KRIF Ready to Help Implement Industry 4.0 at a Heavy Machinery Plant in Dalian
KRIF partners and engineers from the Dalian plant discussed the possibility of applying RCML technology at their facility.
Industrial robots, production automation and robotization, Industry 4.0 — we hear and read these terms in various forms almost every day. But how do things stand with innovation in China, which produces a quarter of the world's manufacturing output?
In late August, KRIF partners visited a heavy machinery plant in Dalian, China. It is a huge enterprise with several thousand employees, operating on machinery that is forty years old. The plant plans a substantial budget for the robotization of production and is ready for a qualitative shift. Hundreds of workers in hazardous or physically demanding jobs will be replaced by industrial robots.
One of the problems faced by Chinese enterprises "taking up the challenge" of Industry 4.0 is that most of the work in plants and factories requires quick thinking and dexterity. Industrial robots, like human workers, need to be multitasking. For example, a worker must be able to quickly flip parts that are lying incorrectly on the conveyor belt while rapidly switching to another task. A robot must possess the same multitasking and flexibility. Machine learning is being considered as a solution to these problems, one that would make the next generation of industrial robots more "flexible" and "perceptive."
RCML technology, which the integrator Northern Future Of Robotics is implementing at plants across Asia, is used to automate and optimize the operation of industrial robots using artificial intelligence. KRIF partners and engineers from the Dalian plant discussed the possibility of applying this technology in production. The next step will be to draw up roadmaps and hold a more detailed discussion of prospects for joint cooperation. It is already clear that contracts lie ahead. KRIF has information on a dozen Russian companies that could be brought into industrial cooperation in working with this plant.
In the view of KRIF's team, the People's Republic of China represents a huge potential market for companies engaged in the automation of production processes and IT development.
*Note: although China is the largest importer of industrial robots (accounting for 25% of global production in this field), the country lags behind its neighbors and competitors in terms of automation levels. In South Korea, there are 478 robots per 10,000 workers; in Japan, 315; in Germany, 292; and in the United States, 164. In China, the figure is only 36 robots.*
By 2049 — the centennial anniversary of the People's Republic of China — the country intends to catch up with and surpass Germany, the United States, and Japan in manufacturing terms. Without automation and the adoption of industrial robots, this is practically impossible.