Digital and Intelligent Transformation Powers Upgrading in Sichuan's Manufacturing Sector
Updated: 2024.05.15

Early this year, Sichuan unveiled a comprehensive plan for implementing digital and intelligent transformation initiatives in its manufacturing sector. By 2027, the sector is expected to achieve a numerical control rate in key production processes above 64 percent, the penetration rate of digital research and development (R&D) and design tools exceeding 90 percent, and full coverage of this initiative across all industrial enterprises above the designated size.

In less than half a year since its launch, Sichuan's ongoing digital and intelligent transformation projects have reached nearly 1,500, with a total investment exceeding 460 billion yuan. Meanwhile, investment data in technological transformation, primarily focused on intelligent manufacturing, also confirms the strong start of Sichuan's digital and intelligent transformation in its manufacturing sector: In the first quarter, the investment in technological transformation within the province increased by 9.8 percent year-on-year, almost 12 percentage points higher than the growth rate recorded from January to February.

As a major industrial province, Sichuan grapples with a prominent challenge of having a sizeable yet not robust economy, and a comprehensive yet not outstanding industrial sector. Nowadays, Sichuan is promoting the deep integration of digital technology and the real economy, using digital and intelligent transformation as a breakthrough to drive new industrialization, and fostering the transformation and upgrading of traditional industries to "blossom anew."

Reducing costs, increasing efficiency, improving quality, and expanding green practices: Traditional industries surge with a new wave of momentum.

At the Luzhou Laojiao Huangyi Brewing Ecological Park, tradition and modernity converge. Time-honored brewing processes—grain preparation, moistening, mixing, filling the Zeng-tong (distillation equipment), distiller cuts, and fermentation—remain intact. Yet, the integration of intelligent manufacturing technologies, such as artificial intelligence, digital twins, cloud computing, and the industrial Internet of Things, has slashed energy use by 10 percent and boosted liquor yield by 10 percent.

At the beginning of this year, Luzhou Laojiao's Intelligent Packaging Center, known as the first "Lighthouse Factory" in the baijiu industry, was officially put into operation. By integrating six major information systems and five bottling production lines, the center has achieved an average production speed of 15,000 bottles per hour, doubling production efficiency and setting a benchmark for Sichuan baijiu enterprises in their digital and intelligent transformation.

"Tradition does not equate to backwardness; the baijiu industry can also foster innovative forces." Ye Shiliang, Director of the Luzhou City Baijiu Industry Development Promotion Bureau, introduced that spearheaded by leading baijiu enterprises, Luzhou has invested over 18 million yuan to build the nation's first comprehensive digital service platform for the entire baijiu industry chain. The platform collects and organizes data from more than 130 companies along the liquor industry chain and over 40 related units across the city, establishes 545 baijiu industry-related data models, and amasses over 130 million pieces of data. This further facilitates the smooth flow of baijiu industrial data chain and provides strong support for promoting comprehensive digital transformation in enterprises.

The relevant leading official in charge from the Sichuan Provincial Department of Economy and Information introduced that Sichuan has been continuously advancing the digital and intelligent transformation of its manufacturing industry, and has achieved phased results in reducing costs, increasing efficiency, improving quality, and expanding green practices in the sector. In 2023, the numerical control rate in key production processes and the penetration rate of digital R&D and design tools in the province's industrial enterprises reached 59.4 percent and 81.7 percent, respectively, with the readiness rate for intelligent manufacturing reaching 20.2 percent, ranking fourth in the country.

For enterprises, the positive impacts of the digital and intelligent transformation on cost reduction, quality improvement, and efficiency enhancement have been reflected in the actual application process.

In 2019, Sichuan Yadu Home Co., Ltd., located in Deyang, completed its digital upgrade in 2020, established China's first "5G+" flexible intelligent manufacturing factory. After fully embracing digitalization, the company saves over 15 million yuan in comprehensive costs annually, experiences a 2.5-fold increase in production efficiency, and shortens the product production cycle from 30 days to just 3 days.

