10 Steps to Intelligent Manufacturing!

Many enterprises have lost their way in the environment of "Industry 4.0, intelligent manufacturing, Internet plus" and other concepts flying everywhere. They don't know how to start. They blindly follow others' lead. They follow others' lead in automation. They follow others' lead in informatization. They are likely to be killed before they see the landing of intelligent manufacturing.

In fact, both smart manufacturing and smart factories have their own implementation conditions and paths, and there are no shortcuts to take. Different industries and enterprises will have different paths.

Generally speaking, the following ten path directions are the only way for Chinese industry to move from manufacturing to intelligent manufacturing, but for different industries and different enterprises, due to different market demand patterns, different product processes, different management bases, and so on, the focus is different, but you can always find a few feasible ways to intelligent manufacturing.     

NO.1

lean

Lean production was originally designed for personalized needs of multiple varieties and small batches, with its two pillars being "just in time" and "intelligent automation".

So far, Lean has evolved into a lean management concept and method that involves the entire value chain of marketing, research and development, supply chain, production, processes, and even entrepreneurship, driving the transformation of global industries from manufacturing to service. Its pursuit of the idea, method, and tool of "creating value and eliminating waste" has promoted the optimization of production resource allocation, resulting in rapid improvements in quality, efficiency, and response speed.

According to the experience of enterprises, as long as they persist in doing it, most of them can gain 50% or even higher room for improvement. Unfortunately, Lean has not been effectively implemented in most enterprises in China. Most of them only talk about it verbally because of their eagerness for quick success and lack of experience and methods, and they cannot persist and give up halfway.

Intelligent manufacturing cannot be built on such inefficient production models. Lean is the first step that must be taken and the path with the highest return on investment. Because lean requires almost no additional investment from the enterprise, simply reconfiguring production resources on the existing basis can yield returns beyond imagination.

The successful implementation of lean is not difficult, the key lies in the determination of the leadership and the transformation of the management's mindset.

NO.2

standardization

Standardization is the foundation of automation and a prerequisite for intelligent manufacturing.

Domestic enterprises marvel at the high degree of automation in the automotive industry. One important reason why complex products like cars can be used while simple products like home appliances cannot is standardization.

The commonly adopted strategies in the automotive industry, such as shared platforms and universal components, have greatly reduced product costs. By changing the original method of producing parts based on the entire vehicle to producing parts based on the entire vehicle, standardized parts can be produced in bulk, successfully reducing costs.

Standardization also includes standardized work processes and methods. With standardization, automation can be developed based on this, such as automatic welding and assembly. Assuming that the components are constantly changing and the work methods are not fixed, automation will be difficult to achieve, even if the implementation cost is high.

NO.3

modularization

Automobiles and computers were the earliest industries to achieve modularity. From modular design, procurement, to modular production, modularity is also the key to whether intelligent manufacturing can meet personalized consumption at low cost. If implemented, truly personalized products will become possible, such as mobile phones. Everyone's phone can be unique, and people can freely combine their favorite phones like building blocks.

Modularization reduces the complexity from design, procurement to production, standardized interfaces and connection methods increase universality, reduce manufacturing costs and cycles, and make automated production, logistics, and information communication easier to achieve. Previously, the chargers for each mobile phone brand were different, and they were all discarded after replacing the phone, causing a lot of waste. Now there are improvements.

Modular implementation is relatively difficult, involving industry and enterprise standards, and requires the joint participation of upstream and downstream enterprises. This is a long-term task, so it is particularly important to build lean strategic partnerships between each other.

NO.4

automation

Automation is the most talked about aspect of intelligent manufacturing, with many local governments and businesses referring to it as' machine for human 'and making constant attempts, both successful and unsuccessful.

Enterprises can integrate the discrete processing methods of raw material processing through independent innovation, connect independent processes through automated production lines, and implement lean continuous production, eliminating intermediate links such as loading, unloading, storage, and handling. This will improve production speed and efficiency.

Automation and informatization are the largest investments in achieving intelligent manufacturing. Enterprises must be cautious before undergoing automation transformation. Why upgrade automation? What is the investment return rate? What is the reliability of automation equipment? What are the risks? Can it adapt to product upgrades and replacements? You must think carefully, otherwise the cost will increase instead of decreasing.

With the advancement of technology and the increase in labor costs, automation is an irreversible trend. For different industries and enterprises, some have mature automation solutions while others do not. Enterprises need to plan their automation direction based on their own situation.

NO.5

servitization

At present, China has more than 600 million Internet users and 700 million intelligent terminals. The vigorous development of mobile Internet has accelerated the transformation from manufacturing to service. The "industrial Internet" advocated by the United States connects people, data and machines to form an open and global industrial network. Its connotation has gone beyond the manufacturing process and the manufacturing industry itself, across the entire value chain of the product life cycle, covering aviation, energy, transportation, medicine and other industrial fields.

In addition, manufacturing enterprises can also monitor, analyze, and improve the design and manufacturing of equipment through networked data, thereby enhancing product reliability and efficiency.

