From pen and paper to computers, from stand-alone computers to networks, from "internet plus" to "Smart Plus", the speed of technological development is amazing. In China, people's ability to accept concepts such as network and intelligence is stronger than that of most countries in the world. It seems that as long as it is related to intelligence, it will enter the ranks of the tall.
for the manufacturing industry, the word "intelligent manufacturing" is as hot as the scorching sun in midsummer. All kinds of "smart" companies have been launched here, and several "smart" companies have quietly closed down there. As a result, many public media and self-media have followed the trend like mindless beasts without making an investigation, and the comments are uneven and irresponsible, which has affected or even disrupted the progress of manufacturing industry, especially equipment manufacturing industry, on the road of digitalization, networking and intelligent development to a certain extent.
In fact, in the course of the development of things, few people can tell right from wrong with certainty at that time and that day. Neither killing with a stick nor killing with a stick was done by a wise man. On-the-spot investigation, calm thinking, prudent implementation and timely rectification are the proper actions of equipment manufacturing practitioners in industry.
in the past two years, Mr. Shen liechu, former vice minister of machinery industry, made several speeches on the problems existing in machine tools and related manufacturing fields, which caused considerable influence in the industry. Recently, Minister Shen authorized Machine Tool Magazine to publish the article "Winning Smart Huge Losses, It's Not the Fault of Intelligent Manufacturing", which is different from the article "Thinking Caused by Visiting Siemens Automation (Chengdu) Co., Ltd." published at the end of last year (WeChat article titled "What's the difference between intelligent manufacturing in China and Germany? ) echo each other, deeply analyze the reasons behind the success and failure of intelligent manufacturing, and put forward their own views.
Jinsheng Intelligent suffered huge losses, which is not the fault of "intelligent manufacturing"
Recently, Jinsheng Intelligent suffered huge losses in many reports and posts. For example, on April 26, 219, China Economic Weekly official Weibo published "Last year's huge losses of 2.866 billion" Unmanned factories can't go on? Jinsheng Intelligent: Please read the Announcement carefully. The first and second paragraphs of the article are as follows:
On April 23rd, Jinsheng Intelligent (383.SZ) disclosed its annual report. In 218, Jinsheng Intelligent achieved an operating income of 5.57 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 14.25%; The net profit attributable to the owner of the parent company was-2.866 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 721.88%. During the reporting period, the gross profit margin of the company's sales was 12.54%, down 14.3 percentage points from the previous year, and the net profit margin of sales was -52.8%, down 59.25 percentage points from the previous year.
Jinsheng Intelligent is a "star enterprise" and a "national intelligent manufacturing demonstration unit" in Dongguan. In particular, the "unmanned chemical plant" built by Jinsheng Intelligent in Dongguan Dongcheng is the first batch of intelligent manufacturing special projects in China by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, and it is also the only intelligent manufacturing demonstration project in 3C field.
I. Review of the event background
On July 24, 216, the national intelligent manufacturing pilot demonstration experience exchange meeting was held in Dongguan, Guangdong Province. The main leaders of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology attended and presided over the meeting. The leaders of China Academy of Engineering, Guangdong Province, the competent leaders of the national provinces, municipalities and autonomous regions' economic and information committees/industry and information departments, and the leaders of key industries, universities and research institutes were invited to attend the meeting. The main leaders of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology pointed out in their speeches: "It is necessary to deeply understand the arduousness and urgency of intelligent manufacturing", "It is an important embodiment of promoting the supply-side reform of manufacturing industry, an inevitable choice to build a new manufacturing system, and an important measure to promote the manufacturing industry to move towards the middle and high end and build a manufacturing power". "Promoting intelligent manufacturing is a complex and huge systematic project, which requires constant exploration, trial and error, and it is difficult to achieve success overnight, and must be promoted persistently and systematically.
In September, 216, the then industrial leader of the State Council visited Dongguan Jinsheng Intelligent Components Co., Ltd. ...
The project was located in Dongguan Jinsheng Intelligent Components Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as Jinsheng Precision), the predecessor of Guangdong Jinsheng Intelligent Group Co., Ltd., which mainly engaged in the OEM of mobile phone metal and nonmetal components, that is, a "foundry". Intelligent workshop with 1 automatic drilling and tapping production lines; Including 18 domestic high-speed and high-precision CNC drilling and tapping centers, 81 domestic robots, 3 RGV, 1 AGV trolleys, and a set of automatic parts inspection system. At the same time, it is equipped with fully domestic industrial software systems, including cloud CNC platform, CAPP, APS advanced scheduling system, MES production management system and production control center, three-dimensional simulation of production process, and monitoring of machine tool health protection. There is also a popular automatic drilling and tapping promotion line, a robot polishing production line, and an intelligent production line for intelligent manufacturing personnel training. The "intelligent perception subsystem" adapted to the manufacturing site based on the Internet of Things technology is applied, the existing intelligent system is upgraded, and a visual integrated control center for the whole manufacturing process is established, as well as the latest domestic software and hardware and information architecture. Technically, the project has the characteristics of "three countries", "six modernizations" and "one core". The "Three Kingdoms" all adopt domestic CNC machine tools and equipment, domestic CNC systems and domestic industrial software; "Six modernizations" means equipment automation, process digitalization, production flexibility, process visualization, information integration and decision autonomy; "One core" is the "big data center" for building smart factories. The intelligent unmanned (few-person) chemical plant should be said to be the "great treasure" representing the highest technical level in China at that time, and it was the scientific and technological achievement of the cooperation of dozens of units in politics, production, research, learning and use. According to the author's understanding, foreign countries are also rare and should be cherished.
