Manufacturing is beautiful because of the "cloud"

I have always thought of seeing the characteristic towns that have received widespread attention. A few days ago, reporters from the Hangzhou branch of this newspaper were going to Lin'an Cloud Manufacturing Town for an interview, so they went together.

Lin’an is just over 40 kilometers away from Hangzhou. In recent years, with the opening of expressways and the construction of the Lin’an intercity railway, its city-wide effect with Hangzhou has become increasingly evident. The town of Cloud Manufacturing is located on the banks of the beautiful Qingshan Lake. It takes less than an hour from Hangzhou to go high-speed. Convenient transportation has become one of the important infrastructure conditions of the town.

The Qingshan Lake Science and Technology City built before provides the industrial and technological foundation for the cloud manufacturing town. A few years ago, Hangzhou implemented the industrial policy of “retreat two and enter three”. A group of internationally influential equipment industry enterprises such as Hangyang, Hangcha, and Xizi have moved here one after another and formed an industrial cluster. It has gradually gathered 46 famous universities such as the Zhejiang Institute of Science and Technology of the University of Hong Kong, which is very conducive to promoting the integration of industry, university and research.

Of course, the above-mentioned advantages are only necessary conditions for the creation of cloud manufacturing towns, not sufficient conditions. Like other characteristic towns, the larger background of the birth of the cloud manufacturing town is that Zhejiang, as a major manufacturing province, has reached the threshold of transformation and upgrading. Zhejiang, which has a higher degree of marketization, realized the urgency of continuity of new and old momentum earlier than other places. Our province has made drastic measures to reduce production capacity earlier in the country. For example, the current overcapacity problems of steel, cement, flat glass, and electrolytic aluminum in some parts of the country have been resolved relatively well in our province. But at the same time, how to use intelligent manufacturing as the main attack direction to help "Made in Zhejiang" seize the commanding heights of the future industry has become a new topic of the times.

The cloud manufacturing town meets the needs of economic transformation, and it sprouted from the promotion of tangible hands. As the first batch of characteristic towns in our province, where is its vitality?

Smart manufacturing is now a hot word, but its practical application may not be as hot as people think. In Germany, which is considered to be the forerunner of the fourth industrial revolution, the automobile manufacturing industry is in a leading position with 53% of the use of intelligent technologies related to "Industry 4.0"; followed by the electronics industry, with 48% of the use; chemical industry The proportions used by the machine manufacturing industry are 42% and 41%, respectively. According to relevant information, the digitalization of German factories is vigorously advancing, but this process is far from complete. Some German companies still have concerns, such as additional investment costs, data security issues, and lack of professional talents.

Cloud Manufacturing Town focuses on developing cloud manufacturing R&D services and intelligent equipment manufacturing. Can it go its own way?

In the small town of Hangzhou Kaipu Technology Co., Ltd., we saw that many types of intelligent robots, including linear robots, arm robots, etc., are being produced there. Unlike ordinary people who imagine robots "tall", the cost of manufacturing and using these robots is not high. For example, the market price of a robot for assembly is three or four thousand yuan, which can be afforded by ordinary enterprises. Li Lin, general manager, said that we just want to produce "intelligent manufacturing" that the Chinese can afford.

What a "smart manufacturing" that the Chinese can afford! Isn't this just upgrading products that meet market demand from the supply side? In the cloud manufacturing town, there are 26 high-tech small and medium-sized makers like Hangzhou Kaipu. They are sending new momentum to the local equipment manufacturing industry in terms of R&D, creative design, and brand marketing.

The small town is next to the equipment industrial park, where it can also be said that "cloud manufacturing" comes out. In "Hangcha", workers in the assembly workshop have a "mobile phone" in their hands. Are they allowed to make free calls while working? of course not. It turns out that the factory's production and manufacturing execution data has been placed in the cloud, and workers can use "mobile phone" scanning to realize key parts retrieval, order progress inquiry, quality control, etc.

This reminds me of the film "Modern Times" shot by early American comedian Chaplin. In the film, workers brought the screw-screw habit developed under assembly line operation to life, which produced many jokes. The plot in the movie is exaggerated, but it does reflect some of the "by-products" brought about by modern mass production. The gradual realization of "cloud manufacturing" will undoubtedly play a positive role in improving the labor environment and the improvement of labor quality.

This kind of beauty that fits the reality of the current manufacturing industry is beautiful because of the "cloud", and its performance in the small town is manifold. At the end of the interview, Pan Aiping, the deputy director of the Party and Government Office of the Science and Technology City Management Committee who accompanied us, hurriedly bid us farewell. He said sorry that this was because he was about to go to other characteristic towns to study and inspect the tourism industry. It seems that some characteristic towns in the province are also learning from each other. Their purpose is the same, that is, to make the town's production, life, and ecology complement each other.

To a certain extent, the cloud manufacturing town that is beautiful because of the "cloud" is heralding the future of Zhejiang's manufacturing industry.