On October 31, the official website of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology announced the 2022 new-generation information technology and manufacturing pilot demonstration list. With its innovative practice and leading strength in digital and intelligent transformation, Sany Group was successfully selected as the first batch of "digital pilot" enterprises. Recognized as "National Brand".
Also in October, the World Economic Forum (WEF) released a new list of 11 lighthouse factories in the global manufacturing field. Five factories including Sany Heavy Industry Changsha No. 18 Factory were on the list. Among them, Sany Changsha No. 18 Factory It is the second certified lighthouse factory in the global heavy industry industry after Sany Heavy Industry Beijing pile driver factory.
The "Lighthouse Factory" was jointly selected by the Davos World Economic Forum and McKinsey Consulting, and is known as the "World
The world's most advanced factory", is a demonstrator of "digital manufacturing" and "globalization 4.0", representing the highest level of intelligent manufacturing and digitalization in today's global manufacturing industry.
The industry believes that the completion of No. 18 lighthouse factory marks that Sany Heavy Industry has won the opportunity in the fourth industrial revolution and is moving towards a "lighthouse enterprise", and is expected to lead China's construction machinery industry to become a "lighthouse industry" and go global.
Hou Wenhao, global managing partner of McKinsey, said that the five Chinese lighthouse companies selected this time are not the first time to be selected. In these factories, the best practices of their predecessor "sister" lighthouse factories can be seen more or less. The re-election of these enterprises shows that they have formed a set of standardized transformation organization mechanism, and continue to promote the best practice of "lighthouse" in iterative optimization.
A few days ago, Sany Group held a meeting to study, publicize and implement the spirit of the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China. Liang Wengen, chairman of Sany Group, said that the company will continue to deepen the advanced equipment manufacturing industry, fully implement the strategy of digital intelligence, internationalization, and electrification, and strive to build Good new energy industry "second curve", with a stronger historical initiative, join the process of China from a manufacturing power to a manufacturing power.
How to build the "smartest factory building"?
On March 13, 2018, Liang Wengen proposed to promote Sany's digital transformation with the determination to "turn over or capsize".
In the same year, Sany Heavy Industry Changsha No. 18 Factory took the lead in launching the construction of the lighthouse factory, taking the first step in exploring the transformation of intelligent manufacturing. The completed Changsha No. 18 factory covers an area of 100,000 square meters. It is the first batch of pilot demonstration factories for intelligent manufacturing by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology. It was praised by the "Wall Street Journal" as "the blueprint of China's future industry is hidden here."
At the beginning of November, the reporter walked into Factory No. 18 in Changsha: the huge workshop is quiet and the ground is spotless. The workers skillfully operate the robot on the operating platform, demonstrating the perfect combination of power and beauty. There are only a small number of workers in the factory, replaced by more computer screens and robots of various types.
The Changsha No. 18 factory of Sany Heavy Industry, which has been certified as a lighthouse factory, has another label - "the smartest factory building", which is the largest intelligent manufacturing workshop in Asia. In July this year, Sany Heavy Industry was selected as the annual "50 Smart Companies" by MIT Technology Review, becoming the only company in China's construction machinery industry on the list.
How to define "the smartest factory building"? Yi Xiaogang, director, executive president and chief engineer of Sany Group, said, "Everything that computers can do, people are never allowed to do."
Wen Wei, director of the Intelligent Manufacturing Technology Institute of the Sany Pump Road Division, gave an example to the reporter of "China Economic Weekly" and said that taking the unmanned unloading link of Changsha No. 18 Factory as an example, since the production of construction machinery is all large structural parts, a piece of structure The weight of the pieces is several tons, and it was unimaginable in the past to realize automatic transshipment. In the past, this process could only be completed by manual "hanging dragon gate", which is not only labor-intensive, but also relatively inefficient. In particular, robotic automatic welding of large structural parts needs to be accurate to within 0.5 mm, which is not a small challenge. In the process of promoting the intelligentization of Changsha No. 18 factory, the team made breakthroughs in technologies such as automatic loading and unloading, sorting, pairing, and welding of robots through continuous exploration and trial and error.
According to Yi Xiaogang, compared with before the transformation, the overall automation rate of Changsha No. 18 factory has increased by 76%, and it can produce as many as 263 types of models. In 2021, the per capita output value of No. 18 factory will be 14.7113 million yuan, and the profit per square meter will be 154,000 yuan. Both core data are "lighthouse benchmarks" in the global heavy industry industry.
In addition to the intelligentization and digitization of the technological process, Sany Heavy Industry is also unifying the digital "language" internally.
Peng Congcong, monitor of Sany's turntable welding squad, said in an interview with a reporter from China Economic Weekly that a large number of welders used to work on the front line, but now they have all learned how to work with robots, and some of them can do simple programming. The work intensity has been reduced a lot, and the safety risks in the work have been eliminated. "Our grassroots technicians have achieved multi-skilled skills, and they have a sense of value realization. Every time we communicate with colleagues, they all cast envious eyes on our positions." .
