Under the influence of the “Made in China 2025†strategy and the “Industry 4.0†trend, manufacturing has accelerated into the wave of transformation and upgrading. In the past year, the industrial automation industry has shown new trends. The topic of Industry 4.0 and smart manufacturing has become a hot topic in the industry. The new generation of information technology Internet of things, big data, and cloud computing technologies are deeply integrated with traditional equipment and have created tremendous market opportunities and new business models.
Industry experts believe that the industry 4.0 innovation model guided by the integration of operational technology (OT) and information technology (IT) will bring about a significant increase in production efficiency. Some manufacturing companies have begun to take action and have increased their informatization and intelligence. In terms of investment, we will use new industrial automation technology equipment to enhance the efficiency of enterprises. So, what concepts will be the focus of attention in the new trend? For this reason, OFweek Gongkong.com has carefully selected the ten most popular keywords in the industrial control industry this year through comprehensive analysis of the annual data for readers.
1. Industry 4.0
Industry 4.0 (the fourth-generation industry) refers to the use of information physical systems (CPS) to connect equipment, products, and people in production, from product design, material supply to manufacturing, sales, and use. The entire process is To achieve transparent information visualization to achieve intelligent management of the entire production process. The German government proposed Industry 4.0 to increase the level of intelligence in manufacturing. Its core technologies include information physics system (CPS), cloud computing, big data analysis, (IT) system security, additive manufacturing/3D printing, augmented reality (HMI), robot/humanoid robot (HMI) and many other technologies.
In 2017, Industry 4.0 became even more intense in China. Shenzhen Defulai took the lead in setting up the first industrial 4.0 smart factory production demonstration line in July, which attracted the attention of the industry. In October, China's first robotics institute was established in Foshan and the first Sino-German Cooperative Industry 4.0 demonstration production line was launched. In addition, the world’s first industrial 4.0 high-efficiency battery production line (Tongwei Solar Chengdu Production Base) has also been officially put into operation.
In Sino-German cooperation, the construction of the Industry 4.0 industry promoted by the governments of both countries has achieved initial success. This year, the Phase 1a of the new global production center of the German Festo Group has been established in Jinan. The factory will use high-precision as an industrial 4.0 model factory. Sharp technology and modern automation equipment have further accelerated the connection between Chinese and German manufacturing. At the same time, some powerful Chinese companies have already cooperated with German and European companies in innovative cooperation. For example, Huawei established the first open laboratory in Europe last year in Munich, Germany. ZTE, Haier and other companies are also carrying out technological innovations to guide Chinese companies to intelligence. Manufacturing transformation.
2. Industrial Internet of Things
Industrial Internet of Things refers to the use of RFID, positioning systems, laser scanners and other sensing devices to connect all devices, products, workers, and other objects in the production process through network communications to achieve information exchange and positioning, tracking, monitoring and management functions. . At present, the country is vigorously promoting the integration of the two, "Industrial White Paper on the Internet of Things," that the understanding of its concept can not be simply equivalent to "industry + Internet of things", the significance of the development of industrial Internet of things is to help smart manufacturing.
At present, the manufacturing industry is generally faced with multiple challenges such as energy conservation and emission reduction, and improvement of production efficiency. Industrial IoT as a new technology will bring profound changes to the company's production model. Through the connection of devices, it will be able to obtain huge amounts of data to gain insights into the weaknesses and deficiencies of the machines. This will further realize predictive maintenance and optimization of machine efficiency, and ultimately help enterprises. The production line is upgraded to a higher level.
In the past year, the Industrial Internet of Things (IoT) has achieved rapid development in China. Egan Connect has signed a strategic cooperation agreement with China Unicom in Beijing. Both sides have jointly built a “Wo-Gen Yun†industrial IoT platform to jointly promote industrial manufacturing based on their respective strengths. The transformation and upgrading of innovation; industrial and robotics giant ABB Group's global CEO Schlatter (UlrichSpiesshofer) announced the release of its industrial networking platform ABBAbility in the Chinese market. Foxconn and Rockwell Automation jointly announced that they will collaborate on the smart manufacturing concept of connected companies and industrial IoT at Foxconn's new US facility.
