Editor's Note The Industrial Internet is the high point of future manufacturing competition, and is driving profound changes in innovation models, production methods, organizational forms and business paradigms, and promoting the reshaping and reengineering of the industrial chain, industrial chain and value chain. It can be said with certainty that the Industrial Internet will certainly produce an all-round, deep and revolutionary change to the future industrial development, and have a far-reaching impact on social productivity and the development of human history. In today's world, a new round of scientific and technological revolution and industrial change is vigorously emerging, the industrial Internet as a product of the deep integration of manufacturing and the Internet, has become the key support for the new industrial revolution and an important cornerstone of intelligent manufacturing.
The significance of the Industrial Internet can not be overestimated. But what exactly is the Industrial Internet? How does the Industrial Internet change our manufacturing industry? China in the world industrial Internet pattern where? In response to these major issues, this reporter in-depth interviews with industry experts, together to explore the answers. Today, the launch of the "Industrial Internet three questions" series of reports, please pay attention.
In the just concluded two sessions, the term "industrial Internet" high frequency in a variety of discussions, this year's "Government Work Report" is a special emphasis on "the development of industrial Internet platform". The "industrial Internet" has become another hot word after the Internet of Things and intelligent manufacturing "fire" up. Those who are familiar with the large manufacturing enterprises is early layout, seeking to use the industrial Internet to reshape the core competitiveness.
What is the Industrial Internet? "In layman's terms, the Industrial Internet is a new type of network infrastructure that realizes the comprehensive interconnection of people, machines and things, and forms an emerging industry and application model for intelligent development." Liu Jie, deputy director of the Information and Communication Management Bureau of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, explained it this way.
The foundation of intelligent manufacturing
Talking about the difference between the Internet of Things (IoT) and the Industrial Internet may be easy to understand. Because, literally, the Internet of Things emphasizes more on the "connection" between things, while the Industrial Internet is to realize the full interconnection of people, machines and things.
In fact, the Internet of Things, big data, cloud computing, artificial intelligence and other new technologies to bring dividends to the manufacturing industry are inseparable from the industrial Internet as a carrier. With the efforts of data experts, algorithm experts and other professionals, many mature Internet companies have been able to transplant these new technologies to industrial enterprises. "The industrial Internet itself is a product of the deep integration of information technology and industrial technology, behind which lies a powerful force to promote cross-border innovation." Liu Jie said.
After applying the industrial Internet platform, Guangdong Wanhe New Electric Co. Ltd. uses artificial intelligence technology to carry out task coordination and process control among different manufacturing bases, and uses big data technology to collect, archive and analyze 1.5 million pieces of data per month. With the help of this platform, the overall efficiency of Wanhe New Electric has been improved by more than 30%, the product delivery cycle has been shortened by 20%, and the market competitiveness has been significantly improved. Annual sales revenue from 3 billion yuan to 4 billion yuan, an increase of 33%, the raw material inventory from 67 million reduced to 52 million, down 22.3% year-on-year, and achieved significant economic benefits, which is the "performance" of the industrial Internet.
"Big data, Internet of Things, artificial intelligence and other new technologies are the means of support for the industrial Internet, if there is no leap in the development of these new technologies in recent years, there is no global layout of the industrial Internet boom." Pan Wen, director of the software institute of the Saidi Research Institute of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, said.
So what kind of relationship is there between the industrial Internet and smart manufacturing? In fact, the realization of intelligent manufacturing mainly relies on two basic capabilities, one is industrial manufacturing technology, the other is the industrial Internet.
The former includes advanced equipment, advanced materials and advanced processes, which are fundamental to determining manufacturing boundaries and manufacturing capabilities; the latter includes intelligent sensing and control hardware and software, new industrial networks, industrial Internet platforms, etc., which are the key to giving full play to the potential of industrial equipment, processes and materials, improving productivity, optimizing the efficiency of resource allocation, creating differentiated products, and realizing value-added services.
Therefore, the industrial internet is seen as the foundation of smart manufacturing. "We can understand that smart manufacturing is an intelligent industrial ecosystem including industrial internet, materials, design, process and so on. Previously, the booming development of smart manufacturing in China has laid a good network foundation for the development of industrial Internet and provided a favorable development environment." Pan Wen said.
