Foxconn Industrial Internet: Intelligent Manufacturing Empowers Shanxi's Industrial Upgrade

Industry is the foundation of a nation. The magnificent transformation of traditional manufacturing toward intelligence, the intelligent upgrading of traditional industries empowered by technology, and the achievement of a cleaner, low-carbon, and renewable energy structure are the necessary paths for Shanxi Province to forge a new road of high-quality transformational development and strive to be the vanguard of the national energy revolution.

Foxconn Technology Group, as the world's largest electronics industry technology manufacturing service provider, has always resonated with the times. In the first 10 months of this year, Taiyuan Foxconn achieved a total industrial output value of 93.087 billion yuan, and for the full year it will exceed 100 billion yuan for the first time, becoming Shanxi's first advanced manufacturing industrial park with a single entity's total industrial output value exceeding 100 billion yuan. Foxconn's subsidiary Industrial Internet Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Industrial Fulian") relies on the dual-wheel drive strategy of "smart manufacturing + industrial internet" to empower Shanxi to press the "fast-forward button" on the road of leapfrog development and transformational upgrading in the energy revolution.

Technology empowerment lights up a new engine for the energy revolution

The roar of machines, flying coal dust... The traditional coal mining scenes of the past have become history in many coal mines across the land of Sanjin. As an old industrial base, the industrial pattern that was once dominated by coal is being accelerated in its reversal under the impetus of Shanxi Province's transformational development. The heavy responsibility of striving to be the "vanguard" of the energy revolution forces the high-quality development of the coal industry, and smart mines are imperative.

Underground coal-rock recognition technology accurately predicts coal seam change trends, an intelligent system brain commands the mining machine's excavation operations, and an efficient data collection and information transmission system realizes the comprehensive interconnection of people, machines, and objects in the mine... What the reporter saw was exactly the overall smart mine solution displayed at Industrial Fulian's Jincheng Smart Manufacturing Valley.

"Leveraging our professional accumulation in the manufacturing field and our leading position in smart manufacturing and the industrial internet, we take intelligent mining faces as the entry point, vigorously develop 5G smart mine overall solutions, realize green intelligent mining and intelligent management operations in mines, and truly empower Shanxi's energy revolution," Yuan Xiaobo, head of Jincheng Smart Manufacturing Valley, told the reporter.

Last December, Jincheng Smart Manufacturing Valley signed a strategic cooperation framework agreement on "5G Smart Mine Joint Application" with Taiyuan University of Technology, the Jincheng Municipal Bureau of Industry and Information Technology, and the Jincheng Municipal Energy Bureau. At the third anniversary of Industrial Fulian's listing and summit forum held on July 17 this year, Jincheng Smart Manufacturing Valley signed a strategic cooperation agreement on the smart mine internet platform with the Jincheng Economic and Technological Development Zone, Jincheng Mobile, and multiple companies, taking on the role of joint empowerment to drive and promote the construction of smart mines in the province and city.

Mining coal picks are one of the wearing parts in coal mining and roadway excavation machinery, and are the main tools for coal falling and crushing. Like "teeth," they cut through coal seams as if slicing iron. Through effort, Jincheng Smart Manufacturing Valley independently developed mining coal picks with a grain size of 7 microns, achieving import substitution while simultaneously improving product performance. On January 1 this year, the first "engineering ultra-coarse hard alloy production line" in Smart Manufacturing Valley, dedicated to coal picks with an annual output of 200 tons, was fully completed and put into production. At the same time, combining Industrial Fulian's more than ten years of smart manufacturing experience and achievements in the alloy industry, it exports empowerment to more than 190 coal mining enterprises in Jincheng, helping the region's industry transform and upgrade.

In the past few years, Industrial Fulian's Shanxi region has relied on its own advantages as an established manufacturer, with the dual engines of smart manufacturing and the industrial internet working in tandem. With the "three hard" technologies of equipment, tools, and materials plus the "three soft" technologies of big data, artificial intelligence, and industrial software, it has opened up acceleration and new vitality for empowering Shanxi and empowering the energy revolution. According to expert estimates, the realization of the overall smart mine solution will greatly reduce the number and frequency of underground miners, achieve 100% intelligent working faces in mines, and bring at least a 50% increase in safety factors, truly realizing safe, efficient, and low-carbon mining in mines.

Smart manufacturing leads the future of manufacturing

Dipping the brush in ink, shifting position as the brush moves like a dragon, dotting plum blossoms and moistening flowers, freely and flexibly finishing with a stroke of red, and a plum blossom Chinese painting is seemingly completed... Unexpectedly, this "master" is actually an industrial robot affectionately called "Fujiang."

"Fujiang" painting Chinese paintings, Wu Weibing, head of Industrial Fulian (Jincheng) Robot R&D Office, is full of pride: "Combining high-tech with the charm of traditional culture and art will surely produce a perfect interpretation."

The smart manufacturing team led by Wu Weibing lets robots perform wonderful skills, capable of both "literary" and "martial" pursuits. The "star robots" produced here constantly refresh people's perceptions: the fresh and elegant type that loves calligraphy, the refined type that can paint Chinese paintings, the all-around type for spraying, welding, and assembly... One after another independently developed industrial robots, firsts in China, have become Shanxi's new calling card for smart manufacturing.

