Marching into China's smart manufacturing

The world seems to be placing more emphasis on the development of manufacturing than ever before.

Since the destructive impact of the 2008 financial tsunami, all countries have been thinking about the development ideas of the past. In particular, the thinking of "heavy finance and light industry" in developed countries has begun to reverse, and manufacturing has once again become the strategic fulcrum of national economic development. .

“Intelligent Manufacturing” is developing globally

At the same time, the rapid progress of IT and automation technology has also injected new vitality into the manufacturing industry. The combination of a variety of new technologies has given birth to a new concept of future-oriented manufacturing - intelligent manufacturing. Interactive topic: In your eyes, what is "smart manufacturing"?

All countries will realize this concept as the goal of manufacturing development. We have seen that Germany took the lead in proposing the concept of "Industry 4.0", the United States proposed the "Advanced Manufacturing Partnership" (AMP) program, and Japan The implementation of "Intelligent Manufacturing System" (IMS), etc. These manufacturing powers are vigorously promoting the innovation plan of the manufacturing industry. , to achieve "intelligence", improve efficiency, reduce costs, and meet the increasingly diverse needs of consumers.

China, as a "world factory", is naturally unwilling to be resigned to others. The "Manufacturing 2025" plan has been put on the agenda. The goal is to become a global manufacturing power in 2025 and surpass Germany by 2035. , the United States, Japan and other manufacturing powerhouses.

Although "Made in China" has long been famous, most of them are still low-end manufacturing, and high-end manufacturing is still in the hands of European and American countries; at the same time, developed countries still have an absolute advantage in advanced manufacturing equipment that supports the development of manufacturing.

According to a report by research institute Gartner, 74% of the world's top 50 manufacturers of intelligent manufacturing equipment such as CNC machine tools, industrial robots, and intelligent control systems are from Germany, the United States, and Japan.

At the same time, on the demand side, China's smart equipment ownership still lags far behind developed countries in Europe and America. "In 2013, the number of robots per 10,000 workers was still 23, behind South Korea's 396, Japan's 332, Germany's 273, and the world average of 58. Including special sensors, intelligent instruments, automatic control systems, high-end The automated production of CNC systems and robots accounts for less than 5% of the total production." said Yi Ping, partner of PricewaterhouseCoopers Strategy& Management Consulting Co., Ltd. and vice president of Greater China.

The starting point is low, which just indicates that the development space is still very broad. For example, in terms of CNC machine tools, industrial robots, and intelligent control systems, the sales ratio of China, Japan and South Korea ranks the highest in the world. According to a report by Wohlers Associates, the sales volume of industrial robots in these three countries in 2013 was twice that of Europe and 3.4 times that of the Americas.

It can be seen that Asia has become a hot spot for global demand for intelligent manufacturing equipment, and China is undoubtedly the main force. "With the transformation of the manufacturing industry to high value-added, the rising cost of human resources, the reorganization and optimization of production processes and other factors, the application of intelligent manufacturing equipment such as robots in China's manufacturing industry has broad prospects." Yi Ping pointed out.

Decision-makers are also aware of the importance of intelligent manufacturing equipment to the transformation and upgrading of China's manufacturing industry. Development goals from 2015 to 2020. Therefore, the next 5 to 10 years will be a period of rapid development of China's intelligent manufacturing industry.

All major manufacturers have sensed this business opportunity and have increased their efforts in the Chinese market. For example, ABB Group, the world leader in industrial robots, has actively entered into new industries such as 3C electronics, food and medicine and other Chinese robot applications based on its twenty years of deep cultivation in the Chinese robot market.

We see that in the field of industrial robots, European and American manufacturers still master core technologies. "For example, the core components of industrial robots such as servo motors and reducers are still monopolized by foreign manufacturers." Sun Zhiqiang, chairman of Guangzhou Risong Technology, who has nearly 20 years of experience in the field of chemical integration, said frankly.

In his opinion, the current state support for the intelligent manufacturing equipment industry is a good thing, but it is also necessary to respect the market rules. "It can't be like the wind power and photovoltaic industries, because inappropriate incentives cause bubbles."

It is encouraging that local businesses are indeed struggling to grow. For example, in the field of industrial robots, local companies such as Guangzhou CNC and Risong Technology are rising; Chinese companies such as Advantech have become industry leaders in the field of intelligent control.