Achieving high-quality manufacturing
China First Automobile Group Corporation had faced a series of outstanding problems during the process of service-oriented transformation: first, the old system could not meet the demand for highly concurrent and high-frequency access, and a serious performance bottleneck had emerged. Secondly, the system running for 10 years is old and difficult to superimpose new services, and it is difficult to expand. Third, different models access different business platforms, complicated maintenance and high management costs. After the application of the industrial Internet platform, not only realized the effective management of ten million vehicles, but also got the support of real-time analysis of big data processing capabilities, as well as fleet management, **** enjoy car rental and other business support.
It is clear that the industrial Internet can solve the problems in the development of Chinese manufacturing and promote its high-quality development. Starting from the production side, the industrial Internet can improve the quality and efficiency of the supply system, expand effective and medium- and high-end supply, enhance the adaptability of the supply-side structure to changes in demand, and push China's economy toward higher quality, more efficient, fairer and more sustainable development.
"The main role of the industrial Internet is to play a core support role in the digital transformation of manufacturing enterprises, effectively helping enterprises to improve production efficiency and reduce costs." Pan Wen analysis, on the one hand, the industrial Internet can promote the transformation and upgrading of traditional industry, so that a variety of resources more optimal allocation, enhance industrial economic efficiency; on the other hand, it can accelerate the cultivation of new industries, giving rise to intelligent production, networked collaboration, service extension, personalized customization of many new industries.
The concept of industrial Internet was proposed by General Electric (GE) in 2012. And GE also believes that even if the Industrial Internet can only improve productivity and energy efficiency in specific industries in China by 1%, it has the potential to save China's aviation, power, railroad, healthcare, and petroleum industries about $24 billion over the next 15 years, and will have the potential to bring $3 trillion in growth opportunities to the Chinese economy by 2030. This will strongly push China's industrial production mode from rough and inefficient to green and lean, industrial ecology from low-end primary to high-end perfect, and promote the whole industrial chain to leap up as a whole.
"Why do we need to develop the industrial Internet? Because the industrial Internet can provide key support for the construction of a strong manufacturing country, but also can greatly expand the new space for the development of the digital economy." Liu Jie said.
Platform system is the core
There is a saying circulating in the industry that for the industrial Internet, the network system is the foundation, the platform system is the core, and the security system is the guarantee. Among them, the significance of the network system and security system are easy to understand, but why is the platform system the core?
In this regard, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology Informationization and Software Services Division, deputy director of An Shopeng replied that the industrial Internet platform can be said to be the "operating system" of the industrial Internet, because the industrial Internet platform to connect the number of people, machines and things will be far greater than the number of various individual operating systems connected to, and its value will also be far more than these operating systems. far more than these operating systems.
"The industrial Internet platform is also the core of the new ecological competition in manufacturing." An Xiaopeng explained that the industrial Internet platform has a significant "Matthew effect", when its industrial APP and users reach a certain scale, the platform will explode in growth, forming a winner-takes-all competitive situation. Industrial Internet platform also has a significant "substitution effect", can greatly reduce the cost and difficulty of enterprise information technology deployment, and promote the manufacturing industry towards system reconstruction, power change and paradigm shift to a new stage.
In the view of Yu Xiaohui, chief engineer of the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology and secretary-general of the Industrial Internet Industry Alliance, China's industrial Internet has initially formed three major application paths, namely, smart factories for internal productivity enhancement, smart products, services and collaboration for the extension of the value chain outside the enterprise, and the platform operation for open ecosystems, namely, the industrial Internet platform. The first two foreign practice has been more, while the industrial Internet platform in the global exploration time is not long.
Industrial Internet platform is stepping into the strategic window of scale expansion. China's aerospace cloud network, Sany, Haier, Huawei and other enterprises relying on their own manufacturing capacity and scale advantages, has taken the lead in launching the industrial Internet platform services, and in the aerospace, engineering machinery, iron and steel petrochemicals, and many other fields have been widely used.
"Industrial Internet is giving birth to a new industrial system." According to Pan Wen, the mobile Internet platform has created a series of new industrial links and values such as application development, application distribution, online and offline. Currently, the industrial Internet platform has shown a similar end in application innovation, production and financing, etc., and is also expected to develop into a new industrial system in the future, promoting the formation of mass entrepreneurship and innovation of the multi-level development environment.