Digital tech fuels manufacturing growth in Yangtze River Delta

Today, Good-Ark Electronics operates an automated production system that spans multiple processes, which has increased material retrieval accuracy to 100 percent and reduced retrieval time from 20 minutes to just three minutes.

Good-Ark Electronics is an example of the mutual-benefit cooperation among agglomerated manufacturing enterprises in digitalization transformation, and the Yangtze River Delta (Hangzhou) Manufacturing Digitalization Empowerment Center in Zhejiang province reflects the trend of cross-city technology cooperation in the Yangtze River Delta region.

On a large screen in the center's display area, the digital twin virtual production line, which is identical to the physical production line, shows all production processes so that enterprises can precisely monitor workflows and manage personnel and equipment.

Manufacturing enterprises can access everything needed for digital transformation, from industrial software to transformation plans in this center which links more than 400 digital transformation service providers.

For instance, Shanghai Machine Tool Factory Co Ltd, helped by the center, has improved production efficiency by 97 percent and on-time delivery rate by 98 percent, with the utilization rate of redundant materials increasing from less than 10 percent to 40 percent.

"At present, the empowerment center has promoted nearly 100 digital transformation implementation projects of manufacturing enterprises in the Yangtze River Delta region," said Fu Zheng, director of the center.

For three consecutive years, China has launched smart manufacturing pilot projects, building 421 national-level demonstration factories along with over 10,000 provincial-level digital workshops and smart factories.

Technologies such as artificial intelligence and digital twins have been applied in more than 90 percent of the demonstration plants.5G has been promoted on a large scale in quality inspection, mining production and other fields. The industrial internet now spans all major sectors, with over 200 application examples established.

Xinhua