From Mask Production To Enterprise Reemployment, Post Epidemic Era: How To Transform China'S Manufacturing Digitalization?

Since December 2019, a new outbreak of coronavirus pneumonia has erupted throughout the country. The current new crown epidemic has gradually shifted from the peak to the control period. The impact of the epidemic will end, but the impact on the social economy will continue. So what kind of pattern will China face in the post epidemic era?

01

Flexible production and digital transformation of manufacturing enterprises from the perspective of mask production

Faced with the sudden outbreak of new crown pneumonia, masks have become a scarce market in the market.

Most enterprises that can mask their production in a special period have more automated and digitalized production lines, so that they can avoid the aggregation of personnel and cause the spread of the disease while resuming production.

At the same time, in addition to the traditional masks manufacturers, Foxconn, SAIC GM Wuling, Chang Ying precision manufacturing enterprises, and intelligent manufacturing system integration enterprises such as Li Yuan Heng and wild robot have also quickly joined the mask production team.

These cross-border manufacturers rely on strong flexible production capacity and digital foundation support, forming mask production capacity in a very short time.

Flexible production system is an engineering manufacturing system that allows a certain degree of product change and can be automated production because of changes that can be expected or unexpected.

The flexible production system can achieve different degrees of elasticity, which is related to the components of the system and its digitalization degree.

The main feature of flexible manufacturing system is that it does not require frequent replacement of production machinery in the process of product replacement. It only needs to rely on its flexible components and complete digital production system to correct system parameters, so that it can meet diversified product needs.

Therefore, behind the flexible production is the transformation of enterprise digitalization. In the epidemic situation, it is possible to reproduce for the first time, which truly reflects the role played by digitalization of flexible production and production systems supported by production intelligence in coping with the demand for short-term diversified products.

02

Look at the trend of intelligent manufacturing led by intelligent chemical plant from enterprise rework

The shortage of labor force in a short time can be regarded as the biggest impact of the outbreak of the new crown pneumonia outbreak on the manufacturing sector during the Spring Festival.

The total number of working age population in China has declined year by year, which is undoubtedly worse for the enterprises with insufficient labor force.

But it may be another motive force to promote the intelligent transformation of enterprises.


Faced with the gradual control of the epidemic, how to restore production steadily and orderly has become an unavoidable topic.

Under the influence of unfavorable factors such as the lack of labor force, shortage of protective equipment, and the crowd's fear of personnel intensive production, the capacity recovery of the traditional manufacturing industry is facing a major crisis.

It also makes many enterprises face enormous pressure to survive, and it is more likely to usher in immeasurable consequences of the global supply chain instead.

Case: intelligent chemical plant represented by Baosteel

Relying on its extensive and in-depth digital transformation foundation, and using the long-range operation and maintenance technology based on big data and artificial intelligence, Baosteel has transformed the cold rolling galvanizing intelligent workshop of Baoshan base into a "black light factory" which operates 24 hours without needing many people to be on duty.

This way of "no meeting production" has become a sharp weapon for Baosteel to achieve a stable and high-yield defensive war. It is also a dividend that has been vigorously promoted by intelligent manufacturing, which has helped Baosteel pass the crisis in this special period.

In order to cope with the problems of labor shortage, weak demand under the line, disruption of supply chain and tight capital chain, the industrial Internet will give full play to its technological advantages, connect downstream needs and upstream supply of enterprises, help enterprises accurately connect customers, and realize the online office work of employees through remote collaboration. Based on the prediction of market changes, enterprises will find the key direction of development. And relying on platforms to connect capital and enterprises to ease financial constraints.

03

The epidemic is the danger of the industry, and digital transformation is the key of the enterprise.

With the arrival of the epidemic, many Chinese manufacturing enterprises are facing the dilemma of being forced to stop production. The development of the global manufacturing industry will not stagnate because of any regional stoppage.

Including TOYOTA, Hyundai and many other enterprises have begun to expand the scale of procurement in China and Southeast Asia, in order to cope with the insufficient capacity of Chinese manufacturing enterprises, which will pose great challenges to the position of Chinese manufacturing enterprises in the global manufacturing supply chain.

