Existing manufacturing facilities possess the potential to transition into smart factories. However, during this transformation process, it is unrealistic to expect these legacy plants to achieve full-scale intelligent upgrades in a single step.

Lean production aims to minimize unnecessary resource waste and management costs in the manufacturing process, with its core principle being "zero waste."

The primary gap between Chinese enterprises and world-class corporations lies in management and production methodologies. To address the pressing challenge of market encroachment, adopting innovative production systems has become an urgent priority for domestic firms. Lean production emerges as the strategic remedy to navigate this crisis.

The essence of lean production lies in the management process of an enterprise. The development philosophy of lean production emphasizes streamlining every aspect, including the optimization of personnel management.

Enterprises should first reduce and minimize resource waste in any production link, promote production leveling and synchronization, achieve zero inventory and flexible production, and pursue continuous improvement and perfection.

For enterprises aiming to implement lean production, resolving equipment maintenance issues is a prerequisite. Improper equipment maintenance and frequent breakdowns are among the key obstacles hindering the adoption of lean production.

Before embarking on the transformation into a smart factory, manufacturing enterprises must first ensure that their workshops are fully connected to the network.

Currently, lean manufacturing in China's manufacturing industry is still in the development stage. Transforming from traditional manufacturing to lean production is no simple task.

The opacity of factory operations and the absence of information system support make it challenging to achieve end-to-end traceability during the transition to a smart factory. Additionally, critical manufacturing BOM data, which is integral to production management, is likely to be inaccurate.

Blindly purchasing automation equipment and production lines often results in solutions that fail to align with a factory's actual operations. The persistent information silos remain an insurmountable barrier, serving as a major obstacle on the path to smart factory transformation.