SHANGHAI: Nearly two years after the first BAO robot took office at Baosteel in Shanghai, the country’s largest steelmaker has brought many more such smart robots as part of its digital transformation.
China Baowu Steel Group Corporation planned to introduce more than 10,000 BAO robots by 2026. Unlike their predecessors, the new robots are powered by smart cloud platforms.
In recent years, beacon factories, unmanned factories and smart factories have been growing in China. Increased productivity there offers insight into how new, high-quality manufacturing forces are driving high-quality growth in the world’s second-largest economy.
Inside the massive factory of Aptiv Electrical Centers (Shanghai) Co., Ltd. a number of robots and CNC machine tools and automatically controlled vehicles work. It is rare to see human workers.
A smart system precisely ensures all production processes in the factory of Aptiv, the world’s leading supplier of automotive connectors.
A smart factory is not just automation replacing human labor, but a complete digital entertainment, from research and development and production to logistics and after-sales service, said Yang Xiaoming, president of Aptiv China and Asia Pacific.
Yang said the smart factory has reduced operating costs by 30 percent, while the company’s annual sales have grown by double digits over the past three years.
In traditional car manufacturing, buyers often have to choose between standard models. However, the SAIC MAXUS Smart Factory in Nanjing offers personalized customization services and has been awarded the title of Lighthouse Factory by the World Economic Forum in Davos.
Customers can choose from thousands of configurations and customize their desired models in just three minutes at no additional cost. After placing an order, they can monitor the production progress in real time.
“Our Nanjing factory has achieved smart logistics and manufacturing, and even our ties with hundreds of suppliers are digitally connected,” said Hao Jingxian, CEO of SAIC MAXUS. “We are also a transparent factory with products displayed to users at different stages.”
These are the epitome of how smart manufacturing is transforming factories. By the end of 2023, China has incubated 421 demonstration factories at the national level and more than 10,000 digital workshops and smart factories at the provincial level, official data shows.
Other smart factory plans are spreading across the country. Beijing plans to add another 100 smart factories and digital workshops by 2026. Shanghai plans to build 70 city-level smart factories this year.
Authorities will offer political support for more than 70 percent of the new smart factories to be demonstrated and tested, said Zhang Ying, head of the Shanghai Municipal Commission for Economy and Informatization.
In existing smart factories, production efficiency has increased by an average of 50 percent, while operating costs have decreased by 30 percent and energy consumption per unit of value added has decreased by 13.8 percent, the official said.
From visible robots to invisible data, smart factories are gathering new factors of production that are bringing new impetus to smart manufacturing.
As the first city in China to include robot density in statistics, Shanghai achieved a density of 426 robots per 10,000 people in large enterprises of key industries. At the Shanghai STEP Robotics Super Factory, the density reached 1,080 robots per 10,000 people.
The sci-fi style scene of robots making robots has become routine there. Smart robots assemble parts from different suppliers and a robot is produced every 12 minutes.
