In Africa, more than 60 kilometers away from Nairobi, the capital of Kenya, the ceramic base where Foshan enterprises landed was erected. The executives and front-line employees who went overseas faced reality with ideals: starting from their own prospecting for minerals and water sources, they realized the "myth" of signing contracts, starting construction that year, putting into production and making profits that year. Five years later, the output value of the company's African ceramics business that year has reached more than 2 billion yuan.
About 10,000 kilometers away from Chen Village, Shunde, Foshan, on the large screen of the exhibition hall of Keda Manufacturing Headquarters, the live broadcast of global production bases, including Africa, is dynamically played, and the distance between wanli space is "synchronized" in the digital era. On the other side of the exhibition hall, all the production links of the whole ceramic factory line are displayed, as well as the entire intelligent management system of the company's digital factory.
With this headquarters as the "center of the circle", Keda Manufacturing has achieved nearly 10 billion revenue in the past year, an increase of more than 34% year-on-year; the net profit attributable to the mother exceeded 1 billion, an increase of nearly 285% year-on-year. Firmly sit in the "First in Asia, Second in the World" industry "Jianghu Status".
In this issue, Nandu reporters walked into Keda Manufacturing Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Keda Manufacturing") to explore the "digital" password of the enterprise.
Keda Manufacturing has been deeply engaged in digital transformation for nearly 20 years, and its transformation as a machinery and equipment enterprise has multiple meanings: to empower enterprises to operate and produce with digital; to explore the way for digital intelligence in non-standard industries; to drive the entire industrial chain with its own digital transformation as a demonstration, and to help downstream ceramic enterprises achieve digital and intelligent transformation and upgrading.
20 years of digital transformation practice
The opening of the Shunde section of the western extension of Guangzhou Metro Line 7 during the May Day Golden Week has transformed the geographical "bridgehead" between Shunde Chencun and Guangzhou South Railway Station into the "first station" of the subway.
The headquarters of Koda Manufacturing is located here.
This enterprise is mainly engaged in the production and sales of building materials machinery and overseas architectural ceramics, and is a leading enterprise in the ceramic machinery industry in the mainland and even in the world. With Foshan Shunde headquarters as the "center of the circle", the strategic pace of Keda Manufacturing covers the world, and the company's products are sold to more than 60 countries and regions. In recent years, subsidiaries such as India and Turkey have been established, and five ceramic production bases have been invested in Kenya, Ghana, Tanzania, Senegal and Zambia in Africa. In Europe, €28.3 million in the acquisition of Italy's I.C.F. & WELKO S.P.A. to create a comprehensive competitiveness in the high-end market. In 2021, the sales revenue reached 9.797 billion yuan, an increase of 34.24% year-on-year.
Firmly sit on the ceramic machinery industry "Asia's first, the world's second" throne.
In addition to keeping up with the national "Belt and Road" development strategy and the steady pace of mergers and acquisitions, there is another keyword in the development path of Keda Manufacturing in the past ten years: digital intelligence.
Inventory of several important development nodes of enterprises, which are closely related to digital and intelligent transformation.
In 2002, Keda Manufacturing was listed on the Shanghai Stock Exchange (stock code: 600499). This year was also called "the first year of informatization" by Zhou Peng, vice president of Keda Manufacturing Co., Ltd.
After the launch of ERP and other information software in 2002, in 2004, Keda manufacturing industry ushered in a new round of "information outbreak period", in 2014, under the series of changes in the background of the industry, enterprises carried out a series of iterative updates in virtualization and big data; in 2020, enterprises re-evaluated the status quo of informatization, and on the basis of existing system upgrades, began to increase the exploration and application of 5G technology, and began to promote the construction of digital factories.
In 2021, with the continuous advancement of the company's reform, Keda Manufacturing once again launched a new round of digital upgrading construction, and the SAP S/4 HANA project (that is, the ERP upgrade project) was launched, which also marked the basic completion of a new generation of enterprise digital core platform. The entire system runs through sales, production, procurement, warehousing, quality, project, finance, customer service and equipment.
In 2021, Keda Manufacturing and its subsidiary Keda Hydraulics were both awarded the "2021 Foshan Digital Intelligent Demonstration Factory".
