Intelligent Manufacturing Equipment, which encompasses equipment with functions such as perception, analysis, reasoning, decision-making, and control, represents the integration and in-depth fusion of advanced manufacturing technology, information technology, and intelligent technology. It primarily includes new types of sensors, intelligent control systems, industrial robots, and automated production lines.
Intelligent manufacturing equipment industry is not only an important branch of the manufacturing sector but also a crucial foundation for the development of other manufacturing industries. The vigorous development of manufacturing is of great strategic significance for China to implement an innovation-driven development strategy, accelerate economic transformation and upgrading, and realize the dream of a strong nation over the century.
After more than 30 years of development, China's intelligent manufacturing equipment industry has initially formed an industrial system represented by new sensors, intelligent control systems, industrial robots, and automated production lines.
Downstream customers of intelligent manufacturing equipment encompass industries such as consumer electronics, new energy, and medical fields. With technological advancements, consumer electronics will continuously evolve and iterate in response to emerging demands, moving towards intelligence and integration. The robust market demand for downstream products will effectively drive the development of the intelligent manufacturing industry, providing effective support for its growth. China's new energy market has a promising outlook, with upstream and downstream industries continually improving their supporting infrastructure. Additionally, with the support of national subsidy policies, the new energy industry has experienced substantial growth.
As the "dual carbon" goals are proposed, the development environment for the new energy industry will continue to improve, with promising prospects for the industry. As an important part of the new energy industry, Chinese power battery companies are enhancing their competitiveness in the global market. While driving technological breakthroughs in new energy vehicles, they also create conditions for the development of upstream precision equipment manufacturing enterprises.
As a global manufacturing powerhouse, China is striving to transition from a manufacturing giant to a manufacturing powerhouse. Intelligent manufacturing, as the pinnacle of the manufacturing pyramid, is poised to be the breakthrough for the transformation and upgrading of traditional manufacturing industries. In recent years, with the rapid development of new industrialization, China has placed great emphasis on the development of intelligent manufacturing equipment industries, which have shown significant growth.
Over 20,000 manufacturing enterprises across the country have conducted maturity self-diagnosis, covering 303 cities in 31 provinces, autonomous regions, and municipalities. Overall, the maturity of intelligent manufacturing capabilities among Chinese manufacturing enterprises remains low, with 73.26% of the self-diagnosed enterprises scoring 1 or below, while those scoring between 2 and 5 account for 13.03%, 6.53%, 3.52%, and 3.66% of the total, respectively.
Intelligent manufacturing equipment industry is a strategic sector that provides technical equipment for various industries of the national economy, serving as a crucial guarantee for industrial upgrading and technological advancement across all sectors, and a concentrated reflection of the country's comprehensive strength. The state attaches great importance to the development of this industry and has issued a series of significant policies to support its growth.
The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the National Development and Reform Commission, the Ministry of Education, the Ministry of Science and Technology, the Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security, the National Market Supervision Administration, and the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission of the State Council have jointly issued the "14th Five-Year Plan for Intelligent Manufacturing Development."
In 2021, China's industrial added value reached 37.3 trillion yuan, maintaining the top position in the world for 12 consecutive years and becoming a "manufacturing powerhouse" in terms of scale. However, China's manufacturing sector still has significant shortcomings and a gap compared to developed countries. The path to developing high-quality manufacturing and becoming a "manufacturing power" is long and arduous.
According to the "2020 China Manufacturing Power Development Index Report" released by the China Academy of Engineering Strategy Consulting Center and other organizations, China's manufacturing power development index is lower than that of developed countries like the United States and Germany, ranking third globally. The gap between China and manufacturing powerhouses is mainly reflected in indicators such as "manufacturing value-added rate" and "manufacturing labor productivity." Compared to the high level of over 30% for the "manufacturing value-added rate" in industrial发达国家 like the United States and Germany, China's "manufacturing value-added rate" has remained around 20%; in 2019, China's "manufacturing labor productivity" was only 20.46% of the level in the United States. Therefore, the operational efficiency of China's manufacturing industry remains low, and improving quality and efficiency, as well as transforming and upgrading, have become inevitable requirements for China's manufacturing industry to achieve high-quality development.
Currently, our country is in a critical period of transforming its development model, optimizing its economic structure, shifting its growth momentum, and advancing towards high-quality development. Intelligent manufacturing, as the main direction of "Manufacturing Power" construction, plays a crucial role in determining the global position of our future manufacturing industry, accelerating the development of a modern industrial system, and building a new development pattern. Therefore, vigorously cultivating and developing the intelligent manufacturing industry is an essential requirement for improving quality and efficiency, transforming and upgrading, and enhancing our country's core competitiveness in the industry. It is also a strategic choice to seize the commanding heights of future economic and technological development.
Product applications in multiple fields
Intelligent equipment serves as the material foundation of modern industrial production systems, applicable to various stages such as product manufacturing, installation, inspection, and storage. Its applications span across fields like consumer electronics manufacturing, new energy power battery production, photovoltaic and other new energy product manufacturing, medical equipment production, construction machinery manufacturing, home appliance production, rail transit equipment manufacturing, electronic component production, food production, metallurgy, and printing and publishing.
2. There is a high demand for technical talent.
The development of the intelligent manufacturing equipment industry is inseparable from the support of relevant professional technical talents. Due to the integration of various advanced technologies in the intelligent manufacturing equipment industry, high requirements are placed on the relevant industry talents: on one hand, they are expected to achieve cross-domain integration of professional technical expertise and possess a composite knowledge structure; on the other hand, they need to have self-motivation and innovation awareness to meet the research and development and business needs of manufacturing enterprises in the face of continuously evolving new technologies and downstream demands, thereby driving the industry's development.
