Haier

Recently, the result of “2014 Annual Innovation Achievements of Light Industry Enterprise’s Management Modernization in China” has been announced. There are 6 awarding the first prize of “Innovation Achievements of Light Industry Enterprise’s Management Modernization. Among them, Transformation and Upgrading Model of Household Appliance Enterprises’ Intelligent Manufacturing which is oriented to User’s Demand in Internet Era reported by intelligent manufacturing platform of Haier Group won the first prize. It is the only awarded enterprise in the field of intelligent manufacturing.

With the popularization of the concept of Industry 4.0, the fourth industrial revolution which is represented by intelligent manufacturing model is rising rapidly all over the world. Meanwhile, with the development of communication technology such as mobile internet and cloud computing, the interconnection and interworking based on the intelligent terminals has been the important trend of industry development which provides the new exploration direction for the development of global manufacturing industry.

Under the exploration of internet era and the transformation and upgrading from mass manufacturing to mass customization model, Haier Group takes users’ experience as the focus all the time. With the whole process of real-time interconnection, it constructs the leading intelligent manufacturing system in the industry; quickly meets the ultimate experience of user personalization and becomes the leading company to carry out Industry 4.0 in China.

The project leader of interconnection factory of Haier Group said, the nature of Industry 4.0 that Haier understands is interconnection factory. Interconnect all the information with stakeholder by information technology means, construct three interconnection architectures which are internal & external interconnection, virtual & real interconnection and information interconnection which are user-focused, realize the whole-process of real-time interconnection and quickly meet the ultimate experience of user personalization.

As the earliest enterprise of exploring interconnection factory in the industry, Haier has explored in the aspect of the end-to-end experience of user-innovators, that is, it built the first darkness workshop of the industry and provided the best experience for the users with subversive production process; established the world’s first intelligent interconnection factory in household appliance industry, realized the industry’s leading high efficient and flexible customization line and quickly met the user’s personalized experience.

Take Shenyang interconnection factory of Haier as an example. The factory took the lead to build the seamless intelligent manufacturing system of enterprise and the data that the users need by establishing automation and intelligent production line and building informatization and digital information system. Also, it implemented the intelligent production based on real-time data sharing. In this workshop, the workers just need to put the door of refrigerator into the cage randomly and the production line will automatically retrieve according to the models ordered by customers; in the off-assembly line of refrigerator’s outer shell, the automatic machine picks refrigerator’s U shell from the production line and puts it on the pallet of production line which is distributed automatically. And the entire process takes only 15 seconds. The layout of intelligent production line doubles the production of a single line, doubles the promotion of per unit area, reduces the length of production line by half and shortens the distribution distance by half.

The relevant leader of Haier group said, Haier hopes to be the intelligent interconnection enterprise which could meet the user’s end-to-end experience with mass customization. On the one hand, it wants to practice the smart household strategy and provide all-round intelligent household furnishing experience for users by turning all the household appliances into network device. Therefore, Haier actively promotes the establishment of investment driven platform and users-pay platform to provide entrepreneurial and innovated open platform for the global innovation users. And the outputs of this platform are innovated products such as iseemini, Air Box, Water Box and Air Rubik. On the other hand, the interconnection factory greatly raises the responsiveness to the demands of customer which could create the ultimate user experience.

The national” Innovation Achievements of Light Industry Enterprise’s Management Modernization” award is reviewed by experts group of innovation achievements of light industry enterprise’s management modernization in China, authorized by validation committees of innovation achievements of light industry enterprise’s management modernization and approved and published by China National Light Industry Associations. It is aimed at encouraging and leading enterprises to strengthen innovation driven, improving management modernization level and concluding and promoting experience of management and innovation.