The concept of "Smart Factory" was first proposed by the German government. Building a smart factory with "adaptability, resource efficiency, and genetic engineering" was one of the ten future projects outlined in the 2013 German High-Tech Strategy 2020. The construction of smart factories aims to enhance the competitiveness of German industry and seize the initiative in the new industrial revolution. Smart factories also represent the future direction of manufacturing plants worldwide.

In recent years, China has also been steadily advancing the construction of smart factories. In 2020, the third-party research institution e-works conducted a selection of benchmark smart factories in China, revealing a number of outstanding local benchmark smart factories, including many well-known domestic manufacturing giants. The evaluation framework for this event mainly covered two dimensions: manufacturing and intelligence, focusing on the level of construction in areas such as processes, procurement, logistics, production, system integration, interconnectivity, and information integration within the factories. The selection criteria of this event provided valuable reference for domestic manufacturing enterprises to promote their own smart factory construction.
However, due to the wide range of industries covered by manufacturing, the varying sizes of manufacturing enterprises, and the significant differences in manufacturing models, the approach to advancing smart factory construction cannot be generalized. Enterprises must combine their actual situations and application scenarios to choose suitable methods and paths. Many enterprises, like trying to fit a square peg into a round hole, blindly purchase automation equipment and production lines, resulting in low equipment utilization efficiency and an inability to truly and reasonably leverage them. Some enterprises, after networking new equipment, still have legacy older equipment that cannot be connected or automatically collect data. Others still face management black boxes at the operational level of manufacturing sites.
The Equipment Status Monitoring System launched by Alps (Dalian) System Integration Co., Ltd. can help domestic manufacturing enterprises effectively avoid the above problems. The Lighthouse Equipment Status Monitoring System uses the exclusive data collector TS-10, which can be installed directly on existing factory equipment in an add-on manner without disassembly or production shutdown. It enables rapid and low-cost network connectivity for equipment while solving the difficulty of networking old and legacy equipment. On the application layer, the Lighthouse system provides intuitive monitoring of equipment and production line operations in a smart factory, ensuring full transparency of process steps, intelligent and lean production efficiency, and significantly improving overall lean production levels. Managers can remotely monitor the production process via pads, computers, and dashboards, facilitating better understanding and control of on-site production conditions. The system also supports traceable query of equipment data and automatically generates statistical reports, breaking management black boxes and providing data support for management and optimization.
Building a benchmark smart factory requires enterprises to broaden their horizons, "go global" to continuously learn from advanced smart factories both domestically and internationally, understand the most cutting-edge benchmarks and standards in the industry, while also clearly assessing their own stage of development and available resources. They should rationally combine their actual situations with targeted, step-by-step progress in their smart factory construction process.