From April 2013, when the German scholar Können proposed the concept of Industry 4.0 at the Hannover Messe, to the tenth anniversary of my writing of this column.
Text / Wu Xiaobo (WeChat public account: Wu Xiaobo channel)
One
In early March, I went to Yunnan Baiyao in Kunming. This is the ninth stop of "Into the Benchmark Factory".
This business, I have been to almost enough for the palm of one hand. Its toothpaste factory was originally in the city, and I used to see the busy scene, especially the forklifts coming and going, which left a deep impression on me. Ten years ago, Yunyao moved its headquarters to Chenggong, and the new toothpaste factory has undergone several rounds of technical iterations, the most recent of which was completed late last year. This is the new factory we walked into.
Yunnan Baiyao toothpaste has a market share of up to 24% in the national market, and is a veritable industry leader, with annual sales of 6 billion yuan and an annual output of about 400 million toothpastes, all of which are in this factory. Here, please do a multiple-choice question first:
How many workers do you think such a factory needs? (Single selection)
1000 people
500 people
50 people
Yes. Only 50 people are needed.
If calculated according to the output, the per capita annual output of 80 million toothpastes, according to the per capita revenue, each person is as high as 120 million yuan.
I carefully observed that the paste making workshop and the filling and packaging workshop have completely realized unmanned operation, in the storage link, palletizing robots have replaced the porters, and forklifts have been replaced by AGV trucks. There are more than a dozen workers in the quality inspection workshop, who work in tandem with monitoring equipment, and there are also some people on the cardboard packaging line, who are still there because the cost of machine replacement is higher than that of manpower.
The director of the factory told me that at present, there are still workers in the paste making process to add materials and maintain cleaning, and after the application of artificial intelligence technology, this part of the personnel can also save a few.
Most of the trainees I visited were small and medium-sized business owners in the manufacturing industry, and they all had the same question written on their faces: Where will the manufacturing workers go in the future? What about small and medium-sized toothpaste companies?
Two
Without walking into the factory, you may not be able to imagine the changes taking place there.
——In Haier's washing machine factory, the production time of a washing machine from a steel plate to the final finished product is about 38 minutes. The manual quality inspection time of a washing machine was originally about five minutes, but now it is replaced by a 5G quality inspection robot, which only takes about 45 seconds;
——In the new energy vehicle plant of Zeekr, from a steel ingot to the completion of the final assembly of the whole vehicle, it is a huge and uninterrupted production line, with an annual output of 300,000 vehicles and about 1,000 employees;
——In Mousse's bedding factory, with a daily output of 10,000 mattresses and about 200 employees, the production line can simultaneously manufacture mattresses of different sizes and specifications and different filling materials, realizing previously unimaginable mass customization;
Sany Heavy Industry is the largest equipment manufacturing plant in the domestic construction industry, in 2017, its blue-collar workers to engineers ratio of 9,680: 2,700, by the end of last year, 14,560: 12,200, by 2025, this ratio will change to 3,000: 30,000.
It is not only the speed of production and the per capita labor efficiency that are being changed, but also the replacement of jobs that were plagued by pollution and considered very technical.
In ceramic sanitary ware factories, glazers are the hardest and most tiring type of work, because they have been surrounded by glazes for many years, they are the largest group of pneumoconiosis patients, and now, with the emergence of glazing robots, this type of work has disappeared.
In leather factories, master skincuts, respected for their knowledge of all kinds of fur qualities, were among the highest-paid jobs, but with the advent of skincutters with scanning calculations, they have disappeared en masse.
Three
Walking through one benchmark factory after another, I lost my thoughts again and again.
If the workshop is the most basic computing unit of manufacturing, then the earth-shaking changes that have taken place here mean that we must rethink the path and possibilities of China's new industrialization.
I have a few judgments, written here:
▶ ▷ Judgment 1: Small and medium-sized manufacturing plants will face unprecedented elimination.
With the emergence of giant intelligent factories such as Yunyao toothpaste and Haier washing machines, small and medium-sized factories with assembly as their core competitiveness will not have the necessity to exist in the future. The cost reduction and capacity spillover of large factories will cause a "scale-take-all effect" in one industry after another, and this trend is already happening.
▶ ▷Judgment 2: The wide application of robots and intelligent tools has completely changed the previous labor model.
The strong absorption of labor in manufacturing will weaken, the number of blue-collar workers who lack skills will be massively reduced, and there will be a shortage of highly skilled technicians and engineers. This will challenge existing higher and vocational education, but also mean new opportunities. In the coming years, the optimization of the manufacturing workforce will be a very fast and brutal process.
▶ ▷Judgment 3: The supporting of industrial clusters will be the core competitiveness of regional industries.
In regional industrial clusters, large enterprises will play the role of "chain masters", providing technology research and development, new product piloting, integration and capital connection capabilities, thereby driving the professional division of labor in the entire region. In the process, the "walls" of each factory will be torn down, and sensors and big data will connect orders to redistribute benefits along the value chain.
▶ ▷ Judgment 4: Small and medium-sized manufacturing enterprises must focus on "specialization and innovation", have no distractions, and refuse to become bigger.
No matter how small and ordinary an industrial manufactured product is, it has its own technical threshold on the parts, as well as the parts that can be deeply cultivated and iterated. As long as SMEs can form their own patent advantages at one point, they can have a foothold in the domestic and even global markets. Business owners must abandon the "illusion of scale", expand into the depth of the industry, be willing to play a supporting role, and strive to become a hidden champion who will not be abandoned.
From April 2013, when the German scholar Können proposed the concept of Industry 4.0 at the Hannover Messe, to the tenth anniversary of my writing of this column.
This was the most grand and brutal decade in the history of the Industrial Revolution, and it was also a decade of rebirth of China's manufacturing industry. Its shine was once overshadowed by the wave of consumer internet. Today, the tide has receded, and the factory has returned to the magnesium light, "the goddess should be unharmed, and the world should be shocked."
For the rest of the year, I will continue to walk into one benchmark factory after another and report what I see and think to you here.
If you are interested, ask you to accompany you.
Author of this article | Wu Xiaobo
Current value edit | Wu Xinyue
Editor-in-Chief | He Mengfei
Image source | VCG