For only 200,000, small and medium-sized enterprises can dance with robots?

In a corner of a manufacturing company's factory, people gathered in a circle to watch the excitement. A robotic arm was cutting circuit boards on a machine, and then putting the products back on the conveyor belt. The whole action looked a little bit Clumsy, not as fast as imagined, but the position is very precise. It turns out that the transformation of the automated production line is being implemented here. At present, in the relatively developed areas of the electronics manufacturing industry in South China, such scenes are constantly being staged.

Why are the simple actions that ordinary workers can perform after simple training, and now they are replaced by robots? Yu Renchong, the teaching director of Shenzhen Lianshuo Robot Vocational Training Center, pointed out that because the cost of human resources made in China is constantly rising, the market demand for personalized products is also forcing enterprises to quickly upgrade from 2.0 to 3.0, and move towards 4.0.

How far is intelligent production from us?

The "Robot Age" is unstoppable. How will it affect traditional enterprise business models? Is transformation imperative? What experiences can companies learn from this process?

Although "Industry 4.0" has become popular in China, and the stock price of related concepts has soared, most people still think that 4.0 does not have much intersection with their production practices. At the Zhisheng Future Forum held by "CEConline" in Zhongshan City, Guangdong Province, Ms. Cao, the marketing director of Zhongshan Shaer Lighting Co., Ltd., pointed out that because the local lighting industry is not a standard part, most companies still maintain a large number of hand-made products. Most of the factories are still in the 2.0 stage, which is too far away from Industry 4.0.

In fact, with the rapid progress of electric light source products and electronic technology in the past 10 years, the design, manufacture and application of lamps have also undergone earth-shaking changes. New technologies such as LED will completely change the traditional production methods. An unnamed company representative from Zhongshan Huayi Lighting Company told the "CEConline" reporter that they didn't know why they could produce light bulbs with a minimum of 8 yuan, but Zhejiang enterprises could take orders for 5 yuan, and then they went quietly. Only after visiting the local companies did they realize that they have fully adopted automated mass production, with less labor and much improved efficiency. Under such a development situation, he believes that the small lighting enterprises in Zhongshan will be more and more difficult in the future.

However, are small and medium-sized enterprises really unable to catch the express train of intelligent production?

200,000 can experience industrial robots?

The characteristics of industrial robots are "three highs and one low", that is, high capital investment, high talent threshold and high technology threshold, but the output is relatively low. An industrial robot is not a simple machine tool or Cartesian coordinates. It is a space that moves horizontally. As long as different programs or software instructions are input, completely different work contents can be completed. A robot has a lifespan of up to ten years. If the process of installing screws at station A is over, it will be quickly removed and moved to station B for gluing or injection molding. The functions are very comprehensive.

Different from Midea, Gree and other large companies that spend hundreds of millions on smart production lines, small and medium-sized enterprises are generally accustomed to crossing the river by feeling the stones. To this end, Yu Renchong suggested, "Industry 4.0 is not about automating the production line all at once, but giving yourself a chance to try, even if it's just installing a robotic arm on the production line. Workers work in two or three shifts. In reverse calculation, basically the cost can be recovered in two years, and the electricity bill can be paid in the future.”

Section Chief Wu from Zhongshan Trade Development Bureau told reporters that currently the country, especially Guangdong Province, is replacing people with machines. There are corresponding subsidy policies, but due to the restrictions of the WTO "Subsidy and Countervailing Agreement", different companies need to individually consult which terms are more suitable for them.

Of course, before investing in such equipment, be sure to know the possibility of its upgrade and parallel connection, that is, to know whether its working software and communication protocol are compatible with other equipment. Ryan Clark Watt, senior manager of Usa Electronic Technology in Zhongshan City, believes that the premise of realizing Industry 4.0 in China is to allow multiple suppliers to use a communication protocol, such as the IEC data communication protocol, otherwise different smart devices Unable to communicate with each other, the next upgrade becomes very difficult.

Zhou Xin, general manager of Dongguan Kangyong Technology Co., Ltd., said that in September last year, he and a friend opened a charger factory. Other manufacturers only spent one million for equipment, but they invested ten million, eight hundred Thousands of votes are spent on equipment. They asked professionals to design the assembly line by scientifically combining and connecting equipment, reducing each line from 40 to 12. Although the degree of intelligence is not high, the production efficiency has been greatly improved. In just two months, the whole process from renting a factory building, buying equipment, trial production, debugging to production was completed, and it earned 1 million in three months after it was put into production at the end of last year.

Ms. Cao agrees that good equipment improves efficiency. She said that after our factory adopted the placement machine, the workload of ten people a day can now be done by one person and one machine, and the effect is remarkable.

The intelligent manufacturing industry has broad prospects. China has become the world's largest consumer of industrial robots in 2014. It is estimated that in 2015, China's robot market demand will reach 64,200 units, accounting for 30% of the global total. Standardization and informatization are two thresholds that intelligent manufacturing must cross. So far, only electronics, automobiles and energy-related industries in China have achieved informatization. In addition, Chinese manufacturing is also faced with the embarrassing situation of "equipment is easy to obtain, but talent is hard to find". Only by combining equipment, talent and management can we get on the express train of intelligent manufacturing and better participate in international competition.