The light and dark of the Industrial Internet

To talk about the Industrial Internet, we must first understand what the Industrial Internet is. Which of the following cases is an application of the Industrial Internet?

Renovation of the intelligent management system, putting more than a dozen subsystems such as environment, automatic control, security, etc. on the cloud; the aero-engine that uses the in-depth analysis of platform data to achieve predictive engine maintenance to avoid flight accidents Enterprise B; a platform C that is unifiedly connected to instrumentation, industrial equipment, industrial control system, and upper computer through the Internet of Things module.

In fact, the above three cases belong to the application of Industrial Internet. According to Yin Yangpeng, an engineer at the Institute of Informatization and Industrialization Integration, China Academy of Information and Communications Technology, concepts such as the Industrial Internet of Things, the Industrial Internet of Intelligence, and the Industrial Internet are essentially common. The name "industry" mainly considers its current main application scenarios in industry, but the industrial Internet is not only the application of the Internet in the industrial field, but takes the manufacturing industry as the starting point to support the integrated development of the primary, secondary and tertiary industries.

Industrial Internet is not industrial

China Industrial Internet Industry Alliance announced the architecture system of Industrial Internet as early as 2016. At that time, the definition of this concept was still based on industry (we It is called version 1.0): "Industrial Internet is a key network infrastructure with low latency, high reliability and wide coverage to meet the needs of industrial intelligence development. It is formed by the deep integration of a new generation of information and communication technology and advanced manufacturing. Emerging business formats and application models." From the definition of version 1.0, it can be seen that the initial focus of this concept is the matching of information and communication technology and manufacturing. In the "2017 List of Pilot Demonstration Projects for Integrated Development of Manufacturing and the Internet" published in 2017, pilot projects from heavy industries such as machinery, energy, and chemical industries accounted for more than two-thirds of the entire list. , this proportion has only dropped to about half.

In the definition of version 2.0 promulgated this year, the coverage of this concept has been greatly expanded, no longer emphasizing manufacturing as the only center, but focusing on establishing a comprehensively connected system, adding industrial The concept of chain and value chain, and the connection objects are extended from machinery equipment and industrial products to industrial services, forming a cross-industry and cross-industry joint mechanism.

If it is divided in terms of functions, in addition to the two major sectors of network and security, the industrial Internet platform as the core of the system can be subdivided into three layers, including the edge layer, the platform layer and the application layer.

The edge layer is the foundation, including device access, protocol parsing, and edge data processing. From this level, the industrial digital equipment industry is derived (only covering the digital and intelligent part of the equipment).

The platform layer is the industrial PaaS platform. This layer is based on general PaaS, which precipitates the industrial mechanism (Know-How) as a model, cleans, manages, and visualizes industrial data, realizes in-depth data analysis, and provides a development environment for the application layer. From this level, the industrial interconnection automation industry is derived. This industry includes products and solutions that provide digital sensing, control, and execution capabilities such as industrial controls and industrial sensors.

The application layer is directly related to the operation and management of the enterprise, reflecting the ultimate value of the Industrial Internet. This layer includes industrial SaaS platforms and various industrial APPs, which are mainly developed for the individual needs of enterprises and provide business and innovative applications. From this level, the industrial software and app industries are derived.

In addition to the industrial Internet network industry (including network equipment, network services and identification resolution) derived from the network sector, and the industrial Internet security industry derived from the security sector, it constitutes the five related industries.

All-round promotion of the industrial Internet industry

Since the "Made in China 2025" strategy of manufacturing a strong country was proposed in 2015, relevant national policies have been introduced one after another. In 2016, the main line of the integrated development of the manufacturing industry and the Internet was laid. In 2017, the national policy gradually entered a specific guidance period, the support and planning began to be continuously refined, and the development of the industrial Internet began to accelerate.

In terms of scale, the added value of my country's industrial Internet industry continues to expand. According to the calculation of the China Industrial Internet Research Institute, the scale of the added value of the industrial Internet in 2019 will reach 3.41 trillion yuan, and the nominal growth rate will reach 22.14%, accounting for 3.44% of GDP.

From the perspective of the system architecture, the three systems of network, platform and security are promoted in all directions. Information and communication enterprises and manufacturing enterprises are actively exploring the transformation of enterprise intranets, and positive progress has been made in the construction of the identification analysis system. Five national top-level nodes and 55 second-level industrial nodes have been established. The registered number of logos has exceeded 4 billion, and the network support capacity has been greatly improved; There are more than 70 industrial Internet platforms with industry and regional influence, serving nearly 400,000 industrial enterprises, and platform service capabilities have been strengthened; information technology companies conduct real-time monitoring of more than 100 key platforms and more than 9 million networked devices to ensure Data security and real-time early warning have established a solid security system.