Intelligent "brains" in the workshop
Today, in the workshop of Keda Hydraulics, machines are put on the job, replacing the repetitive work of manual labor. A large amount of data generated behind the digitization flows directly to the office located in the middle of the workshop, and four or five Kanban boards display and analyze the operation of the machine, the production process, product quality and other conditions in real time.
This office is like the "brain" of the whole workshop.
The intelligent "brain" of the workshop is not only reflected in the clear and detailed big data kanban, but also in the digital transformation so far, and informatization, digitization and intelligence are being extended to every production and operation link.
For example, the "5G + data acquisition device networking overall solution", through the 5G intelligent gateway, The Internet of Things cloud box through the physical interface to connect the device to obtain relevant status, time and output data, and through the wireless MESH networking mode to wireless transmission of data to the intelligent manager, the intelligent manager through the 5G network and the upper service application platform to establish a connection, to provide a reliable data base for the upper layer application.
This move has changed the traditional equipment data collection mainly rely on personnel on-site management and manual recording methods, data accuracy, reliability is low; network data delay, can not ensure that the data real-time, accurate reporting, can not grasp the real data of the equipment in time and other issues.
Another example is the "QSMART quality management overall solution", the traditional quality control is to rely on the inspection of the final product and screening out the quality control of the unqualified product, this inspection strategy usually causes serious waste, and often can not effectively control the quality of the product.
After the upgrade, the project collects process information and analyzes it, identifies normal fluctuations and abnormal fluctuations in the production process, detects abnormal conditions in a timely manner, so as to take measures to eliminate abnormalities and improve processes, and continuously optimizes the control of the process through the principle of continuous improvement, so as to prevent the generation of incompatible products and continuously improve product quality.
There are many such solutions in the workshop, which achieve the goals of intelligent analysis, intelligent early warning, intelligent control, intelligent prediction and intelligent decision-making.
Nowadays, the enterprise through the upgrading of the production workshop, the introduction of advanced CNC equipment while transforming the old equipment, the number of CNC equipment accounted for 69.79% of the total number of production equipment, CNC equipment networking rate of 83.58%, 5G networking rate of 89.29%; after the implementation of the project using ERP to establish a production, supply and marketing integration planning system, according to different production modes to adopt flexible planning strategies, production plan completion rate of more than 95%; the use of end-to-end inventory management, the construction of three-dimensional warehouses, equipped with 5G network, to achieve clear inventory management , inventory accuracy of 99%.
Explore the way for non-standard industry digital intelligence
In the process of digital and intelligent transformation, Keda Manufacturing also has a key word that cannot be avoided: non-standardization.
The ceramic machine products manufactured by Keda are special large-scale mechatronics complete sets of equipment, covering almost all the complex business of non-standard equipment manufacturing industry such as machining, electrical control, parts assembly and assembly, engineering project implementation, and accessories services.
This is not the "threshold" that Koda manufactures a company faces.
As a typical discrete equipment manufacturing industry, because it cannot be scaled and mass-produced, the degree of material standardization is low, the design, procurement, and production cycle are long, the level of workshop automation is low, inventory and sluggish materials are difficult to effectively control, and cost accounting and control are difficult to implement, which are long-standing common problems of discrete equipment manufacturing enterprises in various subdivided industries.
Moreover, as a representative of such traditional discrete heavy equipment manufacturing, the products produced and manufactured by the ceramic machinery industry have the characteristics of large specifications, self-weight and customization, and it is impossible to unify the standard for assembly line operations, and digital transformation is difficult.
The goal proposed by Keda Manufacturing is to create a benchmark for the intelligent manufacturing system of the discrete heavy equipment manufacturing industry.
That is to say, compared with the inventory-type, assembly-line manufacturing industry (home appliances, electronics, automobiles, etc.) has more mature overall solutions, Keda Manufacturing's exploration and practice in the path of digital intelligent transformation, for injection molding machines, casting machines, packaging machines and other types of discrete machinery and equipment manufacturing industry, more universal reference value, is a reference to learn and even copy the "sample".
"Three independent regiments to a sharp knife brigade"
In exploring the way for non-standard industries, as well as promoting internal optimization and downstream extension convenience, Koda Manufacturing has also made many interesting attempts to achieve more application scenarios.
In the enterprise internal reference, one of the typical cases is called "three independent regiments to a sharp knife brigade".
