In the new wave of industrial change, small and medium-sized enterprises have suffered a huge impact, but also face major opportunities. In Jimo District, Qingdao City, Shandong Province, 225 enterprises have been empowered through the Internet to accelerate the upgrading of digitalization and intelligence, and have also spawned a number of enterprises that have carried out industrial Internet transformation and upgrading services for traditional enterprises.

Since July, the reporter has interviewed four small and medium-sized enterprises in Jimo District to explore how they are “in love” with the industrial Internet.

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No light factory – labor reduction of more than 70%, production capacity doubled

“We are the first enterprise in the industry to implement intelligent upgrading and transformation, how to transform?” At that time, Fang Guan’s orders were already very large, and they were lined up until the end of the year. Is it necessary to transform? The local government department suggested a partial transformation, and under the premise of not affecting the production order, we will transform each production process one by one.”

Sun Wenchuan is a “post-90s”, automotive manufacturing professional college students, in 2015 entered Qingdao Fangguan friction Materials Co., LTD., as a mixing worker.

This enterprise is located in Jimo Lingshan Industrial Park, is a professional manufacturer of commercial vehicle brake pads, the traditional production process is full of dust, workers feel that “the treatment is not low but the working environment is bad”.

Sun Wenchuan said that there is dust in the raw materials of brake pads, work often wearing a mask, hot dust is easy to stick to the face, and people are allergic. Therefore, the mobility of mixing workshop personnel is relatively large, some people quit in a few months, and they have to recruit people every year.

That all changed last year when the mixing shop was upgraded to an automated one. “The workshop used to have more than 50 people, dividing, weighing, feeding, are manual, now there are only five or six people, in addition to the feeding link, are machine operations.” Sun Wenchuan said.

Now, Sun Wenchuan has bought a house in the local home. He said: “After the renovation of the workshop, the wage has increased because the efficiency is higher than before and the enterprise has produced more. When I first came to the factory, I was about 5,000 yuan a month, and now I can get 7,000 or 8,000 yuan.”

In the mixing workshop, the huge automatic mixing equipment occupies a 3-story building: the third floor is the automatic feeding and storage system, the second floor is the automatic batching and conveying system, and the first floor is the mixing machinery and equipment. Ji Xiaoliang, assistant chairman of the board of directors of Fangguan Company, introduced that in the past, the whole process needs more than 50 people, and the requirements for workers are very high, relying on experience and technology, and grasp the quantity of feeding, mixing process and discharging time at any time. The company’s annual production of brake pads have more than 20 kinds of formula, more than 30 kinds of raw materials, the proportion of each formula is not the same, the past is manual weighing, it is easy to make mistakes. “After the transformation, the raw material is accurately placed through the flow sensor, and the programmable logic controller system controls the mixing process and discharge time, which can be completed with only six workers.”

More importantly, the product pass rate increased from the original 96.5% to 99.7%.

Pressing workshop needs to complete the pressing, slotting, chamfering and other six processes, Fangguan company independently developed a six-station automatic integrated press, the mechanical arm flexibly controlled the six presses, the site only needs more than 10 workers.

For intelligent transformation, Ji Xiaoliang said that the enterprise had concerns, “We are the first enterprise in the industry to implement intelligent upgrading and transformation, how to transform?” At that time, Fang Guan’s orders were already very large, and they were lined up until the end of the year. Is it necessary to transform? The local government department has suggested a partial transformation, and we will transform each production process one by one without affecting the order production.”

A person in charge of a government department said that the Fangguan company at that time was a standard traditional enterprise, so its transformation is very representative.

Today, the intelligent transformation of Fangguan company is still continuing, but the benefits have already emerged.

On March 17 this year, one month after the resumption of work, in the case of only 2/3 of the workers to the post, Fangguan company completed the China National Heavy Duty truck 300,000 brake pads order as promised. In the past, they produced tens of thousands of brake pads for SinotruK a year.

Strength wins trust. Subsequently, Fangguan company became China National Heavy Duty truck fittings factory, directly got 70% of the orders. Ji Xiaoliang said that only China National TruK orders 30,000 pieces a day, the past can not imagine.

Ji Xiaoliang said that since 2017, the company’s annual production process, facilities and equipment intelligent transformation, the original more than 300 workers, full load can produce 30,000 brake pads per day, now only more than 70 people, can produce more than 60,000 pieces per day, labor reduction of more than 70%, production capacity has increased by 1 times, the annual output value also increased from 50 million yuan to 145 million yuan.

According to the forecast, Fangguan company’s production capacity this year will reach 180 million to 200 million pieces, accounting for 1/5 of the national market share, in the first position of the national commercial vehicle brake pads. Among them, 75%-80% of the orders come from China National Heavy Duty truck, FAW, Jianghuai, Foton and other Ovens.

Ji Xiaoliang said that Fangguan company is one of the few commercial vehicle brake pad production enterprises that can cooperate with the synchronous research and development of the automobile OEM, using advanced production technology, production equipment and advanced testing instruments at home and abroad, and will make every effort to create the “lightless factory” in the industry (intelligent production does not need lighting, intelligent factory is known as a lightless factory) production mode.

In recent years, Fangguan company has invested 23 million yuan in automation and information technology. “Now the output of enterprises in a month is almost that amount.” Ji Xiaoliang said.