Obviously, from the construction of the platform to the construction of the factory, the implementation of industrial Internet of Things has been in full swing and the industrial Internet of Things will surely have a bright future. However, unavoidably, the industry still faces many challenges, such as four major problems, such as more prominent equipment capabilities, supply chain attention, security, and separation between people, and the need for the industry to work closely together to solve them.
3. Intelligent manufacturing
Intelligent manufacturing refers to an intelligent production system that combines artificial intelligence technology with machine automation. It can perform data collection, analysis, reasoning, and judgment in the manufacturing process, and can make correct production decisions at the same time. Through the cooperation of automation equipment and robot products and people, we have expanded the mental work of computer systems in the manufacturing process and expanded manufacturing to more intelligent, flexible and highly integrated. In general, intelligent manufacturing includes intelligent manufacturing systems. And smart manufacturing technology.
The "Intelligent Manufacturing Development Plan (2016-2020)" issued by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology last year proposed that by 2020 more than 60 types of smart manufacturing key technologies and equipment will be developed to meet the high market demand of 50% in the domestic market. According to the statistics of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, at present, China has supported the development of technical standards and industry standards that are urgently needed for the intelligent manufacturing of 188 industries, and 44 national standards have been fully established, and 206 pilot demonstration projects for smart manufacturing have been identified.
Driven by policies and markets, China's smart manufacturing industry is moving forward. Dell has developed the Dell China 4.0 strategic framework of “in China and Chinaâ€. Through its exploration in the field of science and technology and successful experience in service manufacturing, it will help Chinese companies improve industrial intelligence and achieve digital transformation and upgrading; The giants also set off an upsurge of smart manufacturing investment. TCL Group invested 9.6 billion yuan in the construction of intelligent manufacturing bases for integrated modules and integrated machines in Huizhou, and Midea Group strategically cooperated with Country Garden. It plans to build a smart manufacturing unmanned factory and KUKA in Foshan. The robot town and Gree have independently developed and produced a series of multi-axis robots. Its automated production line has been applied to Yinlong New Energy Company.
From a global perspective, China's manufacturing industry must maintain its advantages and smart upgrades are an inevitable choice. At the same time, we must also clearly recognize that China's intelligent manufacturing equipment industry has weak technological innovation capabilities, and new technologies such as sensing and advanced control are under the control of people. Most of the new technologies and new products are still based on foreign advanced technology. With regard to development, there is still a certain gap in technology.
4. Industrial big data
Industrial big data refers to the products, equipment, and related personnel data of all links throughout the entire life cycle, from demand analysis to product design, material procurement, production, sales, delivery, operation and maintenance, and end-of-life recycling throughout the entire manufacturing process of smart manufacturing. General term. Its core product is data, which includes related technologies for data collection, storage, organization, and analysis. The sources of data mainly include three major categories. The first is the business data of the company's production and operation, the second is the data of the factory's production equipment, and the third is the external data, such as the data of the process after the product leaves the factory.
Industrial big data is the key to future industry's advantage in the global market competition. Whether it is German Industry 4.0, American Industrial Internet or "Made in China 2025", the implementation foundation of manufacturing innovation strategies in various countries is the collection and analysis of industrial big data, and this creates a worry-free environment for future manufacturing systems.
At present, the production lines in industrial enterprises are operating at a high speed. The amount of data generated, collected, and processed by industrial equipment is far greater than the data generated by computers and labor in enterprises. Most of the data types are unstructured data. Therefore, industrial big data faces three The big challenge: Enterprises must have the ability to platform to build an industrial big data ecology; various industrial big data schools driven by different values ​​are working on each other; the understanding of the concept of “industrial big data†is lopsided, which leads to inaccurate application.
5. Made in China 2025
"Made in China 2025" is the next ten-year action plan for the development of China's manufacturing industry. This strategy emphasizes the development of intelligent manufacturing and focuses on the development of new technologies such as information technology, robotics, and numerical control machine tools. It will be achieved through three steps. The strategic goal of making a strong country. The first step is to strive to enter the ranks of manufacturing powers in ten years. The second step is that by 2035 China's overall manufacturing industry will reach the middle level of the world's manufacturing powers. The third step is that China's comprehensive strength will enter the forefront of the world's manufacturing powers in 2045.
