The future economy is, in essence, an intelligence economy. For the
construction machinery industry, both product manufacturing and product performance are rapidly advancing toward intelligence. The
construction machinery industry has high technical content and production concentration, and relatively high barriers to entry. In the future, market demand will inevitably develop toward high-end and intelligent directions, and industry operations will become increasingly standardized. Although the market is still in a period of contraction, it brings a rare opportunity for the industry to practice its internal strengths. Enterprises should not judge heroes by scale and speed, but should pursue endogenous growth and innovative development, and meet future market opportunities and challenges with new perspectives.
Intelligence Is the Only Way Forward
At present, the intelligence of construction machinery has begun to emerge. The construction machinery industry is a strategic industry that provides technical equipment for national infrastructure construction, and is also the most important sub-industry in the equipment manufacturing industry, belonging to one of the fields that the state focuses on encouraging development. As the national economy continues to develop, more requirements will inevitably be placed on the development of the construction machinery industry. How to correctly face the trend of intelligent construction machinery has become the top priority.
With the development of science and technology, intelligence has become the mainstream trend in the development of construction machinery, not only effectively improving work efficiency but also reducing costs. Facing fierce global competition, it is urgent for China's construction machinery industry to take the path of intelligence. At the same time, the level of product intelligence and production process intelligence will become important weapons for whether China's construction machinery industry can win in the global market full of strong competitors in the future.
Paths to Intelligence
So how will the construction machinery industry achieve intelligence? The most intuitive manifestation is the introduction of robots. At present, the use of intelligent robots in product production has become a relatively common phenomenon. Many enterprises have already used robots on a large scale in production processes for welding, painting, assembly, and other work. It is understood that from 2005 to 2015, the average annual sales growth rate of global industrial robots is expected to be 9%, while the average annual sales growth rate of China's industrial robots is expected to reach 25%. By 2015, China's robot market demand may reach 35,000 units, accounting for 16.9% of the global total, becoming the largest robot user market.
The representative of intelligent products is undoubtedly unmanned driving, a technology that many construction machinery manufacturers have been pursuing and continuously developing. The earliest enterprise involved in the field of unmanned driving was Caterpillar, which began research and development of unmanned driving technology for mining dump trucks as early as the 1980s and achieved success. So far, Caterpillar's unmanned 789 mining trucks have been put into application, and their effects have been recognized by customers. Domestically,
XCMG currently produces and sells unmanned excavator equipment for civilian and military directions, among which the ET110 and ET111 models of unmanned excavators have entered the market and sales this year reached more than ten units. In addition,
XCMG Group is currently stepping up testing of a new civilian model
excavator ET80. In addition, in product details and innovation, many domestic enterprises are also actively launching products with intelligent features, such as Huatong Power's intelligent generation products and so on.
With economic globalization and social informatization, market competition is becoming increasingly fierce and customer demands are becoming increasingly diverse. For the construction machinery industry, a typical industry, to survive and develop in the face of the cruel situation of international competition in the domestic market and the challenges of new technologies and new processes, it must solve the TQCS problem, that is, to meet the needs of different customers with the fastest time to market (T), the best quality (Q), the lowest cost (C), and the best service (S). The most effective means to solve this problem is intelligent manufacturing. Intelligent manufacturing is the goal that "China's construction machinery manufacturing" strives for. Facing industry adjustments, the transformation and upgrading of China's construction machinery industry is imminent. At present, China's "12th Five-Year Plan" has put forward higher requirements for the development of the construction machinery industry. Intelligent manufacturing based on flexible production, automation, and digitalization will become the new standard for the industry. It is estimated that in 2015, the fixed asset investment in China's construction machinery industry will reach 100 billion yuan, of which investment in intelligent manufacturing will be as high as 30 billion yuan. This will bring the overall intelligent manufacturing level of the domestic construction machinery industry to a new level by the end of the 12th Five-Year Plan.
With fierce market competition and construction and mining operations, mining difficulty is high, and the intelligence of construction machinery has become a necessity to meet the needs of today's social engineering construction that reaches both heaven and earth. For Chinese construction machinery enterprises, since the core technology of supporting parts lags behind foreign countries to a certain extent, to catch up with the irresistible pace of internationalization, it is even more of a useful weapon. Experts and industry insiders believe that at present, "going global" and carrying out overseas layout is not only to expand overseas markets, but also to obtain higher-end technology in order to break through industry bottlenecks.
