Towards China's Smart Manufacturing

What is Smart Manufacturing?

Haier's unmanned factory tells you that you can "build" a custom-made refrigerator with the click of a mouse at home through the Internet.

"That is to say, the customer's product demand input can be analyzed, decomposed, deployed, manufactured, and distributed by the system itself in all aspects of the supply chain such as product manufacturing and distribution, and it is an efficient and high-quality product. , the process of low management cost.” explained Yun Jiyuan, partner of Hejun Consulting and deputy director of Hejun Intelligent Manufacturing Research Center.

It can be seen that intelligent manufacturing puts forward high requirements on the software and hardware management of the entire chain, and is an innovative business model. For enterprises, intelligent manufacturing is a tool for improving quality and efficiency, which can effectively reduce labor costs and improve product quality and operating efficiency.

The current Chinese manufacturing industry is fading from the halo of yesterday's "world factory" and moving towards "smart manufacturing". "In today's new era of mobile internet, artificial intelligence, intelligent hardware, and intelligent manufacturing are the strategic choices Midea must make." Fang Hongbo, chairman of Midea Group, once said.

Yun Jiyuan said: "Generally speaking, the domestic home appliance industry and electronics industry are still labor-intensive. Haier, Midea, etc. started planning and deploying intelligent manufacturing upgrades a few years ago, and have explored and created industry-leading models. ."

As an important force in China's economic construction, the electronics industry and the home appliance industry are leading this intelligent revolution, and more and more enterprises are beginning to introduce advanced equipment, improve production technology, and enhance informatization. management, and has made rapid progress as a result.

"This is a rare historical opportunity, and China is expected to lead a new round of industrial revolution," said Jiang Haibing, chairman and CEO of Shenzhen Haimingde Technology Co., Ltd. He believes that the current infrastructure of China's electronics and household appliances industry is complete, the industrial chain is concentrated, and the technical process is improved, all of which have a good foundation and conditions for intelligent reform. Therefore, this article will consider the path of China's traditional manufacturing industry towards intelligent manufacturing by looking at the intelligent reform experience of leading companies in the electronics and home appliance industries.

From "machine substitution" to "customized production"

In the home appliance industry, the reform of intelligent manufacturing basically follows the path of "machine substitution" to "customized production" .

According to industry experts , China's robot density in the general industrial field is only one tenth of Germany's, and there is still a lot of room for development. Due to the rising cost of labor and the continuous decline of the cost of robots, the labor-intensive home appliance industry enterprises have begun to carry out the first step of intelligent reform by "replacing people with machines".

Lu Zhangyuan, a senior analyst at the Advanced Industrial Robot Research Institute (GGII), believes that the application of robots in the home appliance industry has grown by more than 30% in recent years. Among them, the most representative are the home appliance giants such as Midea, Haier, Gree, etc., whose layout in the field of automation equipment and intelligent equipment is particularly rapid.

Midea Group once told the media that "robot substitution" is the long-term strategy of Midea Group. Coincidentally, Haier also mentioned that its goal will be to be an "unmanned chemical factory". And Gree introduced digitally controlled production units, so there are few workers in the huge workshop.

It is understood that Gree's independent research and development of industrial robots mainly focuses on the two major research fields of industrial robots and high-end CNC machine tools. At present, it has mastered the core technology of industrial automation, and its production efficiency has increased by 20%. Midea Group chose Yaskawa, one of the four major international robot companies, for cooperation to jointly develop and expand the industrial market, and then successfully acquired Kuka, one of the four major robot families in the world, to create more conditions for the advancement of the group's deep intelligence strategy.

Regardless of whether it is independent research and development or cooperation with professional technical teams, representative enterprises in the household appliance industry have further improved efficiency and production capacity while optimizing the production process by integrating and optimizing resource allocation. On the other hand, intelligent manufacturing is not simply the replacement of people by machines. Yun Jiyuan believes that intelligent manufacturing has higher requirements for people. "Machine software can replace 'human hands' but not 'human brains'. Enterprises should pay more attention to human training and do a good job in 'talent upgrading'."

"To do intelligent manufacturing, we must cultivate talents. Only with talents can we have practice. From planning and design to execution, to later operation and maintenance, experienced talents are required to participate." Midea Group Wuhan Refrigeration Equipment Co., Ltd. Tong Hailin, Minister of Manufacturing, told CEConline. He is directly involved in leading the smart manufacturing transformation and upgrading of the Air Conditioning Division, the largest business unit of Midea Group.

Machine substitution is only the first step, interconnection on the basis of automated production, and the ultimate realization of "customized production" is the real intelligent manufacturing. In Tong Hailin's view, customization means flexible manufacturing, and there are conflicts and contradictions between flexible manufacturing and automation, which need to be innovatively solved by enterprises according to local conditions to meet consumers' personalized needs for products.

It is understood that the "transparent factory" launched by Haier is an intelligent factory based on the concept of "user-centered". The goal of the factory is to allow global consumers to participate in Haier's product design and production. in the segment.

