Cost reduction and efficiency improvement are changing the face of Made in China through digitization and intelligence. Recently, the construction of intelligent manufacturing industry projects is accelerating, and a number of intelligent factories and unmanned workshops are constantly emerging.

The Economic Reference Daily reporter has conducted research in multiple places and learned that manufacturing enterprises are actively using new technologies and products such as 5G, digital twins, and industrial robots to focus on transformation and stimulate internal driving forces for enterprise development.

"Cost reduction and efficiency improvement"

In the 12000 square meter 5G smart factory of Weiwang Youlian Technology (Chengdu) Co., Ltd., automatic SMT machines, automatic optical detectors, and robotic arms operate 24 hours a day without interruption, and 60000 network communication devices are offline here every day.

On June 16th, the microgrid connected 5G fully connected factory automation production line started trial operation. "The production of communication terminal products is highly standardized and refined, with higher production efficiency, which means occupying more market share in the industry." Huang Chunsheng, the general manager of the company's manufacturing center, told reporters that production efficiency has increased by 40% compared to traditional processes, product quality inspection accuracy has increased to over 99.5%, and production line wiring costs have been reduced by more than 1 million yuan.

"By reducing costs and improving efficiency, enterprises have more ability to open up new market space." Huang Chunsheng said that the company is currently investing 50 million yuan in cooperation with China Mobile to build a "5G fully connected factory". The second phase of the project is expected to be officially put into operation in September, and a network communication terminal product can be completed in just 15 minutes from loading to shipping.

The reporter learned from interviews that many industrial enterprises are seizing the opportunity of a new round of technological transformation, upgrading new technologies, building digital production lines, and accumulating development advantages in transformation and upgrading.

According to data from the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, as of March this year, China has built over 2100 high-level digital workshops and intelligent factories, of which 209 are demonstration benchmark factories. "We have conducted an analysis of the effectiveness of the intelligent transformation of these 209 enterprises before and after, and found that after the transformation, the product development cycle of these factories has been shortened by 20.7%, production efficiency has been improved by 34.8%, product defect rate has been reduced by 27.4%, and carbon emissions have been reduced by 21.2%." said Xin Guobin, Deputy Director of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology.

Zhu Minghao, Executive Director of the China High end Manufacturing Research Center at Beijing Jiaotong University, stated that through investment in intelligent manufacturing, enterprises not only improve production efficiency and continuously improve product quality, but also drive the rapid development of new technologies and equipment, giving birth to new industrial forms.

Digitization is accelerating its extension to the entire industry chain

With the continuous improvement of quality, efficiency, and cost reduction, digital and intelligent transformation is also extending to the entire production chain of enterprises.

The reporter saw at the high-end electrical intelligent factory of Shanghai Noyak Electric Co., Ltd. located in Songjiang Economic Development Zone, Shanghai, that the intelligent unmanned production of a low-voltage electrical product was completed in one go, from materials entering the production line to products entering the finished product warehouse.

"With the application of new technologies such as 5G and industrial internet, the factory's production capacity has increased from about 60 units to 100 units every 8 hours, and the offline qualification rate has reached 100%, achieving traceability of all products. The head of the marketing department of Noyak told reporters that the company is currently extending digital applications to the entire production chain. This year, the intelligent factory will also start the second phase of construction, and the production processes of loading, equipment, packaging, etc. will be fully automated.".

Gu Wenlei, Deputy Secretary of the Party Working Committee of Songjiang Economic Development Zone in Shanghai, said that the zone is actively carrying out industrial internet infrastructure construction, 5G network deployment, etc., focusing on projects such as Zhongdian Information Port and Tencent Cloud, and launching the creation of a digital innovation industrial park to drive upstream and downstream enterprises in the industrial chain to move forward in numbers.

From product design, raw material management, to product processing, logistics transportation... More and more manufacturing enterprises are embedding digital intelligence into the entire production management chain.

Taking the application of industrial internet as an example, Yu Xiaohui, the President of China Academy of Information and Communications Technology, stated that the depth of industrial internet application has expanded from informationization in production auxiliary links to data analysis and optimization in core production links.

"At present, the application of industrial internet in 8 scenarios, including visual quality inspection, intelligent warehousing, quality traceability, intelligent scheduling, and lean production, accounts for more than 50%. Its usage in modeling and analysis scenarios such as process optimization, equipment fault diagnosis, and prediction has significantly increased, covering the entire industry from Longtou enterprises," said Yu Xiaohui.

Carry out multi-level application promotion

The increasing supply capacity of key products such as intelligent manufacturing equipment and industrial software is complementary to the acceleration of digital and intelligent development of enterprises.

This can be seen from the growth trend of industrial robots and industrial software. According to statistics from the International Federation of Robotics in 2022, China has been the world's largest industrial robot market for 9 consecutive years since 2013, accounting for 51.9% of the global robot market share. According to data from the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the revenue of industrial software products increased by 13.1% year-on-year from January to May this year.

According to the "14th Five Year Plan" for the development of intelligent manufacturing, by 2025, 70% of manufacturing enterprises above designated size will basically achieve digital networking, and more than 500 intelligent manufacturing demonstration factories will be built to lead the industry's development. The market satisfaction rates for intelligent manufacturing equipment and industrial software will exceed 70% and 50%, respectively.

The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology stated that the next step will be to study and formulate policy measures to promote the digital development of equipment, to support the construction of a digital China through intelligent equipment innovation. At the same time, we will accelerate breakthroughs in integrated technology innovation, increase research and development in manufacturing technologies such as complex designs and advanced processes, and accelerate the large-scale deployment and application of 5G and industrial internet.

"We will carry out multi-level application promotion." The relevant person in charge of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology stated that we will target key industries and build a number of world-class intelligent factories and smart supply chains. Targeted solutions such as process optimization, lean management, and process reengineering are being implemented on a large scale for small and medium-sized enterprises, in order to intelligently reshape the manufacturing industry model and enterprise form.