According to Peng Congcong, Sany internally encourages all employees to learn how to operate robots. Employees who learn this skill can be rewarded with 10,000 yuan and their salary can be raised by one level. Therefore, employees are very enthusiastic about learning robots. Many key employees have also become senior robot operation instructors, the skills of workers have been greatly improved, and the operation level of Sany's overall smart factory has also been greatly improved.
In the Pump Division of Sany Heavy Industry, Liu Wenlong, born in the 1980s, has books such as "Online", "Smart Business" and "DAMA" on his desk. At present, the whole group is making learning requirements around data architecture, data mining and other aspects of knowledge, requiring all employees to have a unified understanding of data processing, data architecture and other knowledge.
Yi Xiaogang said that from 2020 to organize all employees to learn robot operation skills, to organize data architecture learning this year, the original intention of Sany management to do these tasks is to insist on promoting "digital intelligence, electrification, and internationalization" The strategy is implemented, the understanding of all employees is unified, the digital language is unified, and a new track is laid out to make Sany a pioneer and data-driven company of intelligent manufacturing.
Sany digitization has been integrated into all aspects of production management. Liu Wenlong showed reporters his "digital portrait" as the general manager of the business minister Sha Company: through the intelligentization of independent production line control technology, the pump road business department where Liu Wenlong works is responsible for the production of steel inventory, from cost control to final delivery, the whole process are presented in a numerical table.
Liu Wenlong told the "China Economic Weekly" reporter that these digital portraits are fed back from real-time data from more than 1,500 cameras and other data collection tools in the factory, which can fully reflect the progress and efficiency of the work in hand, and indicators that fail to meet the standards will be marked with red warnings. "The digital system promotes the synergy between production, scheduling, management, planning and the supply chain, truly realizes the data drive of the entire value chain, and realizes the intelligent management of the production process."
"Lighthouse Factory" Empowerment, Smoothly Crossing Cycles
In the construction machinery industry, which is relatively cyclical, Liang Wengen said that digitization is a magic weapon to go through the cycle.
According to experts in the industry, construction machinery is a typical discrete manufacturing. The industry needs a large number of people during the boom period, and it is often necessary to control the number of people during the downturn. This results in high manufacturing costs and slow market response. When the market demand rises, the production capacity cannot keep up; when the production capacity rises, the market demand may pass.
After initially completing the transformation of intelligent manufacturing, Sany Changsha No. 18 Factory was quite calm before the market fluctuations. "After completing the transformation of intelligent manufacturing in the future, Sany will be able to get rid of the constraints of the cycle." Yi Xiaogang said that in the face of the downturn in the construction machinery industry, the factory does not need to lay off employees, but only needs to optimize and improve logistics costs and efficiency, and cultivate its own internal strength; When the peak season of the industry comes, there is no need to recruit people. As long as the machines are started, the production capacity will increase.
Wen Wei said: "Through intelligent manufacturing, Sany's manufacturing cost can also be reduced by 20%, which makes our products more competitive. With the goal of extremely low cost, excellent quality, and extremely high human efficiency, we can practice internal strength, It can allow us to pass through the cycle smoothly and lay a solid foundation for the next upward cycle."
In addition, Liang Wengen mentioned many times in internal meetings: "Let our employees be more 'valuable' and richer."
Peng Congcong was particularly impressed by this sentence.
Peng Congcong told reporters that when he transformed from a simple welder to learn new skills in robot programming, he was beating drums in his heart at first—whether he can adapt to the new position, and can he successfully transform? "With the deepening of programming learning and familiarity with operating equipment, the machines and equipment we operate have also been continuously upgraded, and people have become more and more relaxed. Now welding mainly depends on the machine. We are now not just a welder, but a front-line worker. Versatile."
From the perspective of specific efficiency indicators, the cutting and sorting of Sany steel plates are completely handed over to AI robots with 3D vision. The accuracy has been improved to 1 mm, the cycle has been shortened by 60%, and material waste has been reduced by nearly half. The collaborative research of process engineers and skilled workers has greatly optimized the welding process of the turret robot, shortened the production cycle of a single set by about 75%, and increased the overall production efficiency by 34%, achieving the full and stable production of the welding island.
Wen Wei said frankly that through the establishment of an intelligent manufacturing training system and offline training base, more than 60% of employees have been transformed into intelligent manufacturing talents, and through the application of robots and automation equipment, the role of workers has changed from operating equipment to commanding and nursing equipment. The value of employees has increased, and Sany's production cycle and per capita output value have also been greatly improved. Taking pumping as an example, comparing the indicators before and after the completion of the lighthouse factory, it is found that: the per capita output value has increased by 127%; the production delivery cycle has been shortened by 51.6%; the proportion of manufacturing costs per unit output value has decreased by 43%.