Of course, different industries have different products and different service contents. Under the Internet plus model, traditional enterprises need to constantly innovate business models to find a suitable service mode to impress customers.

NO.6

personalization

In the past 30 years, the variety of products in the market has rapidly expanded by dozens or hundreds of times. In the era of personalized consumption, everyone can have their own blog, Weibo, WeChat, etc. to spread their voice.

The high-quality and low-cost personalized implementation first depends on your lean production level, which advocates "value comes from the pull of real customer demand". The implementation of personalization depends on your standardized and modular design. The rapid development of information technology such as the Internet provides support for it, making it easy to realize personalization.

At present, personalization is still limited and cannot achieve complete personalization. Whether it is cars, computers, mobile phones, clothing and other products, personalization is within a certain range of choices.

Each enterprise needs to determine its personalized mode based on its lean level, standardization/modularization level, and informatization level. It is not necessarily better to be more personalized, but rather based on certain implementation conditions. Perhaps the development of 3D printing and artificial intelligence in the future can provide a possibility for complete personalization.

NO.7

Ecological transformation

The competition among enterprises is gradually shifting from individual enterprises to competition between supply chains and even ecosystems. kevin. Kelly wrote in "Out of Control": "The wave of alliances between large corporations, especially in the information and network industries, is another aspect of the growing co evolution of the world economy. Instead of devouring or competing with competitors, it is better to form alliances - symbiotic coexistence... The future of control is: partnership, collaborative control, human-machine hybrid control, where humans share control with our creations

NO.8

globalization

In today's world of interconnectivity, when your enterprise reaches a certain scale, you need to consider globalization to allocate resources, improve efficiency, and reduce costs. Global resources include market resources, design resources, procurement resources, and production resources.

China's "the Belt and Road" strategy is to find global market resources and export our spare capacity, including high-speed rail technology. Design resources refer to setting up research and development technology centers abroad to develop products that are close to the local market or to make up for the lack of domestic design capabilities. They can also form a global 24-hour uninterrupted product development to shorten the research and development cycle.

Purchasing and production resources are seeking global material suppliers with better quality and lower costs. In addition to considering purchasing and manufacturing unit prices, it is also necessary to consider issues such as increased transportation costs, supply chain complexity, supply chain visualization, longer delivery cycles, higher inventory, environmental carbon emissions, quality stability, local labor policies, and exchange rate fluctuations.

NO.9

digitalization

Digitization and informatization are closely related, and like automation, this is the biggest investment in the transformation of intelligent manufacturing. With the rapid development of information technology, everything can be digitized, from people, products to devices, realizing the connection of everything.

Products can be digitized through PLM/ERP software, from product development and design, material procurement to production and delivery. Every product drawing, material information, and production process are digitally connected together.

The equipment can transmit operation data to MES, Internet and other networks through PLC, sensors, etc., so GE can optimize its operation parameters through data analysis returned by aircraft engines to reduce fuel costs, and Google can realize unmanned driving of cars.

This means that in the era of Industry 4.0, it is possible for resources, information, goods, and people to be interconnected through digitization for the first time! This type of communication includes information exchange between people, people and products, people and machines, products and machines, and machines and machines.

The characteristics and foundations of each industry are different, and the order of achieving digitalization is also different. I think for those process oriented manufacturing industries, because most of their manufacturing processes are already connected and highly automated, some equipment data can already be automatically collected, and the difficulty of digitization is relatively small.

For discrete manufacturing industries such as mechanical equipment, textiles and clothing, electronic appliances, household goods, etc., due to the dispersed manufacturing processes and large quantities of components, it is indeed difficult to achieve connections, and even the implementation cost will be very high. The feasible approach for these industries is not to go all in one step, but to gradually implement them. Firstly, apply lean continuous production technology to connect the main processes and materials.

Due to the immaturity of technology and the huge investment, each enterprise needs to weigh the timing of introduction, just like automation, comprehensively consider issues such as investment return, system reliability, information security risks, and talent reserves.

NO.10

intelligentization

Intelligence includes two meanings, one is the intelligence of products, and the other is the intelligence of manufacturing processes.

Firstly, let's talk about the intelligence of the product. Compared to the intelligence of consumer goods, the intelligence of industrial products is actually more urgent. All devices need to be equipped with intelligent control modules for automatic collection, analysis, and control of processing data, equipped with standard data interfaces that can be connected to enterprise MES systems or other information systems. These industrial big data will help improve operational efficiency, reduce failures, and lower energy consumption through intelligent software system calculations and analysis.

The intelligentization of the manufacturing process is more complex, and you need to complete the transformation of lean, standardization, modularization, automation, and digitization mentioned above. The investment in automation and digitization will also be significant.

Made in China has gone through 30 years of rapid development and become the world's largest manufacturing country, but there are very few world-class products that can truly be produced. In the next 30 years, Chinese manufacturing needs to shift from heavy speed and light quality to heavy quality and light speed, and continuous innovation is needed in the above ten areas to achieve the transformation towards Chinese intelligent manufacturing in terms of business models, technology, and management.

Information source: Intelligent Manufacturing