By Belunn Se, business expert on the automation industry, based in Shenzhen, China
At the Hannover Messes Technology Summit on April 25-29, many leading hi-tech industry players had presented their latest products and technologies, while the summit was highlighting ‘Smart Factories’ and ‘Intelligent Manufacturing’ for "Industry 4.0," a term that originated in Germany and is synonymous with "IIoT(Industry Internet of Things)."
"Made in China 2025"
China is moving towards intelligent manufacturing as well. On May 19, 2015, the State Council (China's cabinet) had announced the "Made in China 2025" initiative. In Sep. 2015, Beijing had introduced the "Made in China 2025" Technology Roadmap to include 10 focal fields and 23 key directions.
On June 3, 2015, China's MIIT (Ministry of Industry and Information Technology) had listed 94 project cases for its Intelligent Manufacturing Special Project on its official website. There are plans to boost research institutes and large listed companies to coordinate together.
On Jan. 27, 2016, the State Council Executive Meeting announced a "Made in China 2025" special fund to kick-off landmark technology transformation projects.
Local governments have also adopted supporting measures for some cities; for instance, Foshan would support enterprises to utilize robotics and intelligent equipment into its ecosystem.
SMEs join "Machines Replacing Humans project"
Many SMEs (small, medium-sized enterprises) are planning to automate their plants, particularly electronics manufacturers located in the Pearl River Delta region, south China.
When visiting a plant in the consumer electronics industry, an executive said that they are approaching automation to enhance their competitiveness. A machine replacing a factory worker has become more typical.
Entrepreneurs seek to optimize their production facilities, since they are dealing with increasing market competition, labor wages, labor shortages, and an economic growth slowdown.
Automating production can upgrade efficiency, productivity, as well as quality stability, while relying less on manpower and minimizing the production fluctuation impact.
Financially, irrespective of government subsidies, to judge a project, ROI (Return on Investment) is a critical consideration for a product life cycle, which varies from different industries; usually 1-2 years of return in the electronics industry, 3-5 years might be affordable for the home appliances sector.
Machines and robots could do more jobs for humans, especially those applied in dangerous and harsh environments where they are expected to perform repeated and heavy-duty tasks.
Machines never feel fatigue and are advantageous for repeated accuracy; but we humans have our merits too, since we have eyes and hands that allow us think, as well as interact with people and our surroundings .
Nevertheless, new technology advancements have led to machine vision and smart sensors, which are driving down average investment costs. Some machines are doing tasks that were deemed impossible in the past. Numerous assembly lines have been automated with cooperative robots that are coupled with force torque sensors.
Smart plant and Intelligent Manufacturing
Catering to Industry 4.0, many large companies plan to upgrade their production plants into smart plants.
Meanwhile in Germany, Industry 4.0 is a vision for its future. Before upgrading to the so-called 4.0, there had been much more room for improvements in 2.0 and 3.0 for Chinese enterprises. To upgrade a plant in a practicable manner, priorities should follow from Down to Top:
Intelligent manufacturing
Digitisation & Informatisation
Automation(modularization & standarization)
Lean production
To meet Mass Customisation, industry 4.0 is characterized by intelligent and connected machine and work-pieces with CPS (Cyber Physical System), augmented reality, cloud computing and big data by vertical & horizontal integration.
Although the Smart Plant for Tomorrow is brilliant, it's not fully-ready in today's world.
After a period of theory and conception understanding, a System Integrator has to link a company's supply chain and management innovations; another challenge would be to attain a Smart Plant utilizing a wide-range of varieties in different industries such as automobiles, garments and etc., since every industry might need hardware and software architecture.
Hence, "Made in China 2025" Intelligent Manufacturing Special Project in some specific industries and selected large companies, as well as government financial support can accelerate a new wave of the industry revolution!
Belunn Se
Senior Industry Observer
Based in Shenzhen, China
belunn@foxmail.com
Wechat: belunn
( The opinions expressed here do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Panview or CCTV.com. )
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