Facing the potential productivity replacement crisis, domestic manufacturers need to take a more forward-looking layout to cope with the changes in the international situation, so as to ensure that our manufacturing industry will continue to maintain its unique advantages in international competition.

Faced with such a situation, accelerating the digital transformation of manufacturing industry is a good medicine for enterprises to save themselves.

The new Shanghai Baoshan base factory of Baosteel, the new lighthouse factory, has demonstrated its unique advantages in dealing with the epidemic situation: the intelligent production system covering the whole plant not only improves production efficiency, but also achieves effective balance between epidemic prevention and control and stable production in a special period.

Foxconn's "lights out factory" has been fully automated through the introduction of industrial Internet and intelligent manufacturing, and can complete production without manual participation.

Whether Foxconn or Baoshan Iron and steel company, the enterprises that can go upstream upstream in crisis are all pioneers in the digital transformation of manufacturing industry. Sudden crises may further speed up the transformation of enterprises.

The industrial Internet will continue to support the digital transformation of manufacturing industry through the full link of the industrial economic total factor chain, the entire industrial chain and the full value chain, and further rebuild the industrial production and manufacturing service system through the constantly expedited new technologies, new models and new industries.

The focus of the development of industrial Internet will sink to the front-line of producing industrial data, take edge computing as the main direction to promote the intelligent flow of industrial data, and serve the industrial enterprises and the various demand sides of industrial Internet more accurately in the form of cloud side collaboration.

04

Suggestions on Digitalized transformation of enterprises

1, clear awareness of digital transformation.

Digital transformation is not a simple machine replacement, rather than a simple communication technology transformation, but to form a comprehensive synergy of hardware and software in the factory, truly digitalized, online, and open up the entire internal data chain of the enterprise.

The transformation of digitalization is a great change to enterprises, and it is bound to have hardships in the process.

However, when the enterprise has completed a series of digital transformation such as business form, organizational structure, technology management and enterprise culture, it will grow and expand in the digital wave at an efficient and agile speed, and be able to deal with emergencies such as the new crown pneumonia epidemic.

In this regard, first of all, we must improve the cognition of all the staff in the enterprise, especially the senior and middle managers.

Based on data, assets and technology, and relying on talents, we can build a technological platform system that supports continuous business innovation.

2, accelerate the embrace of the new generation of information technology.

The application of the new generation of information technology in manufacturing industry is not only automation of production lines, but also should be accelerated in the fields of enterprise management, remote collaboration, and even online conferences.

Since the outbreak of the new crown pneumonia, "cloud office", "virtual production" and "cloud manufacturing" have all become popular words during the war.

Many telecommuting softwares occupy the top of APP list. Alibaba first surpassed WeChat, ranking first in apple App Store ranking, while enterprise WeChat rose to third in the list and fourth in Tencent conference.

The stability and intelligence of remote office software are the main factors that affect user experience. All kinds of new applications will help manufacturers upgrade comprehensively from management, operation, production, logistics and sales.

For example, cloud MES, which integrates MES management, cloud platform storage and big data computing functions, can not only achieve efficient execution in task allocation, data acquisition, production tracking, quality control, resource management, etc., but also use artificial intelligence technology to analyze cloud data at later stage of production, and further identify problems, summarize causes and continuous improvement.

3, promote digital twinning and virtual production as the starting point to clarify the path of digital transformation of manufacturing enterprises.

Unlike pure CAD, CAE and CAM, digital twins are a new manufacturing mode supported by data and models, digital twins and digital threads. They can connect, map, analyze and feedback physical world assets and behaviors in real time, so that the industrial total factor, the whole industrial chain and the whole value chain can be optimized to the maximum extent.

Digital twins contain the interface between the virtual world and the real physical world. Therefore, the development of digital twin technology is the key step to achieve virtual production, and it is also a good starting point to promote the digital transformation of enterprises.