At the end of the year and the beginning of the year, Xinhua reporters visited construction machinery, new energy vehicles, electronic information and other enterprises to observe how innovation has changed factories, industrial chains and products, and explore new trends in advanced manufacturing.

Factory: Visible intelligence, invisible accumulation

As more and more users order cars individually, from the color of the body to the size of the wheel, how can factories undertake diverse orders?

Recently, in the second production base of WEilai in Hefei, the reporter saw more than 700 orange robots in the body workshop of 80,000 square meters. The painting workshop is equipped with a "Rubik's cube" vehicle access platform, which changes the previous painting workshop's way of painting colors in order of order and constantly changing spray guns, optimizes the flat inventory into three-dimensional space, and sets 408 parking Spaces on 6 floors to reduce production halt. The final assembly workshop uses the "enclave" automatic assembly island, integrating the front and rear windshield, glass roof, instrument platform and tail door on the same automatic assembly island to complete the installation.

"The automatic assembly island replaces the serial manufacturing scheme with a parallel manufacturing scheme, turning the 'one-way street' of the workshop assembly line into a 'flyover', and the overall commissioning cycle is two-thirds shorter than the traditional scheme." Yu Dongming, general manager of Weilai Hefei Regional Company, said that the factory can achieve efficient and flexible production, which can meet more than 3.5 million personalized configuration combinations, and only 14 days from receiving orders to rolling off the assembly line.

Digital technology represented by artificial intelligence, big data and industrial Internet has become a key force in a new round of industrial change and is changing more and more Chinese factories:

In the Xiaomi mobile phone "black light factory", most of the more than 200 processes of a mobile phone from scratch are completed by smart devices. Every 40 seconds, a motherboard filled with more than 1,500 components is sent from the mounter, transported to the test track by the AGV car, and the robot takes the motherboard to the test point in turn.

In the wheel crane industrial manufacturing base of Xugong Group, the steel plate of 5 mm ~30 mm thick through intelligent sorting, automatic welding, unmanned processing and other processes can assemble a crane with about 5,200 parts and 34 tons every 25 minutes.

Haier washing machine connected factory applies "5.5G", advanced algorithms and digital twins and other technologies to track and schedule the whole process of thousands of material trucks in real time, as well as the ability to self-check the final assembly efficiency and intelligent recommendation efficiency optimization schemes to achieve cost reduction and efficiency improvement.

Data show that as of the end of December 2023, China has cultivated 421 state-level demonstration factories, more than 10,000 provincial digital workshops and smart factories.

Accelerating the digital transformation of the manufacturing industry is an inevitable requirement to comply with the trend of the new industrial revolution, enhance the level of industrial modernization, and build a modern industrial system. Tao Qing, spokesman for the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and director of the Operation Monitoring and Coordination Bureau, said that the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology will adhere to the main line of promoting the deep integration of information technology and new industrialization, build a solid foundation, promote it as a whole, find out the needs and pain points of enterprise transformation, adhere to the policy of individual enterprises, and encourage enterprises with a good digital foundation to accelerate the upgrade to the direction of intelligence.

Others are "advanced," hiding out of sight.

Dew point temperature minus 70 degrees Celsius - in Huizhou Ganfeng lithium Technology Co., Ltd. liquid injection workshop, reporters across the glass to see the electronic screen display this indicator.

"Using this indicator, we can monitor the dryness of the workshop and achieve extreme water control, as water can affect the quality of electronic products." Tao Zhe, head of the enterprise, said.

Desay Siwei, also in Huizhou, requires that "the cleanliness of the workshop that makes the display screen should reach the level of the pharmaceutical factory", that is, the 0.5 micron dust particles per cubic foot of air are less than 1,000. Before entering the workshop, the workers should go to the air shower to dust, and then change the full set of dustproof clothes, shoe covers and head covers. Materials are no exception, but also into the air shower.

In Liyang, Jiangsu province, a battery factory filters the air 25 times an hour, as clean as a heart bypass operating room.

From water control to dust removal, seemingly minutiae are actually long-term accumulated process specifications, representing the direction of advanced manufacturing.

Qin Hailin, chief engineer of CCID Research Institute, said that with the acceleration of the new generation of information technology and the integration of manufacturing, manufacturing production methods and enterprise forms are changing. At the visible level, there are the application of intelligent equipment, the construction of flexible production lines and the construction of data platforms, and at the invisible level, they are also accumulating manufacturing capabilities and skills, which continue to build the manufacturing advantages of Chinese factories.

Industrial chain: One side is gathering synergy, the other is vertical integration

In Guangzhou, Guangdong Province, the Pearl River winds its way in the northeast of Panyu, drawing an arc. Meiwan, 7,500 acres of GAC Zhailian new energy vehicle industrial park is a busy, last year 480,000 new energy vehicles produced here, sold to the world.

In December 2023, the Inpai Battery intelligent ecological factory in the industrial park was put into operation. A few hundred meters away, the Rupai Power plant is scheduled to start production on January 30. The parts production schedule of the three core technologies of battery, electric drive and electric control in the industrial park is expected to form a closer and efficient interaction with GAC Aean vehicle plant. At present, with the whole vehicle factory as the core, the core parts such as battery, electric control, chassis and body can be supplied within 10 kilometers, more than 60% of the supporting supply within 50 kilometers, and more than 80% of the supporting supply within 100 kilometers.

