At the recently held 2022 World Intelligent Manufacturing Conference, the relevant person in charge of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology said that in the past ten years, China has deeply implemented the intelligent manufacturing project, and the scale and level of intelligent manufacturing applications have entered the global leading ranks.
The density of manufacturing robots has increased by about 13 times, reaching 322 per 10,000 workers.The scale of application of key smart manufacturing technologies such as 5G and artificial intelligence is steadily at the forefront of the world.
Over the past ten years, 110 factories have reached the international advanced level of intelligent manufacturing, and nearly 2,000 high-level digital workshops and intelligent factories leading the development of the industry have been built.
Over the past ten years, the scale of China’s intelligent manufacturing equipment industry has been close to 3 trillion yuan, and the revenue of industrial software products has exceeded 240 billion yuan. Main business income of more than 1 billion yuan of intelligent manufacturing system solution providers reached nearly 100, the service scope covers more than 90% of the manufacturing sector.
The next step, will adhere to the main direction of intelligent manufacturing, accelerate the creation of intelligent manufacturing “upgraded version”, mainly divided into four aspects:
We will focus on building a high-performance innovation system, strengthening basic research, applied basic research and key technology research and development, and leading the evolution and upgrading of intelligent manufacturing.
We will focus on building a high-level industrial system, promoting the innovative development of intelligent manufacturing equipment, industrial software and system solutions, and strengthening the construction of digital infrastructure such as 5G, artificial intelligence and industrial Internet.
Efforts will be made to form a high-standard application system, continue to carry out pilot demonstration actions of intelligent manufacturing, create more intelligent factories and intelligent supply chains, accelerate the digital transformation of small and medium-sized enterprises, and encourage the construction of intelligent manufacturing pilot zones.
Efforts will be made to create a high-level protection system, focus on iconic products, backbone enterprises, talents and industrial clusters, optimise the intelligent manufacturing promotion system, implement the intelligent manufacturing partnership plan, and carry out multi-level and cross-field exchanges and cooperation.
China’s industrial robot ten-year demand for another 3 million
At the end of last year, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and other fifteen departments jointly issued the “fourteen five” Robotics Industry Development Plan pointed out that by 2025 the average annual growth rate of the robotics industry revenue should exceed 20%, and the density of manufacturing robots should be doubled. In 2020, China’s manufacturing robot density of 246 units / million people, meaning that by 2025 will reach 500 units / million people, there is still huge room for growth.
At present, China’s aging trend continues to aggravate, the reduction of labour force and the increase in employment costs, so that the development of the manufacturing industry pressure continues to grow, accelerate the development of automation applications represented by industrial robots has been a top priority.
UN projections show that China’s population aged 20 to 64 (most of the labour force) may have peaked and will decline sharply after 2030.
And indeed, with the country’s manufacturing sector also shrinking and services continuing to expand, fewer young people are willing to work in factories. Data from the International Labour Organisation shows that 147 million people will be employed in China’s manufacturing sector in 2021, 22 million fewer than in 2012, while employment in the service sector grows by 32 per cent over the same period to 365 million.
Many economists argue that China’s workforce is no longer growing rapidly enough to rely on a continually expanding labour force to drive economic growth, and that automation is the surest way to increase the productivity of its current workers.
In addition to easing the pressure of labour shortage, the accelerated transformation of China’s industrial structure and the increasing share of high value-added high-end manufacturing are also calling for the accelerated application of robotic automation, and the requirements of high-end manufacturing in terms of precision and stability are exactly what robots are good at.
The economic benefits brought by changes in the labour market and improvements in robotics technology will drive China into a boom period of robot application. Currently, China’s industrial robot operating inventory is around 1 million units, and the Wall Street Journal expects that by 2030 China’s production line will have 3.2 million to 4.2 million industrial robots.
Accelerating automation in the manufacturing sector is not only about easing the pressure of a shrinking workforce, but also helps the development of high-end manufacturing, which the WSJ says is a must for China’s development into a higher-income level country, which currently accounts for 29 per cent of the global manufacturing sector, and remains unquestionably the world’s manufacturing factory.
Bayes Robotics (AIBAYES) carries out research in navigation, algorithms, cloud, software/hardware, drive, control, and accumulates robot powertrain system technology, realising the design and manufacture from the core components to the whole machine, and the independent research and development of algorithm scheduling and software platform. And as a carrier and vertical scene depth combination, professional to create AI + medical service robot full scene solution. Its products include hospital-wide logistics robots, high-value consumables management robots, rubbish and quilt recycling robots, disinfection robots, guiding robots, ward missionary robots, etc., which have been widely used in various scenes in hospitals, and it is a professional unmanned full-scene solution provider.
