Lu Shiying: Three steps in ten years towards Industry 4.0

Intelligent manufacturing enables enterprises to achieve small batches and multiple varieties of products, shorten production cycles, reduce prices, optimize resources, improve energy efficiency, and improve return on investment. Why do 90% of domestic small and medium-sized enterprises Is the level of intelligence still low? In addition to the cost of intelligent upgrades, what other concerns do enterprises have?

At the latest Zhisheng Future Forum, Lean Management and Intelligent Manufacturing expert Lu Shiying shared several cases of intelligent manufacturing improvement he personally operated, helping us understand the three-step strategic roadmap for intelligent manufacturing .

The following is a selection of speeches by Lu Shiying:

From a new word born 4 years ago to today's hot word, "Industry 4.0" has filled the Hannover Messe pavilions, forums and corporate slogans. At the Industrial Exhibition in April this year, the German information technology service provider CSC surveyed 900 entrepreneurs from Germany, Austria and Switzerland and found that about half of the entrepreneurs said they did not understand Industry 4.0. German companies also know what Industry 4.0 is. not much.

So, how should Chinese manufacturing enterprises deal with the challenges of Industry 4.0?

▲Figure 1: Lean management and intelligent manufacturing expert Lu Shiying

What are the obstacles?

First of all, we will analyze the possible misunderstandings of enterprises when implementing Industry 4.0 through some cases, so as to avoid excessive investment or waste in this area in the future. This is a Ningbo-based manufacturing company. This robot has not been used for more than a year. In the early days, the general manager strongly requested to invest in the robot. However, after the robot arrived at the factory, there were continuous problems with the raw materials. It almost becomes a display in the factory.

Another company in Beijing, which is a book e-commerce company, has invested a lot of money to build a luxurious automated logistics center, but the sorting efficiency of such an advanced machine is very low, and it is even better to rely on manual sorting. pick. Many companies want to build intelligent systems, only to find that such systems are a waste of money.

There are also some companies that invest millions to purchase advanced information systems such as ERP or MES, but the result is that they install Boeing engines on tractors. After the engines are started, the backward management level is pulled. Unrecognizable. We need data to help enterprises make correct decisions, and what kind of information management system to introduce is very critical for enterprises, and we cannot blindly follow the trend. Many companies that have done a good job in the industry actually do not do well in management, internal communication is very poor, and there are many gaps between management and departments. Spend a lot of effort making the system "happy" rather than going to the field to fix the problem.

There are many stumbling blocks on the road of intelligent manufacturing, such as small order batches and many varieties, raw material quality problems, poor process, inadequate equipment maintenance, unstable process quality, and high employee turnover rate. These must be After the roadblocks are cleared, invest in intelligent production systems.

Three steps to achieve 4.0

Here is an example of smart manufacturing transformation. A German auto parts company has a joint venture with a domestic car company a few years ago, and the joint venture factory is on the way to transform into Industry 4.0. But five years ago, this company still had various roadblocks, such as long time for equipment changeover, chaotic management of small batch orders, long order production cycle, and many quality problems.

Our plan for this company is: to do a good job of lean production in the first year, and to realize step-by-step rapid mold change, balanced production, U-shaped unit production, pull production, etc.; to introduce MTM management in the next year , optimize the action and improve the ergonomics, and make the working hour data base accurate, transparent and reliable; in the third year, the introduction of information management has realized the synchronization of processing information and processing parameters, and the information networking of the four production factors of man, machine, material and method. change.

Another case is a leading enterprise in the hardware processing industry, which is more meaningful. Before the transformation, the average production capacity of the company was 400 units per person per month, while the industry average was only 300 units. Although they are already the industry leaders, they also have many management problems mentioned in the above cases because the overall manufacturing management level of the industry is not high. The continuous rise in labor costs has made this company determined to do intelligent manufacturing. Similarly, our plan is to upgrade in stages. First, through more than one year of lean production improvement, all equipment is connected together to achieve "single-piece flow" production, and the production capacity has been increased by 3 times, that is, 1,200 units per person per month, Become a myth in the industry. In 2013, the company's market share increased from 20% to 40%, and 30% of its peers closed their factories. In 2014, the company began to import the MES system and completed barcode management; electronic Kanban; real-time synchronization of information to realize intelligent manufacturing. In 2015, it introduced intelligent sales, intelligent logistics, sales forecasting system, distribution information system and supply chain JIT, and finally realized the realization of "intelligent manufacturing" to "intelligent enterprise".

To sum up, the realization of 4.0 in three steps can be understood from two levels:

The first level is the realization of intelligent manufacturing in three steps: the first step, lean production; the second step , MTM industrial engineering; third step, information interconnection;

The second level is three steps to realize intelligent enterprise: first step, intelligent manufacturing; second step, intelligent marketing; third step, intelligent supply chain .

According to the above three steps, it will take at least 4 to 10 years for a manufacturing company to do a good job in the transformation of Industry 4.0. I suggest that every enterprise should conduct a rational analysis before carrying out intelligent transformation, and make a comprehensive diagnosis and evaluation from the aspects of enterprise leadership, employees, quality, machinery, internal and external logistics, etc., to understand whether the enterprise and employees are ready. , and then act.

About Lu Shiying:

Lean management and intelligent manufacturing expert, graduated from MIT-Tsinghua University International MBA, with more than 18 years of practical experience in enterprise lean management. He used to be the operation director of the Fortune 500 Asia region, the chief consultant of a well-known German lean consulting company, the lean supply chain director of the Asia-Pacific region of an American listed company, and the lean logistics manager of the Asia-Pacific region of Stanley Black & Decker.

(All the opinions in this article are from the "Outsmart Future Export Forum" jointly held by Global Sources and its leading management media "CEConline" in Shanghai on May 19, 2015.)

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