motherboard. Almost all components are fed to the machines via these “film rolls”.
Further along the belt there are machines with computer terminals. The software is currently being loaded onto the phone. This part of the volume highlights the importance of security that we saw earlier: anyone who wants to launch a supply chain attack needs to be here. We are therefore somewhat reassured that our tour takes place under strict supervision and that we view the production hall itself through a glass wall. Effective advocacy is not an option.
The assembly of the smartphones takes place in the next hall. Here too, the various production lines are full of machines, but the work is much more labor intensive. The range of a manufacturer like Oppo consists of various devices, almost all of which were replaced by new versions a year later. This reality introduces a lot of variation into the production process in order to automate all the work. We see almost twenty people per line performing all sorts of actions, including packing into boxes at the end of the conveyor belt.
Anyone who talks about smartphone manufacturing in China inevitably thinks of Foxconn and exploitation. Oppo does not outsource its production but has its own factories. During our tour we saw nothing that would indicate problematic situations. Exact information on wages and working hours is not provided. We simply note that the shifts and wages of production workers are in accordance with China’s laws and regulations.
Donguang has a monthly minimum wage of 1,900 RMB (about 250 euros), with a standard working week of 44 hours, but with overtime allowed, with a wage of at least 150 percent. Eating and living in China is of course cheaper than in Belgium, so converting it into euros doesn’t mean much. We also don’t know how much Oppo actually pays, but the numbers show that assembling phones in China can be a lot cheaper than here.
From the production hall we go into the torture chambers, officially known as quality control. Here Oppo keeps samples of all models that come off the production line. Specially developed devices “misuse” the phones. Think of a kind of barrel in which a smartphone rotates upwards only to repeatedly fall half a meter into the depths, of a clamp that twists a phone by centimeters along its length, of a rain chamber in which the smartphone is exposed to an endless storm, or to a virtual back pocket that keeps sitting down on a chair. With the foldable Oppo Find N2 Flip, which is not available from us, we look at how the devices are opened and closed non-stop to test how many folding cycles the hinge can withstand.
The whole thing is fascinating to watch. Even the budget models here have to survive repeated abuse, which is still stronger than we thought. Even without IP certification, these phones seem quite robust. The tests leave an impression on the PR and marketing staff. Every time a smartphone collapses terribly, or the dry one Smallpox Sounds from a specimen that has survived another fall, we see them shaking.
With the hardware alone you only have half a phone. Oppo, like other manufacturers, invests a lot of time and effort in developing and validating the firmware and software of its phones. In the Oppo technicians building in Shenzhen we see several laboratories where the focus is on this software.
A lot of attention is paid to network compatibility. An office contains server racks with the equipment for a 5G core network that can cover an entire city. This network is connected to antennas in a room that is shielded like a Faraday cage. There we again see rows of cabinets full of smartphones that carry out numerous tasks automatically. The phones are constantly calling and texting, allowing Oppo to optimize network connectivity.
An office further away is similarly furnished, but offers a better view through the windows, with the bay and port of Shenzen in the background. Here too we find a 5G core network. Oppo can then simulate the network infrastructure of telecommunications providers worldwide. Each provider uses its own combination of protocols and frequencies, and Oppo emulates these in the protocol lab to optimize the devices for the international market before they hit store shelves. The final optimization does not take place in China, but by local teams who carry out the final checks on the real carrier networks.
Back in Dongguang, we walk across the green campus, past parking lots full of electric cars of unknown brands, to our new favorite place in the world: the photo lab. All smartphone manufacturers, including Oppo, now use a lot of software to deliver the best possible snapshots despite the small lenses and sensors in the smartphones. This works brilliantly, as the development of mobile night photography shows year after year. In the photo lab, engineers work on the camera software and test it.
We end up in a corridor with ten very unique rooms, ranging from a hotel lobby and a living room, to a supermarket and an Oppo store, to a karaoke room and another karaoke room. Oppo tests the cameras of its devices in these rooms and we found that twenty percent of the tests have to do with karaoke.
Three robots live in space, each holding a smartphone in their hand. The selfie bot looks a bit disturbing, with the fake head of an adult woman impaled on its chassis.
The robots always take the same photos at fixed locations. In total, they take around 500 images per round in different rooms under different lighting conditions, which are then analyzed by experts. Thanks to automation, engineers constantly receive up-to-date images that they can use to adjust the camera software.
There is no lack of automation in Oppo’s development strategy. A little further we see the NFC laboratory, where another robot lost out to the photo karaoke bots: It has to press a smartphone against an NFC chip for the rest of its life. A flawless NFC experience that enables digital payments is not plug-and-play. Oppo invests a lot of time and effort to check that everything works correctly with as many different payment terminals as possible.
Oppo has multiple manufacturing and R&D locations inside and outside of China and we only see a small fraction. Still, we already get a good idea of what making a smartphone entails. Automation plays a major role, both in production, where possible, and in testing and optimization. From robots to auto-calling phones, Oppo works as efficiently as possible.
What also stands out are the people. In each test laboratory we speak briefly to the person responsible. This man or woman, together with a handful of colleagues, focuses on a very specific functionality, such as NFC. An Oppo company suddenly looks more like an anonymous Chinese giant. The functions you use on your smartphone are no coincidence. If you look far and long enough, you’ll end up with a man and his robot on the second floor of an office building on the outskirts of Shenzhen.
Source: IT Daily
As an experienced journalist and author, Mary has been reporting on the latest news and trends for over 5 years. With a passion for uncovering the stories behind the headlines, Mary has earned a reputation as a trusted voice in the world of journalism. Her writing style is insightful, engaging and thought-provoking, as she takes a deep dive into the most pressing issues of our time.