Yi Xiaogang revealed that before and after the intelligent manufacturing transformation of the light tower factory, the number of workers on the production line of Changsha No. 18 factory decreased by nearly 2/3; the production capacity doubled, and the light tower factory originally produced more than 400 sets of equipment per month. Breaking through 900 units, the benefit improvement brought by intelligent manufacturing is very obvious.
At present, Sany’s sales have reached 172 billion yuan, which is more than double the peak value of the previous cycle; many front-line workers have become robot operators, and they no longer need to be "disgraced". , AGV and other robots to take over most of the dirty, tiring and heavy work.
Yi Xiaogang said that Sany Group is accelerating the transformation of digital intelligence. The company has proposed "three three strategies" and hopes to use 3,000 workers and 30,000 engineers to achieve sales of 300 billion yuan in the future.
Sany Intelligent Manufacturing Standard "Sails to the Sea"
"Sany's intelligent manufacturing experience can be imported into the European and American markets, which surprised many competitors. Some construction machinery giants came to Sany, and they were stunned when they saw our intelligent manufacturing level. Now the European and American markets still have high labor costs. , leading to its weak international competitiveness. Through the output of the 'Lighthouse Factory' intelligent manufacturing experience, we will use the advantages of low cost and high efficiency to build core competitiveness in the international market." Yi Xiaogang told China Economic Weekly "reporter.
On the morning of August 15, the first SY215CKD excavator produced by Sany Indonesia’s “Lighthouse Factory” rolled off the production line, marking the completion and commissioning of the first overseas “Lighthouse Factory” in China’s construction machinery industry, and started the process of Sany’s intelligent manufacturing standards going overseas .
Walking into the factory, the iron arm of the robot is waving, and the AGV trolley moves quickly between the production line and the warehouse. The production area of nearly 10,000 square meters realizes a high degree of human-machine coordination. At present, this factory has initially realized the full network connection and unmanned production of 12 main processes such as assembly, logistics, and commissioning. This is the first time in the overseas manufacturing of Chinese enterprises.
"From the industrial software and every data, down to the production equipment and every screw, Indonesia's 'Lighthouse Factory' fully implements with reference to Chinese standards." Ding Shifeng, the head of the Indonesian factory, told the "China Economic Weekly" reporter, "This factory Integrating the core achievements of Sany's more than 40 domestic 'lighthouse factories', this is the first overseas systematic output of intelligent manufacturing in China's construction machinery industry."
The industrial big data collected by nearly 1,000 collection points in Indonesia’s “Lighthouse Factory” spans more than 3,000 kilometers, and is interconnected with the domestic Sany Global Production Control Center and the “Root Cloud” platform for real-time data interconnection of the tree root interconnection. Models, and even each tool is matched with the strongest computing power to optimize the production cycle.
According to reports, Changsha No. 18 Lighthouse Factory invested a total of 500 million yuan, broke through 55 key technologies, overcome thousands of problems, and formed the practical experience of the Lighthouse Factory; many of its original technical solutions were quickly adopted by other 45 companies in Sany Group. The comprehensive promotion of the factory has supported 4,062 inspection groups and 100,000 person-times of learning exchanges, realizing the spillover of digital intelligence capabilities.
According to Xiang Wenbo, chairman of Sany Heavy Industry, at present, 46 digital transformation factories of Sany are using the cutting-edge technology of the fourth industrial revolution to create a blueprint for smart factories and expand smart manufacturing to the upstream and downstream links of the industrial chain.
At present, Sany’s “Lighthouse Factory” smart manufacturing standard has not only successfully gone overseas, but is also being exported to the upstream and downstream of the industry, providing partners and suppliers with data interconnection transformation experience, and providing intelligent manufacturing upgrade services for supply chain customers.
Yi Xiaogang said: "Now there are an endless stream of institutions and enterprises visiting Changsha No. 18 factory every day. We are willing to export Sany's digital experience and ideas. We will allow more partners and upstream and downstream suppliers to cooperate with us with an open attitude. I really saw Sany’s achievements in reducing costs and increasing efficiency through intelligent manufacturing, and encouraged suppliers to join the trend of intelligent manufacturing. Sany cooperates with suppliers and other partners in digital transformation to help them improve efficiency, reduce costs, Improving quality and passing through the industry's economic cycle smoothly has also enhanced its own competitiveness. The picture we have outlined is: to work with partners to open up the upstream and downstream of the supply chain and form an industrial ecosystem of intelligent manufacturing."
"We predict that in the future, the entire Chinese manufacturing industry may develop in the direction of scale, centralization, and specialization." Yi Xiaogang said frankly that in the future, Sany will devote itself to smart products, The digital and intelligent transformation of intelligent manufacturing and intelligent operation strives to become the benchmark of intelligent manufacturing in the global construction machinery industry.