As the only enterprise in the industry that can provide ceramic "whole plant whole line" equipment, in terms of the whole line after the kiln, Keda Manufacturing takes the three keywords of "reducing personnel and increasing efficiency, saving energy and reducing consumption, and information intelligence" as the product line research and development defense line, realizing the efficient interconnection of various processes after the kiln, thereby helping downstream ceramic enterprises to move towards "unmanned factory".
For example, the intelligent polishing production line is the product technology function upgrade that the enterprise does according to the actual needs of the user, which is also the update iteration of the intelligent product of the enterprise.
This technology is based on the integrated CNC operation management system of the SCADA system to realize the digital control of the operation of the production line; the use of deep learning artificial intelligence algorithm to develop an online quality inspection system to improve the accuracy of defect identification such as front, collapse angle, fracture and offset; the use of digital twin technology to simulate the actual production line, simulate the operation of the actual production line, and integrate with the MES system of the production line.
In 2021, the polishing machine also successfully entered the European market, with production in Saxa in Italy and Cerpa smart edge grinding line in Spain.
In addition to polishing equipment, this kind of exploration also includes the "gear shift acceleration" of intelligent storage and packaging machinery.
The intelligent warehousing division of Koda Manufacturing launched a new model of bricking on the manipulator in 2020, and last year launched a seven-axis robot picking line for intelligent warehouses. At present, it has been put into use in a number of ceramic factories in Guangdong. Among the new products launched by the Packaging Machinery Division in 2021, the brick stack automatic strapping system has opened up the last kilometer of full automation of the entire packaging line, and has been successfully applied in Guangxi with the intelligent palletizing system and the packaging line control system.
Digital empowerment to drive the industry forward
The typical case of "three independent regiments to a sharp knife brigade" is also the exploration and practice of Keda to help ceramic enterprises achieve digital and intelligent transformation and upgrading.
At present, in addition to its own transformation of Keda Manufacturing, it also provides ceramic digital factory solution services. For example, the construction of a hyper-fusion platform can provide data detection and information services for 25% of domestic ceramic enterprises; unify the communication protocol of ceramic production equipment, collect equipment operation data, and realize functions such as equipment diagnosis, electricity consumption standardization, energy consumption standardization, quality accident analysis, etc.; Develop a production and manufacturing execution system, combined with the production process of the pottery process, to provide workshop management information services for various departments, and build a digital factory platform to realize the organic integration of workshop resource quality management, scheduling optimization, data collection, and visual monitoring.
"Through the construction of a series of digital factories, so as to achieve the integration of market research and development and manufacturing in various fields of collaboration, while better matching the business strategy and organizational change, we also hope that Keda Manufacturing can use its own digital transformation as a demonstration to drive the entire industrial chain, and even the digital transformation of related industries, to achieve an industrial community." Zhou Peng said.
This vision of moving the industry forward is also reflected in the details of communication with entrepreneurs and even peer partners. Under the guidance of Foshan Municipal Bureau of Industry and Information Technology, the Municipal Information Association, the Municipal Industrial Internet Industry Alliance, and the Municipal Zhilian Industrial Internet Technology Service Center jointly undertook the exchange and sharing of "Foshan Enterprises Entering digital intelligent benchmarking demonstration enterprises (phase III)", 25 enterprises walked into Keda Manufacturing, and put forward questions in combination with the actual development of enterprises, and humbly "learned from the experience".
Nandu reporter noticed that the entrepreneurs in the entire exchange link have "grabbed the wheat" and raised more than ten questions, and Zhou Peng and his colleagues have answered and interacted with each other one by one.
Zhou Peng concluded that from the practice of promoting digitalization in the past two decades of Keda Manufacturing, digital construction is a strategic test and a long-term project. In addition to the industry development vision and enterprise development momentum, it is first necessary to promote the transformation of the awareness and thinking mode of key positions and middle and senior management personnel, cultivate the implementation group of digital transformation, and build a team for digital transformation.
Entering the "year of establishment" of enterprises, how can this world's leading enterprise in the industry continue to lead?
Koda Manufacturing has already said the answer in the company's 29th anniversary special issue:
"Open the curtain of informatization and empower enterprises to operate and produce with digital." Keda has a clear goal, increases the construction of informatization and the construction of digital factories, and continues to maintain the leading position in the industry.
Written by: Nandu reporter Lu Manman intern Chen Yingping
Photo: Nandu reporter Zheng Junbin
Supported by this issue: Foshan Information Association