"We have built a supply chain that is as fast as 3 hours, and built major parts supply within 100 kilometers, not only to reduce transportation and storage links, but also to strengthen collaboration and improve production efficiency and product quality." Gac Aean general manager Gu Huinan said.

An autonomous, controllable, safe and reliable industrial system is the prerequisite and strategic support for new industrialization. The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology proposed to fully implement the high-quality development action of the manufacturing industry chain in 2024, consolidate and enhance the position of advantageous industries, accelerate the strengthening of the chain to supplement the chain to extend the chain, and enhance the competitiveness of the whole industry.

In the Pearl River Delta, there are both "three-hour supply chains" formed by industrial clusters, and enterprises are creating vertically integrated supply.

Byd, headquartered in Shenzhen, produced 3.04 million new energy vehicles in 2023, an increase of 62% year-on-year, which is behind almost the whole chain of "BYD made", both battery, electric drive, electronic control and other core components, but also including automotive chips, new materials, semiconductors and so on.

"During the COVID-19 pandemic, the supply of intelligent integrated braking systems and other components encountered a certain block, so we independently developed these components, and now a vertical integration has been formed, reducing costs and increasing efficiency." Byd brand and public relations general manager Li Yunfei said. Vertically integrated supply depends on strong independent research and development capabilities. Byd currently has about 100,000 research and development staff, and has introduced advanced technologies such as blade batteries and e Platform 3.0 in recent years.

"Specialized division of labor and integrated development are the two main forms of supply chain, each of which has its own advantages. Industrial agglomeration produces products with high efficiency and stable quality. The advantage of vertical integration is that the supply chain is more stable and controllable." The State Council Development Research Center industrial economy research department vice minister Xu Zhaoyuan said.

The relevant person in charge of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology believes that China's industry is still large but not strong, complete but not excellent, the problem of unbalanced and inadequate development is prominent, some key core technologies are subject to people, and the risks of the industrial chain and supply chain are increasing.

"Forward-looking planning, systematic layout and overall promotion." Xie Shaofeng, director of the Department of Science and Technology of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, said that the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology will plan and deploy major strategies and policies in relevant fields in advance, continue to strengthen the whole industry chain planning and medium - and long-term system layout, and focus on promoting the continuous cultivation of national new industrialization demonstration zones and advanced manufacturing clusters, improving the industrial science and technology innovation system, and promoting artificial intelligence enabling the whole industry system.

Product: tangible hardware, intangible ecology

The manufacturing industry is an important position for implementing the new development concept and an important engine for promoting high-quality development.

Product yield is the most direct index to measure manufacturing capacity. "Power batteries have extremely high safety requirements, and we put forward extreme manufacturing goals, using sensing technology, intelligent modeling and other processes to control safety risks and reduce the product defect rate." Ningde Times chairman Zeng Yuqun said.

"The circuit boards we produce strive for 'zero repair'. After a circuit board is automatically attached to the line, if the test is found to be unqualified, the conventional practice of the industry is to return to the production line for maintenance, we are scrapped after analysis and no longer use." Yang Yong, executive vice president of Desay Siwei, said.

To meet the people's personalized, diversified and constantly upgrading demands for products and services is the starting point and goal of promoting new industrialization. More and more companies are not only making better products, but also upgrading their services with new technologies.

On December 1, 2023, the screen of "Sany Group's C-side customer equipment big data Management platform" shows the real-time operation of 158,000 construction machinery equipment. The platform has accumulated access to data from more than 900,000 devices. The reporter saw that at 12:27 on the same day, the yellow light on the map of Songyuan, Jilin, was a local excavator customer issued a maintenance request; At 12:28, engineer Jiang Zixin took the order; At 13:10, the fault was rectified and the customer's equipment resumed operation.

"Every Sany device is equipped with a controller, allowing thousands of construction machinery to enter the era of big data." Tang Xiuguo, rotating chairman of Sany Group, said that the data generated in the use of equipment can be used to guide enterprise service improvement, research and development innovation and business expansion, and the massive data has also formed the well-known Sany "excavator index" in the industry.

Experts believe that making full use of digital intelligent technology and extending to high value-added research and development and services is one of the important directions of manufacturing upgrading.

"In the past, when communication, transportation and other technologies were underdeveloped, enterprises could not provide many products and services, and could only focus on the manufacturing link, but the current digital technology and globalization are highly developed, creating better conditions for manufacturing enterprises to upgrade to the design and sales end." Xu Zhaoyuan said.

The wave of digital intelligence led by science and technology has spawned a huge post-market system. A number of analysts said that China's manufacturing is experiencing the development from "buy from hand, money and goods" to "after-sales worry, product value added."

China's manufacturing industry is firmly moving forward. According to the deployment of the Central Economic Work Conference, relevant departments and industries are promoting the integration of scientific and technological innovation and industrial innovation, upgrading the level of the industrial chain, and focusing on building a modern industrial system with advanced manufacturing as the backbone. (Journalists Xiong Zhengyan, Gao Kang, Song Chen, Wu Tao, Bai Tiantian, Wu Huijun)