In addition, Jinsheng Intelligent takes this opportunity to transform intelligent manufacturing. In order to transform, Jinsheng Intelligent acquired Genesis, controlled Jiacan Precision and invested in Wuhan Aipu Chemical Industry. These three enterprises provide CNC machine tools, MES systems and automation integration in the intelligent manufacturing production line respectively, so that Jinsheng Intelligent can accumulate software and hardware technologies according to its own experience and lessons, and become an integrator that can provide all-round software and hardware solutions for other manufacturing enterprises to digitize, network and intelligent manufacturing in the future. This is a correct strategic choice.
second, thinking and enlightenment
why did Jinsheng Intelligent, a national famous intelligent manufacturing demonstration enterprise, suffer huge losses in just a few years? Therefore, it is a difficult problem for Jinsheng Intelligent to quit the mobile phone OEM industry, and then quit the consumer electronics manufacturing industry. How to deal with the huge losses that have been caused and the existing equipment of unmanned (few people) chemical plants?
This news shocked some colleagues from all walks of life in the manufacturing industry. Last year, a group of Lenovo OEM companies for consumer electronics, especially mobile phones, suffered losses one after another, such as the listed company Orid's loss of 1.7 billion, and the loss of manufacturing technology was also serious. As a result, the market sales volume of equipment such as CNC machine tools has also declined. The entry barriers of CNC high-precision and high-speed drilling and tapping (wire) machines and other equipment used by these foundry enterprises are low, and many machine tool enterprises adopt assembly mode to produce CNC drilling and tapping machines with full sets of functional components imported from abroad, which has led to a major reshuffle of this kind of machine tool enterprises and even caused the break of the capital chain of some famous enterprises! This lesson is worth thinking about by all enterprises in the industrial chain.
I heard about Jinsheng Intelligent Project in the past. Although I didn't have a direct opportunity to study and inspect it, I had some doubts about the scheme. I asked experts from the Institute of Comprehensive Technology and Economics of Machinery Industry (hereinafter referred to as the Instrument Institute) to investigate it in order to dispel the doubts, but I only focused on the technical level, without carefully studying the characteristics of deep-seated consumer electronic products production, especially the rapid market changes in the mobile phone industry. Not only did new technologies and materials change rapidly, Moreover, it has the characteristics of "Fashion", which leads to rapid iterative updating of products, and the current intelligent manufacturing mode of foundry can not meet the changing needs of users' market. Shocked, I asked Liang Yu, editor-in-chief of Machine Tool Magazine, to pull out the 2-page annual report of Jinsheng Intelligent in 218 for research, and drew some superficial revelations as follows. Deep-seated problems need to be analyzed by professionals.
(1) "Intelligent Manufacturing" can't correct the decision-making with major human errors
Jinsheng Intelligence has suffered huge losses, which is not the fault of "Intelligent Manufacturing", but may be caused by the incomplete human decision-making of enterprise leaders. At least at present, the so-called "Intelligent Manufacturing" can't correct the decision-making with major human errors.
during my research on "intelligent manufacturing" for several years, I have been using the methods of practice theory, contradiction theory, engineering cybernetics and system engineering theory to analyze and study the opinions expressed by scholars at home and abroad. On the other hand, we should go deep into enterprises to understand the manifestations of the unbalanced and inadequate development of China's manufacturing industry. I have always thought that most manufacturing enterprises in China, especially small and medium-sized enterprises, are still in the era of Industry 1. and Industry 2., and Industry 3. only exists in some large and medium-sized enterprises with strength and foresight. It has an international vision and participates in international competition and division of labor in various ways. It has been difficult to gradually promote digitalization and networking since CAD, CAM and CAPP, and most of them have a history of twenty or thirty years. For example, Changshu Switch Co., Ltd. has a history of 28 years since it introduced CAD technology in 1991. Others, such as Shandong Lingong, Wendeng Crankshaft, Weichai and Xugong, have a history of more than 2 years or even longer. Compared with developed countries such as the United States, Germany and Japan, their enterprises have introduced lean production, just-in-time management and other scientific management methods since the era of Industry 2., constantly optimized their technological processes, accumulated a large amount of data and established data centers. In the era from Industry 2. to Industry 3., probably in the 196s and 197s, the author inspected the manufacturing enterprises in these countries. Most of them have local area networks, private networks and intranets, and many enterprises have begun to adopt computer management, that is to say, a large amount of data has been introduced into computer management, and the real data accumulated in all aspects of enterprises is the premise of computer management.