As an emerging concept, it can be said that "smart manufacturing" has not yet formed a clear form of realization on a global scale. "At present, no company has the courage to announce that it has built a smart factory. But there are already one or two large international companies building model factories," Yiping said.

Application of Chinese Enterprises: Surprise and Defect.

In CEConline's survey of 100 export manufacturing business owners, we also found that they are smart There are not only many shortcomings, but also many surprises in the cognition, use, and investment planning of manufacturing equipment.

For example, when asked what smart manufacturing equipment was used, 32.7% of respondents said they used industrial robots (robot arms), and 41.6% said they used digital machine tools; and when asked about investing in the introduction of intelligent When the budget of manufacturing equipment accounts for the proportion of the total investment budget, 44% of the respondents said that the proportion was 1%-10%, and 32.1% said that the proportion was 11%-20%. It can be seen that the penetration rate of equipment is still good. The enthusiasm for the transformation of the production line is also relatively high.

However, from the perspective of the breadth and depth of application, the questionnaire shows that most enterprises are not used to using intelligent manufacturing equipment.

For example, 52.5% of the respondents said that the company's internal infrastructure, manpower and other conditions do not meet the requirements for the use of industrial robots. At the same time, due to the uncertainty of the cost-return ratio and the cycle, many respondents still have doubts about the use of industrial robots. For example, 60.4% of the respondents said that the price of industrial robots is too high to bear, and 44.6% said that the cost of return | The collection cycle is too long, and the investment risk is high.

However, due to the gradual disappearance of the demographic dividend and the younger generation becoming more and more unwilling to stay on the boring assembly line, the manufacturing industry, which traditionally wins with intensive labor, must start to transform and upgrade.

We see that among the many directions of transformation and upgrading, the interviewed entrepreneurs are very interested in "automating production lines with industrial robots, etc.", and 66.3% of the respondents indicated that they would use this to cope with rising labor costs challenge. It can be seen from this that moving towards intelligent manufacturing is not only the expectation of decision-makers, but also the desire of entrepreneurs.

The future blueprint is worth looking forward to

At present, the blueprint of "smart manufacturing" is still unclear, and all parties are exploring. According to Yiping's observation, the core of intelligent manufacturing is to realize the intelligentization of R&D and manufacturing processes and products, including personalized customer needs and design, information access and sharing between suppliers and manufacturers, and quick response to after-sales service. The realization of "smart factories" in the other links and manufacturing links constitute the key components of intelligent manufacturing.

The smart factory allows consumers to participate through the open development process, extensively collects consumer demand and behavior data, optimizes and improves the product design plan during multiple interactions, and forms a preliminary product design plan. In the production process, smart factories control product quality by designing data collection at key nodes, monitoring in real time, and filing after the event, placing unique codes for products to track products, and attaching consumer data collection tools to products ( Can be hardware or software) to collect consumer behavior data to help them with after-sales service and product improvement.

Such a process forms a closed loop for smart factories to differentiate consumers' needs, endows products with interactivity, traceability and uniqueness, thus effectively solving the contradiction between factory mass production and consumers' differentiated needs .

"This new model will undoubtedly bring more flexibility to production. All parts involved in production are widely interconnected due to the Internet of Things. Manufacturers are expected to achieve Just In Time, perhaps Factory production, which was originally managed according to the season, will be cut into smaller units, which can not only dynamically plan to smooth production fluctuations, but also adjust production capacity faster in response to market reactions; on the other hand, smart factories can also enhance the factory The ability of managers to support decision-making, extensive interconnected production data, consumer demand data, etc., provide managers with the latest trends in the market, changes in consumer behavior, product life cycle failure, the direction of factory operation improvement, and key links in supply chain management, etc. A series of forecasting and decision-making capabilities." Yiping pointed out.

The future vision of "smart manufacturing" is exciting, and it can be said that we are currently on the eve of a major change. For Chinese companies, the gap with European and American companies is not as big as before, and in some fields it has even reached the leading level. Therefore, in this round of industrial transformation, we expect Chinese companies to overtake in corners and achieve "quality" in manufacturing. leap".

In the next three cases, we can see not only the leading strength of international intelligent manufacturing equipment enterprises, but also the rapid rise of Chinese enterprises, and more and more Chinese manufacturing enterprises using intelligent Manufacturing equipment.