In addition to its own development, the Industrial Internet has also played a significant role in driving other industries. In 2019, the industrial added value of the primary, secondary and tertiary industries driven by the Industrial Internet was 0.049 trillion yuan, 1.775 trillion yuan, and 1.585 trillion yuan respectively. Among them, the industrial Internet has driven the added value of the manufacturing industry to 1,469.468 billion yuan, and the number of industries with an added value of more than 100 billion has reached 9.

In addition to the achievements in scale, leading companies in various industries are also actively exploring new models and new formats on the basis of the Industrial Internet. The "White Paper on New Models and New Formats of Industrial Internet Platforms" compiled by CCID Research Institute summarizes five new formats, including gig economy, shared manufacturing, modern supply chain, industrial e-commerce and industrial chain finance. Further breakdown. For example, taking shared manufacturing as an example, the INDICS platform of Aerospace Cloud Network counts, strips, and integrates idle manufacturing capabilities, testing capabilities, and measurement and testing capabilities, so that transactions can be conducted between different manufacturing plants, which belongs to the sharing of manufacturing capabilities; Haier's card The Aos platform shares R&D and design resources such as design tools and industrial mechanism models for use by more than 100,000 developers of the platform provider, which belongs to the sharing of design capabilities; Incubation services to enhance the market competitiveness of small, medium and micro enterprises, which belong to the sharing of service capabilities.

Professor Wu Qingsheng from Antai College of Economics and Management, Shanghai Jiaotong University pointed out that the emergence of the Industrial Internet has brought new development ideas and provided opportunities for Chinese manufacturing companies to overtake on curves. The exploration of new models and new business formats by leading companies will be of great demonstration significance for Chinese manufacturing companies to better determine their competitive advantages in global competition and narrow the gap with Western developed countries.

The strong are strong, and the weak are weaker

Although the industrial Internet industry has achieved gratifying achievements in my country in terms of scale, structure and individual outstanding enterprises, Looking at the application level of the enterprise, you can still find some details worthy of attention.

Liu Duo, president of the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology, said in August this year that the domestic industrial Internet is in the stage of "improvement + supplementary courses + innovation". Her data in the "Evaluation Report on the Development of China's Industrial Internet" shows that the penetration rate of converged applications in large enterprises in my country is 86.1%, that of medium-sized enterprises is 68.7%, and that of small and micro enterprises is 51.8%. . She concluded that large enterprises have a good digital foundation, obvious benefits of applying new models, and high penetration rates; small and medium-sized enterprises have weak foundations, high investment costs, and low penetration rates.

However, even companies that have applied the Industrial Internet can't be said to "sit back and relax". The 2019 survey on the proportion of enterprises applying new industrial Internet models shows that the proportion of enterprises applying four new models of intelligent production, networked collaboration, service extension, and large-scale customization is 33.2%, 26.8%, 14.4%, and 8.7%, respectively. %. Obviously, intelligent production and networked collaboration are still the main application modes of the current industrial Internet, while relatively "high-end" applications such as service extension and large-scale customization are still not popular.

Professor Wu Qingsheng commented that at present, the industrial Internet application of domestic enterprises has had a good start, but there is still a long way to go for real in-depth exploration.

Dean Liu Duo, in the "Evaluation Report on the Development Effectiveness of China's Industrial Internet", summed up the current crux of enterprises in this regard as "Four Nos" - don't want, won't, can't, dare not. "I don't want to use it" is due to the lack of subjective initiative of the management team; "I can't use it" is because the network foundation of the enterprise needs to be strengthened. "Don't use it" is due to the lack of relevant knowledge and talent reserves. 43.8% of the companies said they don't know the relevant technologies; "don't dare to use it" is due to the low profit level and low risk tolerance of domestic companies (especially the manufacturing industry). , 74.4% of enterprises said that the transformation of the industrial Internet has "too much capital investment and long return period".

It is true that large enterprises are the pioneers in the implementation of the Industrial Internet and have irreplaceable strategic value. However, we should see that small and medium-sized enterprises account for the vast majority in number, and the considerable market size of the industrial Internet in the future will be composed of this part. If large corporations are compared to beacons that point the way, the gap between these leaders and SMEs is like the shadow under the tower—the brighter the beacon, the longer the shadow on the ground.

