The factory is no longer brightly lit, the machine runs in the flashing green light, from automatic feeding, parts processing, intelligent correction, automatic detection of products off the line, the entire production process is all unmanned operation. This is a scene that reporters recently saw in the Foxconn Industrial Internet (Industrial Fulian) campus in Shenzhen.

As early as 2019, the factory was recognized as a beacon factory by the World Economic Forum (WEF) and McKinsey Consulting company for its high degree of automation and “normal operation with the lights off”, becoming the highest level of intelligent manufacturing and digitalization in the global manufacturing sector.

Zuo Ganhong, chief expert of digital transformation of Industrial Fulian, introduced that the “advanced” of this production line of Industrial Fulian is not only in automated production, but in a higher level of digital production. More than 100 tools on the entire production line, each equipped with sensors, can collect and analyze different kinds of data in real time, can realize the statistics of process parameters, in order to real-time monitoring, to achieve product quality change trend prediction and early warning, timely detection and prevention of product quality abnormalities.

Not long ago, the World Economic Forum (WEF) released the latest batch of global lighthouse factory list, a total of 13 factories were selected, including six factories located in China. At this point, the number of global lighthouse factories selected since 2018 has reached 103, and there are 37 lighthouse factories located in China, more than 1/3 of the total. These lighthouse factories cover dozens of industries around the world, widely distributed in consumer goods, automobiles, household appliances, steel products, medical equipment, pharmaceuticals, industrial equipment and other fields.

Jin Linlin, deputy dean of the School of Management at Guangdong University of Technology, said: “From the list of 103 lighthouse factories in 8 batches of the world that have been selected so far, the selection criteria mainly look at whether a large number of industrial Internet, artificial intelligence, cloud computing, big data, 5G and other fourth industrial revolution technologies are used, and the comprehensive use of these new technologies is deeply integrated with the manufacturing industry. To achieve all-round changes in production mode, quality management, supply chain management, research and development management, and business model, promote production efficiency, green, low-carbon and sustainable development, and play a leading role.”

Since the selection of lighthouse factories began in 2018, the number of selected enterprises in China has shown an accelerated growth trend, especially since 2020, in the latest five batches of lighthouse factories list, the proportion of enterprises from China has increased significantly.

KCP2 00-130-547 

Industry insiders believe that the reason for the rapid increase in the number of lighthouse factories in China, on the one hand, China’s industrial categories are complete, the number of manufacturing enterprises, especially China’s long-term promotion of the transformation and upgrading of the manufacturing industry, the rapid development of industrial Internet platform, the concentrated eruption of policy effects; On the other hand, it also reflects the positive results achieved by China in coordinating epidemic prevention and control and economic and social development since the outbreak of the global novel coronavirus pneumonia.

It is worth mentioning that although the total number of lighthouse factory enterprises in China ranks first in the world, there are still some shortcomings. Jin Linlin and other experts believe that the shortcomings of China’s lighthouse factories are mainly reflected in: First, from the perspective of industry distribution, the proportion of cutting-edge manufacturing, such as semiconductors, electrical components, pharmaceuticals and medical devices is not high. This has much to do with the fact that the starting point of the development of China’s manufacturing industry is not high and it is still in the midst of transformation and upgrading. Second, from the perspective of the manufacturing industry chain, the selected lighthouse factory enterprises are more in the downstream of the industrial chain close to the end consumers, and the raw materials and high-end equipment located in the upstream of the manufacturing industry chain account for a low proportion; Third, from the perspective of regional distribution, the enterprises selected for lighthouse factories are mainly concentrated in the eastern coastal provinces, and the proportion of central and western provinces is not high. This is related to the unreasonable spatial layout of China’s manufacturing industry, and the orderly transfer of manufacturing industry is still in progress. Fourth, although China has a large number of lighthouse factories, the actual number of lighthouse factories belonging to Chinese local brands is not large, which means that we need to learn from the construction experience of lighthouse factories and cultivate more Chinese local brands of manufacturing benchmarking enterprises.

“Digital transformation is not a choice, but an inevitable development trend, and only companies that actively embrace digital transformation can continue to maintain industry leadership in the future.” Among them, the Lighthouse factory is an important achievement and practice in the field of digital transformation.” Said Hon Hai Chairman Liu Yangwei.

Zuo Ganhong suggested that we learn from the innovation achievements of emerging digital technologies, promote the use of digital machine tools, digital controllers, and industrial network equipment, deepen the field application of 5G and other technologies, optimize the layout of industrial networks, and enhance digital, networking and intelligent capabilities. He Dongdong, co-founder and CEO of Root Internet, proposed to promote the digitalization of the whole value chain, adopt new technologies on a large scale, and gradually realize the digitalization of processes from research and development, procurement, manufacturing, logistics, supply chain to customer service.

In addition, some people in the industry believe that the World Economic Forum and McKinsey, as foreign private institutions, led by the global lighthouse factory standards will bring some problems, that is, Chinese enterprises will intentionally or unintentionally accept the guidance of such standards, and be affected in their own digital development direction. “We will accelerate the establishment of an evaluation system for advanced manufacturing enterprises that is in line with China’s national conditions.” Jin Linlin suggested that through the construction of “intelligent manufacturing demonstration factory”, speed up the implementation of standards and standard guidance, and enhance the level of intelligent development of China’s manufacturing industry.