The Impact of Cloud Manufacturing on manufacturing industry

"After the Industrial Revolution, electricity has brought profound changes to the economy and society, and people usually use electricity consumption as an important indicator of a good or bad economy. In the era of digital economy, 'cloud usage' will become an important economic indicator.” Tencent Chairman and CEO Ma Huateng said on May 28 at the Guiyang Digital Expo.

Crowned with “cloud” manufacturing will bring what changes to the manufacturing industry?

"Cloud manufacturing” ﹥ intelligent manufacturing?

"Cloud manufacturing as a new production model, is big data, cloud computing, the Internet, intelligent manufacturing and the Internet of Things and other technologies used in the field of industrial manufacturing and further to the circulation, consumption and other areas of expansion of the product.” Qiao Guiyin, a professor at the Party School of Nantong Municipal Committee of Jiangsu Province of the Communist Party of China, said.

Qiao Guiyin believes that the essence of cloud manufacturing is the deep integration of industrialization and informationization. The use of Internet technology and Internet marketing model to promote the deep integration of industrialization and informatization, the development of intelligent manufacturing, and the promotion of manufacturing upgrading, which is an important connotation of cloud manufacturing. Intelligent manufacturing is the centralized embodiment of the development of manufacturing to the high-end, which is also the core content of cloud manufacturing.

Although the core of cloud manufacturing is intelligent manufacturing, there is a certain difference between the two. The concept of intelligent manufacturing mainly applies to the field of manufacturing, while cloud manufacturing is the concept of large manufacturing, which breaks through the field of manufacturing, and extends and expands from the field of manufacturing and sales to the field of use and service. In other words, the extension of cloud manufacturing is broader than smart manufacturing.

Like “Industry X.0”, “cloud manufacturing” is also being upgraded. Li Bohu, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, and his team in 2009 put forward a network, service as the main feature of the “cloud manufacturing 1.0”, in recent years upgraded to interconnectivity, service, synergistic, personalization, flexibility, socialization as the main feature of the “cloud manufacturing 2.0 “.

What does the landing of “cloud manufacturing” map out?

When the wave of intelligent manufacturing swept the world, “cloud manufacturing” has come into reality from the concept.

First look at the application side, early this year in Shanghai, an exhibition, XCMG Group, Huawei, Alibaba, China Telecom and other leading Internet and communications companies, jointly released an industrial cloud platform - “XCMG Industrial Cloud” platform, efforts to create a new “Internet+Cloud+Manufacturing” is a new industrial economic development model, which is used to develop China's ‘One Belt, One Road’.

In April this year, Shenyang Machine Tools intelligent cloud manufacturing platform project stationed in Guangdong Jiangmen High-tech Zone. The project will set up a collaborative manufacturing center for intelligent machine tools. Innovative offline manufacturing and online business combination of O2O manufacturing new model, the formation of manufacturing the whole process of informatization, to create a new ecological chain of production and manufacturing. Set up a regional equipment financing and leasing headquarters to provide financial solutions for users in South China. Set up a regional “intelligent cloud manufacturing” big data center, through the construction of industrial Internet, the implementation of big data management, real-time mastery of the production status of all the equipment sold in South China, the rational allocation of excess capacity, and strengthen the collaboration between enterprises. Setting up a South China training center, in conjunction with the Jiangmen Vocational Training Institute, to provide training and technical counseling services for users in the region. A new “i5 intelligent manufacturing, industrial Internet, online services, finance, big data remanufacturing” of the “cloud manufacturing” model was born.

It is easy to see that the main features of cloud manufacturing are resource integration, industrial integration and customized production. In terms of resource integration, cloud manufacturing can be dispersed manufacturing resources (such as software, data, computing, processing, testing, etc.) to focus on the formation of a logically unified resource as a whole, improve resource utilization, and then break through the limits of the ability of a single resource.

Secondly, cloud manufacturing can promote industrial integration, especially to promote the integration of manufacturing and service industries, and further lengthen the industrial chain. Cloud manufacturing relies on the Internet, Internet of Things, cloud platform, etc., which is conducive to enterprises to understand the sales and use of products, and consumer satisfaction with products; conducive to enterprises to adjust the structure and function of products according to the wishes and needs of consumers, and provide timely and in place services, thus promoting the effective docking of production and market, production and consumption.

Again, cloud manufacturing can realize personalized customized production. The traditional production mode is that enterprises decide the variety and quantity of products to be produced based on market research results, and the products reach consumers through commercial channels. E-commerce, on the other hand, eliminates the communication barriers, time and space barriers, and transaction barriers between producers and consumers, and can replace the B2C (business-to-consumer) model with the C2B (consumer-to-business) model. In cloud manufacturing, enterprises can personalize and customize production according to customer demand based on a big data platform and flexible production.

Industrial cloud platform will shine

In the cloud manufacturing, industrial control editorial to specially name the industrial cloud platform. As the core component of the industrial Internet, the industrial cloud platform can flexibly realize the deployment and delivery of cross-regional industrial information services, which is the focus of the current competition in the construction machinery manufacturing industry. Some of the old manufacturing enterprises abroad have long been extended to the industrial Internet field, industrial cloud has also become the current engineering machinery manufacturing industry transformation and upgrading of the soldiers must fight for a place. As of January this year, China's industrial cloud platform application rate has reached 35.9%. According to incomplete statistics, from 2013 to 2016, the number of enterprise users of China's industrial cloud platform were more than 40,000, 100,000, 250,000, 600,000, with an average annual growth of more than 146%.

According to the basic division of the market, there are four types of vendors involved in China's industrial cloud platform: foreign vendors “entering on borrowed shells”, Internet giants such as BAT, traditional hardware vendors, and vendors focusing on cloud computing verticals. After GE put forward the “industrial Internet” strategy, it immediately launched the industrial Internet big data analysis platform Predix in 2013 and opened it to the public in 2015. Siemens has established MindSphere, a cross-business industrial Internet ecosystem, to help enterprises carry out preventive maintenance, energy data management and other digital services. Industry giants such as Rockwell Automation, Schneider, IBM, and SAP are also actively developing their own industrial internet platforms. Domestic companies such as Yike, Alibaba, and Shanghai Huicheng are either focusing on or crossing the border into the field of industrial cloud platforms.

Industry experts expect that industrial cloud will usher in greater development in 2017. This year, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology will promote the 16 pilot provinces and cities to improve the function, business innovation and service enhancement of the industrial cloud platform; focus on promoting the research and development and industrialization of intelligent sensors, distributed control systems, data acquisition and monitoring systems, etc., and the implementation of the industrial technology software project, to enhance the integration and application capacity of industrial software, and to consolidate the basic technology of the industrial cloud platform; and to provide policy support in the areas of building industrial ecology and strengthening technological and industrial support. Provide policy support in building industrial ecology and strengthening technological and industrial support, and guide more enterprises to participate in the construction of industrial cloud platform and model innovation through pilot demonstration, so as to open up the era of “cloud” in China's industrial field.