At the 13th Asian Financial Forum, relevant people shockingly revealed that “84% of efforts in digital transformation fail.” Although this sentence refers to the transformation of economic digitalization, digital factories are also among the 84%.

 

The digital factory management system often mentioned in the manufacturing industry is part of the realization of intelligent manufacturing. Realizing the digitization of factories is the dream of many businesses, and it is also a market that many industrial control manufacturers want to expand into. What is a digital factory system and what should a digital factory look like?

 

Digital factory management system

 

1. Advantages of digital factory

 

The so-called digital factory refers to the transformation and upgrading compared with traditional factories. In digital factory management systems, Internet of Things technology is often used to realize the interconnection between equipment, people, and systems and eliminate the existence of "information islands." The disadvantages of traditional factories are high labor costs and poor efficiency. Moreover, "accidents" are common in factory equipment. Avoiding hidden dangers in factory equipment and reducing losses from equipment failures are the functions that digitization aims to achieve.

 

For example, a digital factory system monitors all production equipment, collects and analyzes data in real time, and provides early warning and the best solution for possible failures of factory equipment. While keeping every piece of equipment in the factory operating in optimal condition, we can reduce labor costs and produce the best products.

 

2. Problems with digital transformation of domestic manufacturing industry

 

84% of digital transformation efforts have failed because most companies believe that the digital transformation system is just a technical issue, so they invest heavily in hardware and software, but do not invest in the "digital training" of employees.

 

As for China's digital factory, its development is still in its infancy, and it will inevitably take many detours. Reports indicate that the digital transformation of domestic factories faces three challenges:

 

First, the concept of digitalization is not fully understood and there is a lack of overall planning;

 

Second, the narrow misunderstanding of efficiency cannot be overcome;

 

Third, the lack of skilled talents has led to enterprise digitalization being “in name only”.

 

The realization of a digital factory requires the coordination of multiple departments. The strategic nature of top-level decision-makers is very important and they must be able to guide the digital strategy of the entire manufacturing industry. To this end, the country launched a top-level design plan for the Industrial Internet in 2019 to promote the digital transformation of hundreds of thousands of companies.

 

3. How to build a digital factory

 

China was not the first to propose digital factories. Let's first look at Germany's "Industry 4.0" concept. Germany builds digital factories with "intelligent manufacturing" as its development goal, through a series of means such as information technology, extensive interconnection, and information interaction. Make factory production more flexible and able to meet consumers' differentiated and customized needs.

 

In other words, the digital factory of the future is based on redesigned production processes, supply chain management processes, product redesign, and data collection, analysis, and decision-making systems.

 

Therefore, to build a digital factory:

 

First of all, it needs to have enriched functions and application scenarios;

 

Secondly, meet the needs of information collection;

 

Thirdly, while achieving standardized production, a certain degree of flexible production is retained;

 

Finally, automation equipment is simple and practical, easy to popularize and has low maintenance costs.

 

 

 

We often say that data collection and data application are two different things. In terms of factory data collection, we make some deployments in PLC, collect production data and then send it to the cloud, which is very easy to implement. However, there is also a lot of junk data in this process. How factories identify the value of data and apply data is one of the keys to digital transformation.

 

 

 

When the factory obtains internal data and solves production problems. The interconnection of factory and external data, that is, consumption data, is another part of building a digital factory. To this end, a safe and reliable platform is needed to share data and ultimately satisfy consumers' personalized and customized production, which is now often referred to as smart manufacturing.