Focusing on digital-intelligent transformation, helping enterprises grasp the pulse of the times; jointly pursuing industrial innovation, leading the new track of industrial change. On January 12, 2024, e-works successfully held the "Digital-Intelligent Transformation, Industry Revitalization" Smart Manufacturing Forum in Suzhou, and Alps Smart Manufacturing was invited to attend.

The event focused on the digital and intelligent upgrading of the manufacturing industry to promote high-quality development and the new industrialization process, helping Suzhou enterprises keep up with the times and achieve strong and powerful manufacturing goals. Alps Smart Manufacturing showcased its "small, fast, light, and precise" lean digital solutions tailored for small and medium-sized manufacturing enterprises, including the Huipai APS Supply Chain Resource Planning Platform and the Jinzhi Lean Factory Cloud Platform, empowering industrial upgrading with low cost and low entry barrier.

Dr. Zhang Xiaohui, Director of Alps Smart Manufacturing, as a representative of Alps Smart Manufacturing, delivered a keynote speech titled "Lean Digitalization: The Essence of Smart Manufacturing Practice" at the forum. She deeply interpreted the core concepts and implementation points of lean digitalization, and through Alps' practical experience in 22 factories worldwide and 7 major production bases in China, revealed the key challenges enterprises encounter when promoting smart manufacturing. Dr. Zhang pointed out that in actual operation, only 28% of smart factories achieved the expected results, while as many as 72% of enterprises face numerous difficulties, such as outdated equipment transformation, lagging management levels, and business-technology integration issues, hindering the pace of intelligent transformation. She emphasized that overcoming the three major challenges—renovating existing facilities, improving management efficiency, and bridging the gap between business and technology integration—is key to successful enterprise transformation and upgrading.

How to solve the implementation challenges of smart manufacturing? Dr. Zhang Xiaohui believes that the effective way to solve this problem is lean digitalization. Smart manufacturing is not simply about pursuing the accumulation of technology or the improvement of automation level; the focus should return to customer value creation. Only by integrating digital means into the factory can we precisely explore and meet market demands, achieving highly personalized and agile response of products and services. At the same time, when digital transformation is guided by lean thinking, the results of lean improvement can be solidified, avoiding repetitive work, promoting continuous optimization, and truly improving overall efficiency.

Dr. Zhang Xiaohui shared Alps Smart Manufacturing's unique perspective and practical experience in smart manufacturing. She advocated adopting a "small steps, fast running" strategy, continuously practicing and optimizing to gradually improve the level of smart manufacturing; low-cost initiation is also an important feature of smart manufacturing, and factories should achieve the start and development of smart manufacturing with limited resources; lean digitalization is the core of smart manufacturing, combining lean thinking with digital technology to eliminate unnecessary production waste and improve production efficiency. Meanwhile, Dr. Zhang Xiaohui explained Alps Smart Manufacturing's successful cases in lean digitalization.

1. Rapid handling of production abnormalities to eliminate unnecessary waste

Alps Smart Manufacturing's Andon system is not just a calling system; it is an on-site collaboration system, an abnormality management system, and a workshop floor management tool, serving as the foundation for shop floor transparency. It requires zero modification, no downtime, is plug-and-play, monitors the production line in real time, and immediately sends an alarm signal when an abnormality occurs, allowing responsible personnel to take action promptly.

2. Equipment-centric, restructuring the man-machine relationship

Alps Smart Manufacturing deeply understands the importance of equipment efficiency management. Its equipment status monitoring system uses an equipment status data collector (TS series patented product) to achieve zero modification, light implementation, one-key recording of downtime reasons without contact with the equipment, automatically counting and analyzing downtime reasons that affect production equipment OEE, thus improving overall equipment effectiveness. To ensure long-term optimal operation of equipment and avoid losses caused by unplanned downtime, Alps Smart Manufacturing has further launched an intelligent maintenance management system, covering multiple maintenance modules such as corrective maintenance, autonomous maintenance, preventive maintenance, predictive maintenance, and improvement maintenance. It maintains equipment health, suppresses maintenance costs, eliminates equipment energy waste, and reduces downtime losses, thereby achieving cost reduction and efficiency improvement.

The holding of this forum built a bridge for interaction, exchange, and learning among manufacturing enterprises in Suzhou and even nationwide, and also provided diversified strategic references for promoting the intelligent development of the manufacturing industry. Alps Smart Manufacturing will continue to deeply cultivate the field of lean digitalization, actively promote the application of related technologies in the manufacturing industry, help more enterprises achieve breakthroughs on the path of intelligent transformation, and contribute to the long-term development of China's manufacturing industry.