In December of this year, the World Smart Manufacturing Conference was held in Nanjing. In the same period, the “China Smart Manufacturing Green Paper (2017)†was released. The Green Paper summarized the state of smart manufacturing development in China in the past two years. In order to refine the implementation of “Made in China 2025†and seize the future manufacturing heights, China has issued a large number of related policies and has formed a “1+X†planning system. 1 refers to “Made in China 2025†and “X†refers to 11 implementation guides.
With the implementation of the “Made in China 2025†strategic plan, the traditional manufacturing industry is facing a transformation and upgrading, and automation and intelligence have become important directions. Changfei, a global leader in the optical fiber and cable industry, actively engaged in intelligent manufacturing. In January, Xinsong Robot, a leading company in robotics and automation equipment in China, and Jinzhi Information, an information system integrator, built a new smart factory in Qianjiang, Hubei, to build a preform. And fiber optic smart manufacturing industry standards. Traditional manufacturing companies such as Sany Heavy Industry and Foton Motor have also established their own smart factories. Sany Heavy Industry’s No. 18 plant is the largest and most advanced intelligent factory in Asia.
6. Industrial robot
Machine substitution is an inevitable process of transformation and upgrading of the manufacturing industry. Industrial robots show great potential in replacing manual labor and improving work efficiency. At the same time, as a key technology of intelligent manufacturing systems, industrial robots are increasingly favored by production companies. With the development and progress of technology, the prices of industrial robots are getting cheaper and cheaper. At the same time, a number of domestic brands such as Xinsong, Evert, Xinshida, Estun, Tuostar, and Guangzhou CNC have emerged.
In terms of policy, in addition to "Made in China 2025", various localities have also issued relevant promotion policies. In the market, industrial robot products have been continuously developed from rectangular coordinates, SCARA, six-axis robots, parallel robots, and collaborative robots. The huge market has attracted the attention of domestic capital, and industry mergers and acquisitions seem to be the best way for robot companies to grow and quickly seize the market.
In 2017, the industrial robot industry was also in a turmoil, and major industrial robot manufacturers were active. Yaskawa Electric has released the new small-size 6-axis industrial robot GP series, and also established a robotic joint venture with Changying Precision to prepare for the development of the latest generation of small six-axis industrial robots; Omron has built two robot production lines in Europe to accelerate the response speed in the European market and improve The productivity of robots delivered by customers; Estun acquired a 30% stake in Barrett Technology, a US high-tech company, for US$9 million; Barrett is a company that researches and manufactures miniature servo drives and human-robot collaboration intelligent robots; ABB and Kawasaki Heavy Industries have reached a cooperative relationship. Plans to launch a new collaborative robot.
7. Machine Vision
Machine vision collects external image information through sensors such as industrial cameras, so that machinery and equipment have the same perception ability as the human eye. In the industrial production, it can be used instead of artificial visual inspection to more accurately determine the position, shape and size of a product. And defects and other parameters. The image contains a huge amount of information. People perceive 80% of the information in the external world is obtained through the eye. It can be seen how important machine vision is for the performance improvement of machine production equipment.
With the increasing demand for intelligent manufacturing, the requirements of the production line for equipment intelligence are getting higher and higher. Visual technology greatly enhances the ability to obtain information in industrial automation. Through the capture of image information, the machine can perform more operations such as positioning, measurement, and even exceed the limits of the human eye in terms of speed and dimensions. For example, the visual accuracy can reach the micron level, the speed can be hundreds of millions of frames per second, and it can also detect the light that the human eye cannot see, and can also establish three-dimensional information to realize more high-energy production activities.
The development of artificial intelligence technology will further open the new capabilities of machine vision. Through algorithms such as cognitive learning, the ability of machines to recognize images will be greatly enhanced. For example, Microsoft has previously introduced techniques for identifying gender and age through face recognition. The ability to learn will help the production line reach the level of advanced intelligent manufacturing. In addition, the rapid development of the industrial robot industry has further promoted the growth of demand for machine vision. The industry predicts that the global machine vision market will reach US$12.5 billion by 2020, and the machine vision market is ushering in a golden period for the industry.
