I. Lean manufacturing is the cornerstone of intelligent manufacturing.
Lean manufacturing has been listed by Germany as one of the four key modules constituting the smart factory of the future, and it is also the foundation and guarantee for China to realize the Made in China 2025 plan and accelerate its transformation and upgrading.
From the perspective of intelligent manufacturing, it is an integrated human-machine intelligent system composed of intelligent machines and human experts, capable of performing intelligent activities during the manufacturing process, such as analysis, reasoning, judgment, conceptualization, and decision-making. It updates the concept of manufacturing automation, expanding it to flexibility, intelligence, and high integration. It is easy to see that it possesses functions such as customization, personalization, intelligent analysis, prediction, and management.
The foundation for achieving intelligent manufacturing is lean manufacturing, which fundamentally solves the problem of "rapid response" in terms of quality, cost, and efficiency, thereby achieving customized and personalized manufacturing.
Lean management, with its customer-centric approach, drives the realization of intelligent manufacturing through management in R&D, manufacturing, quality, and supply chain. Industrial data shows that the profit growth rate of industrial enterprises is declining, attributed to three main reasons: slow product sales growth, costs rising faster than sales growth, and lower prices squeezing profit margins. Lean management, however, wins by responding quickly, improving production efficiency, reducing costs, and maximizing enterprise value.
Intelligent manufacturing can provide sufficient assurance for lean management, making what was previously thought impossible possible, simplifying what was previously difficult, and enabling what was previously unavailable to be achieved! Therefore, it is important to understand the driving force that intelligence brings to lean production, while also understanding that lean is the source of production efficiency and quality.
From lean production to intelligent manufacturing, a new intelligent industrial production model will be established, characterized by highly digitalized, networked, and machine-self-organized production, leading to the realization of Made in China 2025.
II. Misconceptions about Intelligent Manufacturing
Many companies focus on automating bottleneck or labor-intensive workstations, promoting "machine replacement of human labor." While this approach can reduce manpower and increase the efficiency of individual workstations, it has little impact on improving the overall efficiency of the production line and often results in the bottleneck process being transferred to other workstations.
The correct approach is based on industrial engineering principles, utilizing methods such as value stream mapping to optimize the production line as a whole, taking into account product type, output, batch size, manufacturing process, capacity, production cycle time, and work-in-process logistics. Simultaneously, manufacturing processes should be optimized from the perspective of achieving automated processing and assembly to reduce the difficulty of automation upgrades and to accommodate the production and assembly of various product variations. For example, a container manufacturing company served by the e-works consulting team optimized its process for producing container sidewalls and roof panels. The original process of flat plate shearing → roller forming → panel spot welding → automatic welding was streamlined. The original longitudinal welds were changed to transverse welds, and the process was optimized to weld the entire plate first before forming. This reduced weld length, facilitated automation upgrades, and successfully achieved continuous automation of multiple processes from steel uncoiling to forming. Another rail transit door manufacturing company that e-works consulting team has long served optimized its workshop layout and balanced its production cycle based on the "one-piece flow" principle of lean manufacturing when carrying out automation transformation. This ensured the balance of the entire production system after the automation transformation was completed, reduced the transportation distance, and minimized the waste caused by production waiting and transportation.