Hongya Qingyijiang Sodium Sulphate Co., Ltd. (QYJSSA) has also experienced the tangible benefits brought about by the upgrade and transformation. "Although there was an increase in investment in the short term, in the long run, the company's production costs are lower, the product quality rate and the production efficiency are both higher. Low-carbon products also have more competitiveness in the market," believes Chen Guangping, Deputy General Manager of QYJSSA. He sees the upgrade and transformation not only as an environmental account, but also as a significant economic account. The company produces sodium sulfate, a chemical raw material widely used in industries such as detergents, dyeing and paper-making. It has invested 3.23 billion yuan to complete the coal-to-electricity upgrade and transformation of two production lines, establishing the world's largest and China's most advanced coal-to-electricity automated production line, which achieves zero emissions of flue gas and low-carbon green production. Its products are exported to regions including Southeast Asia, South America, and Africa.

Driven by the digital and intelligent transformation, Sichuan's traditional industries are experiencing a new wave of momentum. In the first quarter, the added value of the province's six major advantageous industries grew by 7.4 percent year-on-year, with the green and low-carbon advantageous industries growing by 9.6 percent. Among the six major advantageous industries, 70 percent are traditional industries.

Manufacturing transforming into intelligence: Artificial intelligence empowers new industrialization.

From the end of last year to the beginning of this year, China's electric three-wheelers have gone viral overseas. Sichuan Jianya Motorcycle Manufacturing Co., Ltd. (Jianya), based in Langzhong City, Nanchong, has witnessed a dramatic increase in orders, with an expected production of over 100,000 new energy three-wheeled motorcycles this year.

Previously, the company relied on traditional manual welding. Since 2022, Jianya has successively purchased a large number of high-performance welding robots in batches, establishing the industry's most advanced automated production line, which covers four motorcycle-manufacturing processes: cutting, welding, painting and final assembly. The relevant person in charge of the company explained that since the integration of robots into the production base, there have been not only cost savings and increased production efficiency but also a significant enhancement in product quality due to the high consistency of robotic welding.

Jianya's welding robots are produced by Chengdu CRP Robot Technology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "CRP"). In the process of empowering the digital and intelligent transformation of traditional manufacturing industries, CRP has found a broad market space, focusing on the welding niche, breaking through a series of key core technologies, and has now grown into a hidden champion in this field.

The digital and intelligent transformation initiative in the manufacturing industry has provided a rich array of application scenarios for emerging industries, such as artificial intelligence. Currently, Sichuan has gathered over 1,100 artificial intelligence enterprises, with a systematic comparative advantage in areas like chips, AI servers, software, computing power and talent. According to a survey of key enterprises, Sichuan's artificial intelligence industry saw a growth rate exceeding 20 percent in the first quarter of this year.

Over the past few years, artificial intelligence has increasingly emerged as a vital driver of economic and social progress. This year, Sichuan has listed artificial intelligence as its No.1 innovation project, clearly indicating its intention to provide extraordinary and targeted support.

"The massive demand scenarios emerging from the digital and intelligent transformation will further drive the innovation and breakthroughs in the artificial intelligence industry." According to the relevant leading official from the Provincial Department of Economy and Information, in the manufacturing industry's digital and intelligent transformation, Sichuan focuses on developing new quality productive forces, accelerating the popularization and application of the new generation of information technologies, notably artificial intelligence, across all industries and along the entire production chain, and the province has nurtured 38 national-level excellent scenarios of smart manufacturing, including flexible production line configuration and intelligent online detection, with ten of these scenarios being selected as part of the national "100 Pilot AI Application Scenarios" initiative. In the future, Sichuan will further strengthen its technological foundation in terms of network transmission capacity, computing power, storage, data and models, accelerate the development of the core sector in artificial intelligence, and deepen the integration and application of the new generation of artificial intelligence technologies in all aspects of the manufacturing industry, empowering the transformation and quality improvement of various industries and sectors.

This year, Sichuan will also establish a number of provincial-level and above benchmark projects for manufacturing digital transformation and upgrading, promote more than 40 percent of industrial enterprises above the designated size to conduct diagnostic assessments, concentrate efforts to develop 60 provincial-level and above benchmark projects for digital and intelligent transformation, increase over 30,000 enterprises migrating to the cloud, enhance intelligent computing power by over 50 percent, cultivate five provincial key industrial Internet platforms, and register an additional eight billion identification resolution entries.

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