8. Smart Factory
With the development of technologies such as the Internet of Things and cloud computing, the traditional manufacturing industry has ushered in an earth-shaking revolution. The industrial 4.0 production model is being formed and the concept of a smart factory has emerged. So what is a smart factory? It refers to the use of Internet of Things and computer information technology to manage the entire plant, including equipment, products, personnel and other things, to build a factory that is energy-efficient, environmentally friendly, and environmentally friendly.
Smarter factories have more capabilities than traditional factories. For example, factories can analyze and judge internal and external data information to realize the functions of autonomous production decision-making; through the equipment monitoring, virtual simulation and other technologies, the physical production process and virtual The world is integrated to realize the visualization of manufacturing; the production system can conduct production activities on its own according to the task requirements and can adapt to environmental changes; the production equipment has the ability to self-learn and maintain, and the machine can coordinate with people to achieve the best production effect. .
In July this year, China's first industrial 4.0 smart factory demonstration line unveiled in Shenzhen. The production line is mainly used for the production of TV boxes. The entire system integrates cooperative robots, autonomous mobile robots, machine vision and artificial intelligence technologies, from design to production. The process achieved information and intelligent management. Not only can we meet large-scale production, we can also do flexible manufacturing, and manufacture multiple products on the same production line.
9. Digitization
In the past few decades, people have been using automation to increase production efficiency, but today's automation brings less and less space for efficiency. With the changes in the market and the complication of the production environment, factories now need not only energy-saving and efficiency-enhancing, but also need flexible production and personalized customization functions, and they can respond to the changing needs of the market at the fastest speed. Digitalization offers new possibilities for manufacturing. Digital factories seamlessly connect production equipment, products, and personnel to the virtual world, enabling the factory's visual management and insight into more business opportunities through data analysis.
In the digital world, the customer's request can immediately get feedback, and the product is transparent throughout the production process. Customers can understand the progress of their orders and know what happened to the production process and how long it takes to complete delivery. From the factory's perspective, customers participate in the interaction of the production process, the following requirements, feedback on product usage issues, etc. Manufacturers can adjust production plans and improve products based on these data.
Digital production brings many benefits. Through the processing of market information, the manufacturing process can be optimized, the efficiency of the machine can be improved, and the maintenance time nodes can be predicted, the risk of machine downtime can be reduced, and the production cost can be further reduced and the efficiency of the equipment can be improved. Digital operations can create trillions of dollars of opportunities for enterprises, use new data technologies such as big data, enhance the ability of companies to gain insights, and maximize the efficiency of factories to create more business value.
10. Artificial intelligence
Artificial intelligence refers to a discipline that simulates human intelligence through machines. It mainly includes machine learning, recognition, cognition, reasoning, and decision-making. Through some algorithm models, the machine has the ability of human intelligence. Artificial intelligence is a key technology for smart manufacturing. In the future, smart factories require multiple capabilities such as data analysis, cognitive computing, and intelligent decision-making to meet the requirements of more demanding production environments.
When it comes to artificial intelligence, everyone may think of IBM and Google. Watson, the supercomputer system launched by IBM, defeated top human players in the quiz, and Google's AlphaGo defeated South Korean player Li Shishi in the Go game. These phenomena indicate that artificial intelligence is surpassing human intelligence and that artificial intelligence can replace human beings in the future. Intellectual work.
For humans who are continuously pursuing progress, the inherent advantages of artificial intelligence will create endless possibilities. The huge market opportunities will attract the layout of major manufacturers. This year, General Electric of the United States GE announced the establishment of an artificial intelligence company in Berlin. It will focus on robotics and artificial intelligence technologies, data analysis, etc., and provide advanced inspection services for the industrial sector. ABB and IBM will cooperate with ABBAbility, a digital solution, and the IBM Watson Internet of Things. Knowledge Computing has jointly created new value for customers in the power, industrial, transportation, and infrastructure fields. The parent of Google Brain, Bai En artificial scientist Wu Enda, has disclosed its landing.ai project and brought artificial intelligence technology into the factory. With more and more companies entering the game, it is believed that artificial intelligence technology will soon have a huge effect in the field of industrial automation.