3. Rapid technology updates and iterations
As technology advances, the pace of product updates and iterations in this field is accelerating, and the requirements for core components are becoming increasingly stringent. This also drives smart device manufacturers to continuously innovate in technology to meet the production and testing needs of downstream customers. At the same time, with the continuous breakthroughs in advanced technologies such as sensor technology, network technology, and automation technology, the intelligent manufacturing equipment industry is also advancing the innovation of design processes, manufacturing processes, and equipment intelligence. This promotes the deep integration and integration of information technology, intelligent technology, and equipment manufacturing technology.
4. Capital-intensive nature
The implementation of intelligent manufacturing equipment projects in the domestic industry requires a certain time cycle. Suppliers of intelligent manufacturing equipment need to front a significant amount of costs in the initial phase of the project. When multiple large-scale projects are being推进 simultaneously, they face considerable financial strain. Additionally, to maintain their competitiveness, intelligent manufacturing equipment companies must invest heavily in researching advanced technologies and cultivating design professionals. Consequently, the intelligent manufacturing equipment industry exhibits a distinct capital-intensive characteristic during its rapid development.
5. Strong integration of multiple technologies
The intelligent manufacturing equipment industry is a highly technical manufacturing sector, integrating advanced manufacturing, information technology, artificial intelligence, and multiple other fields. It comprehensively applies technologies such as control system design, sensor technology, precision manufacturing technology, and intelligent recognition technology. In March 2021, the National Development and Reform Commission and other departments jointly issued "Opinions on Accelerating the High-Quality Development of the Manufacturing Service Industry," proposing to vigorously develop the intelligent manufacturing industry by utilizing the new generation of information technologies such as 5G, big data, cloud computing, and blockchain. This预示s that the technical integration of the intelligent manufacturing industry will be further strengthened in the future.
6. Products are trending towards customization.
Intelligent manufacturing primarily adopts a customized design and production model, requiring tailored solutions to meet clients' specific needs. As a result, industry enterprises must have a deep understanding and familiarity with the production processes of equipment, applying intelligent manufacturing technology to various niche markets to create automated solutions for different products, thereby satisfying downstream producers' demand for customized equipment. Moreover, under the customized production model, downstream producers will comprehensively consider the production scale, quality control, and rapid response capabilities of equipment manufacturers, further enhancing the requirements for the manufacturers' process and technology.
7. Automation, integration, clustering, and informatization
The future intelligent manufacturing equipment industry will be capable of highly automated production processes tailored to specific requirements, with adaptability to both manufacturing objects and environments, thereby optimizing the manufacturing process.
In the future production processes of the intelligent manufacturing industry, hardware, software, and application technologies, as well as supporting equipment, will achieve deep integration. By combining artificial intelligence with production and logistics management, machine empowerment will be realized, significantly enhancing production efficiency. Concurrently, service integration including online monitoring, remote diagnostics, and cloud services will be implemented, thereby continuously upgrading the equipment.
Currently, smart manufacturing manufacturers are primarily concentrated in economically developed regions such as the Yangtze River Delta and the Pearl River Delta. Clustered development enhances the interconnection between upstream and downstream industries, reduces operational costs, and improves production efficiency. It also serves as an effective guarantee for promoting industrial upgrading and boosting regional economies.
Informationization involves embedding sensor technology, computer technology, and software technology into equipment, enhancing their performance and intelligence. This process represents the fusion of both hardware and software, as well as the integration of manufacturing technology with information technology. Informationization will permeate the entire process of procurement, production, sales, and after-sales service, significantly improving production and service efficiency.
8. Domestic suppliers are increasingly enhancing their market competitiveness.
Our country's industrialization process started late, but after decades of development, a group of outstanding enterprises with strong independent innovation capabilities have emerged. Since the 13th Five-Year Plan period, through measures such as pilot demonstration applications, China's manufacturing industry's level of intelligence has significantly improved, self-sufficiency capabilities have been enhanced, and the industry's development trend remains positive.
In recent years, the rapidly emerging and developing new generation of information technology has been deeply applied and integrated in the manufacturing industry, effectively propelling the advancement of the intelligent manufacturing sector. Technically, thanks to the rapid development of network information technology, intelligent manufacturing and advanced process technologies have been continuously popularized in key industries, with the degree of digitalization, networking, and intelligence in manufacturing continually deepening. Process control and manufacturing execution systems are now widespread across the industry, and the rate of numerical control in core process flows has significantly increased. On the product front, the research and production of key technologies such as high-precision machine tools, industrial robots, and intelligent instruments have made rapid progress, with quality and production standards consistently improving.
Low manufacturing costs, diverse sales channels, understanding of customer needs, high standards of customer service, and a group of manufacturers with extensive R&D experience, high-level service standards, and strong support capabilities have emerged, leading to increasing market competitiveness.
9. Demographic shifts will drive the intelligentization of the manufacturing industry.
Manufacturing, as one of the pillar industries in China's economic development, is witnessing the erosion of its demographic advantage due to factors such as demographic shifts and rising labor costs. With China's population aging, the traditional manufacturing sectors, which relied on demographic strengths, are losing their edge. However, the advanced equipment manufacturing sector focused on intelligent manufacturing can help enterprises achieve efficient operations and resolve management challenges, thereby driving the entire industry towards transformation and upgrade.
As the labor-age population dwindles, businesses face ongoing pressures of labor shortages and rising labor costs, leading to the gradual disappearance of demographic dividends and exorbitant wages. This makes the shift towards industrial automation, replacing assembly lines with robots, an inevitable trend of development. Manufacturing enterprises will enhance production efficiency and resource utilization through intelligent transformation, reduce operational costs and product defect rates, and utilize cutting-edge information technology to address practical issues in business and production.