since the 195s, numerical control machine tools have been used as commodities, and then the era of digital control of equipment began. Especially in the 197s, industrial control equipment such as integrated circuits, digital computers and PLC were gradually applied, not only for the design, manufacture and management of production products, but also for the integrated control of production lines. Digitalization, networking and future intelligent manufacturing must be based on advanced manufacturing technology and management. Conversely, The continuous and in-depth application of digitalization, networking and intelligent manufacturing in the future has promoted the optimization and further improvement of advanced manufacturing technology and management. The two are dialectical relations and promote each other. This is what I have always stressed: digitalization, networking and intelligent manufacturing in the future are just means, not ends, with the purpose of improving quality and efficiency, reducing costs, compressing inventory, accelerating capital flow, shortening research and development and manufacturing time, delivering goods on time according to quality, and strengthening maintenance services. All in all, accelerate supply-side reform, transformation and upgrading, and constantly meet the needs of users, that is, the demand side. The author believes that the dialectical relationship between purpose and means should be handled correctly, so as to accelerate the development of making up lessons from Industry 1. to Industry 2. and then accelerate the promotion of Industry 3.. At present, it has not really reached the test stage of Industry 4., because many enterprises have not yet established a correct and full-coverage database. The make-up course of Industry 2. is to supplement scientific management, establish and improve advanced technological systems and business processes, and to supplement the digital description of production factors such as people, machines, materials, methods, environment and measurement, and establish a database of production factors, so as to lay the foundation for the operation of all-digital enterprises, and the data will be fast, effective and efficient.
In October last year, the author visited and studied Siemens Automation Products (Chengdu) Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Siemens Chengdu Factory"), which is one of the highest levels of intelligence in the industry. The main R&D base is in Germany, and the orders are placed by Siemens headquarters. A small number of automation products are developed by Siemens Chengdu Factory, and the sales are also transported to all parts of the world by Siemens headquarters. In essence, it also has the nature of "foundry". I was deeply impressed by the visit and inspired a lot. After I came back, I wrote an article: "Reflections on Visiting Siemens Automation Products (Chengdu) Co., Ltd. —— Also on the differences in the understanding of" intelligent manufacturing "between experts, entrepreneurs and officials in China and Germany" (this article is attached at the end of this article, and readers can correct it if they are interested). Perhaps we can find out the differences between Jinsheng Intelligent and Siemens Chengdu Factory in terms of concept, strategy, tactics and implementation process.
The person in charge of Siemens in Chengdu introduced: Chengdu factory is not an intelligent factory, and its technical level is only in the industrial 3.X stage, but a fully digital factory (to the general effect). Why?
(2) Intelligent manufacturing is only a means, and the products to be manufactured need to have a market and be competitive.
Jinsheng Intelligent is a company that specializes in OEM for mobile phone customers. It has no products of its own, and its biggest customer is Samsung. Samsung stopped ordering for two reasons. First, the labor cost in China was too high, and the foundries were moved to Southeast Asia, which gave Kingsoft a great impact. Second, the development from 4G to 5G. Because 5G is millimeter wave, the material of mobile phone is changed from aluminum-magnesium alloy to glass and plastic, which increases the shielding effect. At the same time, because consumer electronic products have the characteristics of "Fashion" and the shape changes rapidly, the process has changed from mold processing to mold-free processing (in fact, CNC machine tools can do it), and Jinsheng Intelligence is even more unable to adapt. In the annual report, Shenzhen Genesis Company, a subsidiary of Jinsheng Intelligent, mainly develops and produces CNC machine tools and machining centers. Although its turnover has declined, it has not yet suffered a loss, because it has its own main products and can be rapidly transformed (the registered capital of Genesis Company is 3 million yuan).
(III) Superstructure and economic base, production relations and productivity must be compatible
The author consulted the annual report of 218, and found that the shareholding structure of Jinsheng Group is very complicated, with as many as five floors, and the interests of all levels are not exactly the same. In the past two years, due to the effect of demonstration projects, the scale has expanded rapidly, and there are more than 15 descendant companies under Jinsheng Intelligent. I don't know if these situations have a negative impact on Jinsheng Intelligence, only Jinsheng's controlling shareholder knows. It also needs further observation and in-depth study by professionals.
(4) Enlightenment to "officials, production, learning, research and use"
Author: Shen Liechu October 218