Although no figures have been found to directly compare the efficiency of industrial Internet applications, Accenture divided the applications of artificial intelligence into three categories in the report "The Way of Artificial Intelligence in Chinese Enterprises". Stage practices for indirect comparison:

Proof-of-concept stage (80-85% of enterprises), experiments and pilots are often run by the IT department in isolation, with low success rates and ROI; scale In the stage of industrialization promotion (15-20% of enterprises), a clear application strategy and operation model closely related to business objectives have been established; in the stage of industrialization growth (no more than 5% of enterprises).

Accenture's research shows that in the second stage alone, the success rate of enterprises applying artificial intelligence is already 2 times that of the previous stage, and the level of return on investment is close to 3 times that of the previous stage. We have reason to infer that there is also a relatively large gap in the application level of industrial Internet among domestic enterprises. In addition, the industries with high popularity of domestic industrial Internet applications either belong to high output value, high energy consumption, and the application improvement effect is obvious; or the foundation of industrialization and industrialization is relatively good, and the willingness to participate is high, so it is easier to form a "stronger and stronger, weaker". weaker" Matthew effect. If we do not take targeted measures against this unbalanced state, it will not be conducive to improving the overall strength of Chinese enterprises, and will not be conducive to the realization of my country's transformation from a "manufacturing power" to a "manufacturing power."

The picky "guide"

However, the lag of industrial Internet applications in some enterprises does not necessarily lie with the enterprises.

Professor Wu Qingsheng of Shanghai Jiaotong University pointed out that it is difficult for most small and medium-sized enterprises to understand the Industrial Internet by themselves. Therefore, the third-party industrial Internet platform is an important way to help small and medium-sized enterprises to understand and recognize. The shared success stories can dispel the concerns of enterprises and help them find a clearer application path.

But in fact, third-party platforms, out of their own interests, will reject corporate customers who have already sprouted the desire to transform the Industrial Internet. Professor Wu introduced such a case: a container manufacturer had an urgent need for automation transformation, but the platform he contacted turned down the customers who came to the door. There are two reasons. One is that the number of container manufacturing enterprises is small, and even if the project is successful, it will not bring much help to the promotion of the platform; the other is that the technical content of the industry is not high, so the payment ability of enterprises and the digital foundation are relatively comparable. Low, for the platform side, it is a project with high investment and low return.

Professor Wu also added that companies with too special application scenarios are not willing to accept third-party platforms. He once inspected a company that ranks high in the automotive logistics industry. Due to the huge difference between logistics in the automotive industry and ordinary logistics, there is basically no third-party platform that has an in-depth understanding of this industry. The platform parties that the company has contacted all refused. In the end, the company had no choice but to choose to focus on itself and the third party as a supplement.

Professor Wu explained that although there are currently some third-party platforms focusing on vertical industries or sub-sectors, they have limited understanding of a large number of other scenarios except the industrial scenarios they are familiar with, so they encounter Non-standardization requires a lot of energy, and even re-developed industrial Internet projects are unwilling to accept. In the end, enterprises can only make their own shots, which invisibly increases the cost and psychological threshold of self-exploration. What enterprises need is a platform with strong professional adaptability, and the platform prefers customers with strong versatility out of the requirements of profitability, which constitutes a basic contradiction.

Professor Wu believes that due to the large group of domestic manufacturing enterprises and their uneven levels, the process of industrial Internet transformation and upgrading will be relatively slow, which will bring at least 10-year opportunities for China , or even longer. He believes that a large enough market will eventually be formed, and both general-purpose platforms and subdivision platforms with strong industrial attributes will have enough living space. At present, we should avoid overemphasizing generality. Instead, we should deepen the exploration of application scenarios and focus on giving value created by the company.

President Liu Duo of the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology suggested that in the process of digital transformation driven by the industrial Internet, large and medium-sized enterprises should currently choose different implementation paths based on the concept of "adapting measures to local conditions": Exploration of Large-scale Enterprises Intelligent breakthroughs; medium-sized enterprises rely on original software and hardware tools to focus on the integration of digital capabilities; small enterprises focus on informatization supplementary courses.

Engineer Yin Yangpeng from the Institute of Information and Communications Technology also pointed out that the experience of other enterprises in applying the Industrial Internet can be learned and used for reference, but cannot be directly copied. Domestic enterprises still need to avoid blindly following the trend, explore down-to-earth, and flexibly use the industrial Internet to solve their own development problems.