Manufacturing Intelligence as the Focus
Intelligent manufacturing originates from the integration of industrial technology and information technology, promoting technological innovation, and industrial control technology is becoming increasingly mature. The continuous integration of management informatization and industrial automation drives the transformation and innovation of manufacturing enterprises and promotes the manufacturing industry toward intelligence. Electronic information technology or products penetrate traditional products, giving birth to intelligent equipment. Informatization concepts and means penetrate into business processes, forming new business work modes and norms, and promoting business innovation and management upgrading.
At present, more than 25% of enterprises in the domestic construction machinery industry are in the stage of not yet starting intelligent manufacturing construction, 43% are in the stage of single-item coverage of intelligent manufacturing, 22% are in the early or transitional stage of integrated improvement of intelligent manufacturing, and only less than 10% are in the stage of relatively comprehensive breakthrough application of intelligent manufacturing technology. The main problems are that the automation level of manufacturing equipment is not high: Western developed countries have all followed the development process of mechanization, electrification, and automation. But China is a catch-up industrial country, and the average level of industrial automation is seriously low. The informatization level of the manufacturing process is not high: many enterprises cannot effectively exert the effects of their informatization systems, fail to effectively integrate and upgrade the manufacturing execution system (MES) with the enterprise resource planning (ERP) system, and lack a foundation for intelligence.
To achieve intelligent manufacturing, it is necessary to understand the characteristics and requirements of intelligent manufacturing. The characteristics of intelligent manufacturing: First, intelligent manufacturing technology aims to achieve high-quality, efficient, low-consumption, clean, and flexible production, and improve the adaptability and competitiveness of products to the dynamically changing market. Second, intelligent manufacturing technology is not limited to manufacturing processes, but covers the entire process of market analysis, production management, processing and assembly, sales, maintenance, service, and recycling and regeneration. Third, intelligent manufacturing emphasizes the four-dimensional integration of technology, people, management, and information, involving not only material flow and energy flow but also information flow and knowledge flow. That is, four-dimensional integration and the intersection of four flows are important characteristics of intelligent manufacturing technology. Fourth, intelligent manufacturing technology places more emphasis on the rationalization and innovation of the composition and management of the manufacturing process. It is a system integration of hardware, software, intelligence (people), and organization.
Key application technologies of intelligent manufacturing: First, business digitalization: establish digital models for enterprise business operations and build corresponding information systems according to corresponding business rules. This is the basic data platform. Second, Internet of Things applications: realize automatic identification and communication of equipment and materials, and establish business logic mechanisms based on business needs. Third, device interconnection based on networks and fieldbuses, realizing data communication and status collection between management systems and devices. Fourth, real-time collection of industrial data, transmitting data to business systems, and business systems analyzing and processing the data.
Intelligence Has a Long Way to Go
With the development of the construction machinery industry, the depth and breadth of its intelligent development are increasing. The future construction machinery industry faces rare opportunities and severe challenges. Market changes are frequent and difficult to predict, product life cycles are increasingly shortened, product update speeds are constantly accelerating, customer demand for products tends toward personalization and diversification, production automation technology is continuously improving, the innovative role of producers is becoming increasingly important, and the application of informatization technology is becoming increasingly widespread. These factors have fundamentally changed the production mode and management mode of construction machinery: enterprise production has shifted from product-oriented to customer-oriented, demand-oriented, and service-oriented; the main production factors of enterprises are shifting from labor and capital to knowledge; the production process of enterprises is shifting from assembly line and automatic line, single-variety fixed-scale production to multi-variety, flexible, parallel, and intelligent intensive production. Correspondingly, enterprise management models are also shifting from low-efficiency, multi-level pyramid-style, hierarchical management to intelligent distributed network cooperative production management systems that can fully leverage human intelligence and creativity and respond quickly to market demand.
At present, China's construction machinery industry has not yet fully established a modern advanced manufacturing model for construction machinery that suits China's national conditions. Many enterprises still adopt the original traditional manufacturing model, or partially adopt the manufacturing models of other advanced countries. However, the trend toward intelligence is an unavoidable trend.
Conclusion: Intelligent manufacturing is the development trend of China's construction machinery manufacturing industry. In the future, when China's construction machinery faces the
market economy and participates in even fiercer competition, advanced intelligent products and manufacturing
technology have become the core competitiveness of construction machinery enterprises.
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