From November 15 to 17, the 24th China International High-tech Fair – China High-tech Forum was held in Shenzhen, with the theme: Science and technology reform drives innovation, science and technology innovation drives development. Yu Feng, President of Honeywell China, attended the forum and delivered a speech.

Yu Feng said that intelligent manufacturing and sustainable development itself is not a new concept, originated in the 1950s and 1980s, respectively, in the last 10 years, policymakers, experts and scholars, the industry and various fields of society on these two topics are increasingly hot, China is also coming behind, through the Made in China 2025, industry 4.0, dual carbon goals and a series of important strategic planning. As well as the practical actions of enterprises and all walks of life, it has become a leading industry in intelligent manufacturing and sustainable development.

Manufacturing and sustainable development seem to be two themes, but the essence is one, and both represent an indispensable part of the future of human civilization. Sustainable development is the future direction of human society, and intelligent manufacturing is the fast track to the future, and the two complement each other. If intelligent manufacturing is the art of the future, sustainable development is the future, intelligent manufacturing is the toolbox, sustainable development is the blueprint, intelligent manufacturing is run to, sustainable development is the sky.

Specifically, smart manufacturing can help and accelerate the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals in at least three ways:

First, intelligent manufacturing brings sustainability to industrial processes

This is the most recognized role of intelligent manufacturing, but also the most direct effect of intelligent manufacturing can bring, through the intelligent industrial process, can effectively improve productivity, improve yield, ensure delivery time, reduce inventory burden, improve safety level, prevent accidental losses.

As early as 1973, Honeywell began to transform its global factories with lean manufacturing management system, and later used Six Sigma as the basis for reshaping operational excellence system, spreading lean concepts to all production departments, expanding to non-manufacturing areas, integrating supply chain flows, expanding to business process management, and so on. Form Honeywell’s excellent operation system and begin to serve other corporate customers. Take Suzhou Code Factory, a world-class factory certified by Honeywell, as an example. Since its establishment in 2008, the scale of personnel has remained stable, the output value has increased by eight times, the yield rate has exceeded 98.5%, the on-time delivery rate has reached 99.3%, and the inventory days are less than 22 days.

Honeywell’s achievements in the field of intelligent manufacturing do not come from the pursuit of replacing people with machines, but to maximize the best way to improve the collaboration and interaction between human and machine. The sustainability of industrial processes is not only the improvement of material efficiency such as saving material consumption, reducing energy demand, improving equipment life, but also the improvement and sustainability of human efficiency.

From the operational level, the top intelligence is to make full use of the labor time of the largest constraint factor in modern production, so that the limited time can bring the maximum output, not only to create enough flexible time for the human, mobilize the most valuable value of the labor creativity, only with enough flexibility and adaptability of the industrial manufacturing process, Is a truly sustainable industrial process.

Second, smart manufacturing contributes to the sustainability of material applications

In fact, intelligent manufacturing at the micro level will bring more revolutionary promotion to sustainable development, which is the intelligent revolution of the material industry.

In daily life, people measure the basic unit of emissions is substances, or even goods. Industrial processes emit much more of certain goods, which is not environmentally friendly and sustainable. In fact, can the indicators used in judging industrial sustainability continue to extend to the micro level? For example, based on the molecule, the output and emission of a certain molecule are more, we can think of high production efficiency or high emissions.

This requires industrial processes to be able to manage and control the output at the molecular level, and the molecules themselves cannot be intelligent, but they can be better managed by intelligent means. From the intelligent management of equipment and products to the intelligent management of molecules, so that the value of industrial materials can be maximized, the emissions of industrial processes can be minimized, the recycling and closed-loop of industrial waste can be realized to the maximum extent, and the sustainable development goals can be truly promoted.

Third, smart manufacturing shapes the sustainability of the whole life cycle

It is not enough to understand and promote intelligent manufacturing only in the production and manufacturing links such as lean, flexible, flexible and other levels, but also from the beginning of production to the whole life cycle of product use and maintenance, to promote intelligence, and then drive sustainable development.

Whether it is equipment, machinery, tools and other means of production or electrical appliances, vehicles and other means of life, as long as it is an industrial product, keep its state stable and play the best performance can be said to be sustainable; Otherwise it is a waste of material resources and even social resources. Therefore, another extension of intelligent manufacturing can include the intelligent management of the product itself, so that the product can be managed in an organic and effective way and adjust its own state in a timely manner.

“The progress and innovation of intelligent manufacturing have brought many doors to the future for mankind.”

Finally, he said that the progress and innovation of intelligent manufacturing have brought many doors to the future for mankind, which may change every aspect of people’s production and life, and also make the original unattainable development goals seem closer and more realistic, such as sustainable development. More importantly, he made human beings realize once again that their potential to transform the world and shape the future is endless. And this is the most primitive driving force for human progress. Therefore, intelligent manufacturing is the fast track to sustainable development or it is to make human efforts to sustainable development really on the fast track.