Recently, the World Economic Forum (WEF) announced that 21 outstanding companies have been selected among thousands of factories in the world as new members of the WEF's global lighthouse factory network. Among them, CITIC Dicastal Qinhuangdao Aluminum Wheel Factory, with its "Efficiency-Centered Manufacturing Excellence Model," is the first company in the global aluminum wheel industry to be selected, filling a gap in the industry's "lighthouse factory" category. It has filled the gap of "lighthouse factory" in this industry.
"Lighthouse factory" is "digital manufacturing" and "industry 4.0" demonstrators. Enterprises selected as "Lighthouse Factories" need to achieve significant improvements in business indicators such as production efficiency, operational agility, and eco-sustainability, as well as world-class leading technology applications and scalable industrial internet platforms.
At the annual meeting of the Global Lighthouse Factory Network, Zhu Hesin, Chairman of CITIC Group, emphasized the importance of digital transformation, stating that digital development is reconfiguring the new pattern of economic competition, the new mode of industrial evolution, and the new elements of enterprise development. At present, CITIC Group is making every effort to build "Digital CITIC" and construct a development pattern in which industrial digitization and digital industrialization are y integrated and mutually reinforcing. CITIC also hopes to work with its partners to build a collaborative development ecosystem for the industry, and to actively explore the benefits of digitalization for related industries.
Effective manufacturing to realize cost reduction and efficiency
CITIC Dicastal was selected as a lighthouse factory this time to promote the deep integration of AI, 5G, big data and other technologies with the industry, to realize production and cost reduction, improve quality and efficiency, and actively promote green manufacturing. Overall, CITIC Dicastal's "Lighthouse Factory" has realized a 33% reduction in production costs, a 21.4% increase in the overall efficiency of equipment, a 20.9% decrease in the defective rate of products, a 37.9% reduction in delivery time, and a 39% increase in energy efficiency.
In terms of improving digital production, CITIC Dicastal focuses on the industry's pain points and builds a digital lean management platform, replacing manual adjustment and maintenance with an intelligent adjustment system for key processes along the entire production line, allowing the production line to carry out real-time, accurate testing and self-learning, and realizing "unattended" production lines.
In terms of improving production flexibility, faced with the challenge of small-lot, fast-to-market demand from automobile manufacturers, CITIC Dicastal realizes agile manufacturing with its digitally-enabled flexible manufacturing system to reduce the minimum production lot from 300 pieces to 1 piece, which makes the customized production of "one order" possible, and better applies to the "1,000 cars, 1,000 sizes".
The company's flexible manufacturing system enables agile manufacturing, reducing the minimum production lot size from 300 pieces to 1 piece, making it possible to customize the production of "one order" and better apply it to the "thousands of cars, thousands of sizes" of the wheel hub scene.
In terms of strengthening quality and standard management, CITIC Dicastal accelerates the promotion of digital quality management and successfully creates the "first case" of large-scale industrialized application. Through the application of AI visual inspection and intelligent machine adjustment closed loop, as well as X-ray non-destructive flaw detection artificial intelligence recognition system for wheel inspection - production adjustment, CITIC Dicastal lighthouse factory reduced 50% of the inspection workforce, while increasing efficiency by 40%.
As the main business platform of CITIC Group, CITIC (00267.HK) released its 2021 semi-annual report, which showed that the overall net attributable profit of the Group's advanced manufacturing segment increased by 86% year-on-year. CITIC Dicastal, as a representative enterprise of the advanced manufacturing segment, benefited from the rebound of the automotive market and the improvement of lightweight demand, with an 81% year-on-year increase in profit, laying a good foundation for the high-quality development of the segment in the 14th Five-Year Plan.
Global Empowerment, Driving Industry Change
CITIC Dicastal's lighthouse factory experience is not only for internal empowerment, but has been replicated in many of its factories around the world, and will be further promoted in other subsidiaries of CITIC Group in the fields of advanced intellectual property and advanced materials, to promote the transformation and upgrading of production, management, and R&D, and to realize high-end, intelligent and green low-carbon development, as well as to promote the development of high-end, intelligent and low-carbon products, and to promote the development of the automotive industry. It will also promote the transformation and upgrading of production, management, and R&D to realize high-end, intelligent, green and low-carbon development, and at the same time promote the development of the "CITIC Smart Manufacturing" brand.
Light up the lighthouse and shine into the future. In the process of transformation from China's manufacturing to China's smart manufacturing, China's "lighthouse factories", including CITIC Dicastal, are actively exploring beneficial experiences for the digital transformation of related industries, and CITIC Group will also collaborate with its subsidiaries to export high-quality industrial Internet platform solutions, and y carry out the layout of strategic emerging industries such as special robots, industrial software, and chip industry chain. CITIC Group will also collaborate with its subsidiaries to export high-quality industrial Internet platform solutions to foreign countries, y carry out the layout and exploration of strategic emerging industries such as special robots, industrial software, chip industry chain, drive the collaborative development of small and medium-sized enterprises in the upstream and downstream of the industry chain, and form an advanced intellectual manufacturing industry cluster to drive the technological innovation and digital transformation of the Chinese manufacturing industry.
(Edited by Tian Dong)