HEFEI, China, Sept. 21, 2024 — In recent years, Anhui, a province in eastern China, has been pursuing high-quality development across the entire spectrum of new industrialization and striving to make manufacturing more sophisticated, intelligent, and environmentally friendly.
In Ma’anshan City, the city’s core steel industry has been undergoing significant transformations. With a wider range of products and the application of advanced technologies, steel products have successfully penetrated the high-end market, leading to a substantial increase in their value. Baowu Group Masteel Rail Transit Materials Technology Co., Ltd., a leading enterprise in Ma’anshan, has mastered the core technologies for manufacturing high-speed train wheels and established a robust and advanced manufacturing system. The company’s high-quality axle products have been exported to over 70 countries and regions globally.
Lighthouse factories, recognized by the World Economic Forum in partnership with McKinsey & Company, are considered pioneers in the intelligent and digital transformation of global manufacturing. Anhui is home to five such lighthouses, placing it third in the country. One example is the Hefei Haier COSMO Intelligent Control Interconnected Factory. The factory has significantly reduced the time needed for its standard operating procedures (SOP) from three to four hours to less than three seconds by employing a virtual industrial engineer. This virtual engineer can make real-time adjustments and select the optimal solution from thousands of options, resulting in a 30 percent increase in efficiency.
More than 80 percent of industrial enterprises above a certain size in Anhui Province have implemented digital transformation initiatives, with over 50 percent successfully achieving this transition. The landscape of intelligent manufacturing is rapidly evolving.
Tongling City, located in central Anhui Province, is home to the People’s Republic of China‘s first copper industrial base. In the workshop of the Tongling Nonferrous Metals Group Co., Ltd. Jinguang Copper Branch, amidst the hum of machinery, the slag produced during the manufacturing process is being recycled through a series of stages including slow-cooling, crushing, and screening. “Through technological upgrades and transformation, we can recover up to 14,300 tonnes of copper metal per year, with total resources equivalent to the reserve of a medium-sized copper mine,” explained Wen Yan, general manager of the branch.
To accelerate the green development of the manufacturing sector, Anhui has implemented comprehensive measures, including reducing output, controlling production capacity, and adjusting structure at the source; enhancing technological capabilities and energy efficiency in process control; setting models for enterprises and promoting recycling in end-of-pipe treatment. During the 13th Five-Year Plan period (2016-2020), the energy consumption per unit of added value for industrial enterprises above a certain size in Anhui decreased by 20.05 percent. Currently, 80 percent of national-level industrial parks and 75 percent of provincial-level industrial parks have completed recycling transformation.
SOURCE The 2024 World Manufacturing Convention