According to public information, Haier has been preparing to build an intelligent interconnected factory as early as 2012. This factory is not simply an automated assembly line such as a robotic arm, but a “flexible production line” and an “intelligent interconnected factory”. The goal is to meet the customized needs of the majority of users.

This is an important step to upgrade from automated production to intelligent manufacturing, that is, to further informatization reform on the basis of automation to form interconnection, so that in the process of production, not only can product data be collected and accumulated, It can also facilitate the analysis of big data in the later stage, so as to continuously improve the production process and dig deeper into the needs of users.

However, the transition from automation to intelligence still has a long way to go. Jiang Haibing said: "Let's take a look at the main differences between automation and intelligence: first, all functions and systems of an intelligent enterprise form an intelligent interconnection; second, automation can improve efficiency, while intelligence is to collect demand and realize demand. During the process, enterprises can determine the proportion of different final needs through big data analysis, and provide personalized products to customers, achieve intelligent judgment, and automatically allocate orders. This will not only not increase costs, but also bring greater benefits to the enterprise. Profits. Of course, each stage is based on the perfect foundation of the previous stage for development. It is impossible to directly skip the previous stage and jump to the next stage. The enterprise needs to lay a solid foundation.”

From "top-level design" to "key breakthrough"

China is a global electronics manufacturing center, and the electronics industry is so large that it will become the next focus of intelligent manufacturing. Lu Yang, director of Siemens Camstar MES solution consulting, once said that the current level of automation and intelligence in the field of electronic information manufacturing is second only to the automotive industry.

In the electronics manufacturing industry, the widespread application of robots has brought more significant operational benefits to electronics manufacturing enterprises. It is understood that ZTE has established a smartphone production base, and the factory is equipped with a fully automatic production line, which uses full-process automatic production from single-board test loading, fully automatic sub-board dispensing, and complete machine audio testing. Some aspects of the factory are fully automated production, which has increased the output by 40% compared with the previous traditional production line.

The smart factory established by Huawei uses technologies such as mobile Internet of Things, cloud computing, and big data to achieve the goal of more refined production. In Huawei's view, "Industry 4.0" is inseparable from big data, cloud computing and the Internet of Things. It is essentially the "integration of informatization and industrialization", that is, the integration of informatization and industrialization. Specifically, it is the deep integration of enterprise production systems and IT.

At present, many electronic enterprises have a high degree of automation, but they are still a long way from being intelligent. Most enterprises are still in the exploratory stage, and there are still many manufacturing and process aspects that need to be improved. Funding is a big problem for companies to build smart factories. Experts in the industry suggest that electronic companies should first make overall planning when building a smart factory. Under the top-level planning, they should determine the goals of informatization and automation, and then plan the cost of investment and post-maintenance through practice.

Yun Jiyuan said: "If described according to the definition of Industry 4.0, the electronics industry is between 2.0 and 3.0, and a small number of fields begin to move from 3.0 to 4.0." The manufacturing capacity of PCB boards (printed circuit boards, whose main function is to provide the mutual electrical connection of various parts) is relatively high, and the manufacturing of semiconductor chips is the most complicated. Some industry practitioners have said that semiconductor chip manufacturing is by far the most complex process created by human beings.

From this perspective, Yun Jiyuan believes: "A large part of the electronics industry is the upstream of application-end industries such as home appliances, automobiles, communications, aerospace, surveying, machine tools, and robots. In the long run, It is more necessary to upgrade ability and investment. This is the foundation and internal strength. I also hope to see that in the chip, integrated circuit, and high-end electronic components industry, we can also produce giants such as Intel and Knowles, or small but beautiful ones. Hidden champion."

As a world-class manufacturer of power management and cooling solutions, and a global leader in the computer, telecommunications, consumer electronics and network communication industries, Delta Electronics Co., Ltd. from Taiwan Co., Ltd. has been deeply involved in mainland China for 25 years. Under the new situation of climate change and sustainable social development, the company has organically combined green manufacturing and intelligent manufacturing, and has embarked on a development path that closely follows the pulse of the times.

From the perspective of this wave of intelligent reforms generated by home appliance and electronic enterprises, Yun Jiyuan suggested: "The intelligent manufacturing revolution of home appliance and electronic enterprises naturally spawned by market demand will lead to leaders, which is the choice of the market. , is a pull; and the electronics industry requires the participation of large enterprises and innovative enterprises, and also requires the preferential support of policies and funds at all levels, the participation of social resources such as financial institutions, and the combination of push and pull.”

In any case, intelligent manufacturing is not a sentence Empty slogans are not suitable for all enterprises at this stage. In this regard, Yun Jiyuan said: "First of all, it is still necessary to understand what problems intelligent manufacturing can solve. Enterprise upgrading, cost reduction, higher efficiency, and faster response, those can bring the core value of the enterprise, and then pass on the value. Pay attention to customers The choice is the product solution, not just the product itself, that is to say, the transition from product competition to business model competition. Don't take the intelligent reform as a movement to respond to the call, you must judge the situation, act according to your strength, set a good model, Do a good job of planning to avoid wrong directions and paths. In short, focus on value creation, and implement innovation in models.”

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