In the testing workshop of the R&D office, more than 100 industrial robots are performing multi-joint movements, skilled in motion and neatly uniform. The various robots that people once could only see in science fiction movies are now a "Robot Story" in smart factories. Here, monthly production of industrial robots reaches more than 1,000 units, and loaded vehicles continuously transport them to enterprises inside and outside the province every month. Industrial Fulian's Shanxi region has become the largest robot production base in China.

The leap from a major manufacturing province to a strong smart manufacturing province cannot be separated from smart manufacturing, with industrial robots as the vanguard, seizing the opportunity for change in the energy transformation.

The workshop is pitch-black, empty and deserted. Red and green lights flash alternately, and small robotic carts use signal data to handle the movement, storage, and transfer of objects. This is the scene of Industrial Fulian (Taiyuan)'s "lights-out factory." Industrial robots can realize the complete production process from automatic loading, parts processing, intelligent correction, and automatic inspection to smart logistics, achieving "full lifecycle management of cutting tools."

When the reporter met Li Hong, manager of Industrial Fulian (Taiyuan) Technology Empowerment Center, he had just finished a meeting. "We must rely on Industrial Fulian's own smart manufacturing advantages to enter the traditional manufacturing industry chain and help enterprises enhance the value chain of their products."

The roll forming automation line developed by the Industrial Fulian Technology Empowerment Center, from vacuum pugging to glazing, has been successfully implemented at Yingxian Tianmei Porcelain Co., Ltd., and product quality has steadily improved. Subsequently, the Technology Empowerment Center will develop a full set of equipment including automatic clay loading, automatic kiln car loading, automatic kiln car unloading, automatic decal application, automatic pad printing, and automatic packaging, to achieve full automation and digitization, and ultimately realize unmanned operation of the entire production workshop.

The automation and intelligence of factories will empower Shuozhou to build China's northern "daily-use porcelain capital." At present, Li Hong's team is actively expanding into transportation, food, printing and dyeing, photovoltaics, smart cities, smart education, and other industry fields, using technological empowerment to strive for "from point to surface, blooming everywhere."

The realization of the "lights-out factory" will increase production efficiency by 30%, reduce inventory cycles by 15%, and cut production manpower by 92%. For traditional labor-intensive manufacturing enterprises over the past decades, this was unimaginable, but Industrial Fulian is turning the dream into reality step by step, gradually promoting the transformation of enterprises from lean factories to automatic unmanned factories, and then to digital factories and intelligent factories.

Technology support empowers "carbon neutrality"

As a major energy province, Shanxi shoulders the national mission of being a comprehensive supporting reform pilot zone for the transformation of the resource-based economy and a pilot province for comprehensive energy revolution reform. The task of achieving carbon neutrality is imaginably arduous. Facing this vision, Industrial Fulian helps the province's energy structure transformation quickly press the "fast-forward button."

It acts not only as a promoter of "green development," but also as an enabler of "green intelligence." In the energy consumption online monitoring room of Industrial Fulian (Taiyuan) Energy and Power Office, a huge electronic screen composed of 27 screens comes into view. The screen displays real-time data on electricity, gas, heat, water, and compressed air for each production unit in the park, as well as energy consumption analysis for the past week.

"As long as it is various energy data related to the enterprise, it can all be seen clearly here." Li Xiao, head of the Energy and Power Office, said that this is the energy management brain of the production unit, and through the smart facility system, it comprehensively improves the efficiency of environmental protection, safety, electricity, water, and other aspects in the manufacturing environment.

Behind the smart energy brain is Industrial Fulian's adherence to its original intention and the necessary path as a smart manufacturing enterprise. Industrial Fulian has set up energy-saving and consumption-reduction promotion groups in both its Taiyuan and Jincheng factory areas. By setting annual energy-saving and emission-reduction targets, it forces the enterprise to accelerate in energy management, process optimization, technological innovation, capital investment, project implementation, and other work.

Industrial Fulian has deployed a high-end precision mining materials and tools production project in Jincheng. After improvement, the comprehensive utilization rate of tungsten ore, water, electricity, and other resources in a single factory area increased by 30%, saving 1 million kWh of electricity annually, saving 60,000 tons of water resources annually, recycling 300 tons of tungsten carbide materials annually. The annual electricity savings can supply 3,000 households for one year, and the annual water savings can supply 2,000 households for one year. Every two years, one fewer mine can be opened. Actively empowering externally and promoting the application and implementation of clean technology across the entire industry is precisely the inevitable path of Industrial Fulian's empowerment of "carbon neutrality."

Industrial Fulian's Shanxi region has always been committed to solving energy consumption problems from the "source." From large energy-saving projects such as air compressor waste heat recovery, oil mist machine frequency conversion, and magnetic levitation chiller application, to small changes such as LED energy-saving lamps, the use of clean raw materials, and the replacement of cargo transport carts with electric vehicles, the two factory areas of Industrial Fulian's Shanxi region have seen their various energy-saving data reach new highs year after year, with cost savings reaching tens of millions of yuan, and have successively won the title of national-level green factory.

"Next, we will continue to play the exemplary and leading role of an industry-leading enterprise, committed to promoting the transformation and upgrading of Shanxi Province's manufacturing industry toward high technology, high added value, high quality, and high efficiency, and truly empower Shanxi," said He Qihua, head of Foxconn's Shanxi region. (Reporter Cao Xiujuan)