Reflections on "Industry 4.0" in the automotive industry

Judging from the concept given by the German official, "Industry 4.0" is the fourth industrial revolution led by intelligent manufacturing. means to transform the manufacturing industry into an intelligent one.

As a representative of the manufacturing industry with high technological content, high degree of intelligence and high industrial concentration, the automobile industry may become the leading position of Industry 4.0.

In Germany, Mercedes-Benz, BMW, Volkswagen, and Bosch have all taken the lead in testing the waters of Industry 4.0. At home, entrepreneurs engaged in automobile manufacturing have also begun to seriously consider the possible impacts and approaches of this wave of Industry 4.0.

A small incident that happened at the end of November can be noted. At that time, the reporter came to Zhengzhou Yutong Bus, a leading bus company in China, to interview, and met Tang Yuxiang, President of Yutong Bus. In the more than one hour of communication, Tang Yuxiang's main topic was not the situation in the bus industry, but "Industry 4.0" that made him think a lot.

According to the definitions of German academia and industry, the introduction of mechanical manufacturing equipment in the 18th century was defined as Industry 1.0, the electrification in the early 20th century was Industry 2.0, the automation of production processes starting in the 1970s was Industry 3.0, and the Internet of Things and manufacturing Service-oriented ushered in the fourth industrial revolution dominated by intelligent manufacturing, namely Industry 4.0.

Although the name is different, but Germany's "Industry 4.0" and American trend scientist Jeremy? The "Third Industrial Revolution" proposed by Rifkin has many overlaps in connotation; for China, this strategy points to the "integration of industrialization and industrialization" under the new path of industrialization. In October this year, the Minister of Industry and Information Technology When attending the German Industry 4.0 Symposium, Miao Wei said that Germany's Industry 4.0 strategy and China's informatization and industrialization deep integration strategy share the same goal in many aspects, such as core concepts, main contents and specific practices, and can learn from each other.

The reporter learned that the key to Industry 4.0 is the integration of software, sensors and communication systems into so-called physical networked systems, where people increasingly conceive, optimize, test and design at the intersection of the virtual and real worlds product. As for the integration of informatization and industrialization, Miao Wei once described that the wide application of information network technology can generate big data in the process of sensing, collecting, and monitoring production, thus making intelligent manufacturing, network manufacturing, and flexible manufacturing a revolution in production methods direction.

In fact, for China's manufacturing industry, which is still in the middle of 2.0 to 3.0, it is very urgent to make good use of information technology and Internet technology to turn "Made in China" into "Made in China". In a speech in early December, Miao Wei specifically mentioned that to promote the "integration of industrialization and industrialization", "intelligent manufacturing" should be taken as an important entry point to promote the intelligentization of equipment and products, and to transform and optimize the entire manufacturing process through information technology. , improve the production efficiency and efficiency of enterprises.

Wu Xiaobo, Dean of the School of Management of Zhejiang University, also pointed out in a recent public speech that the cross-border integration of information technology and traditional industries will be an inevitable trend in the future. The direction transformation of intelligent manufacturing and service-oriented manufacturing.

Smart factories based on the Internet and the Internet of Things make it possible to produce multiple varieties and small batches. This stems from the “basic mode shift from centralized control to decentralized enhanced control” in production methods—different production equipment can both produce collaboratively and respond quickly to external changes based on big data. This will greatly meet people's needs for intelligent and personalized cars in the future.

At the intersection of the virtual world and the real world, another possibility is that people manipulate virtual intelligence technology to more accurately complete the previously difficult process, or simplify and reconstruct the original complicated production process. BMW's new bumper inspection equipment in Landshut shows this: through the non-contact gesture recognition system, the inspection work after the bumper painting process is completed, inspection and data recording can be carried out by the inspector's gestures , to achieve efficient and reliable quality control.

The possibility brought by the intelligent production system is that each auto part has its own identity certification, and runs through its entire production, equipment and service links, which is convenient for management and traceability. This possibility has become a reality on the Bosch Humboldt plant production line - all parts have a unique radio frequency identification code, which can automatically "talk" to the checkpoints along the way, thereby improving the production efficiency and economic benefits of the entire upstream and downstream.