On August 25-26, the “2022 China Clothing Technology Conference” was held in Linping District, Hangzhou City, Zhejiang Province. The conference was themed “New Technology·New Product Technology Drives New Development” and covered an opening conference, three Major theme forums, two roundtable dialogues, multiple exchanges and exhibitions, and study tours brought together many industry authoritative experts, business leaders, and technological innovation pioneers to focus on the technological innovation field of the apparel industry and set off a fashion technology trend in the industry.
At the meeting, Wen Lisheng, a professor at Donghua University and deputy leader of the expert group of the China Garment Intelligent Manufacturing Alliance, gave a keynote speech titled “How far is it from realizing intelligent manufacturing in clothing enterprises?”
After the China Garment Intelligent Manufacturing Alliance was established in June 2016, a three-stage strategic plan was formulated to realize intelligent clothing manufacturing from 2016 to 2025. In the last three years of this plan, It is proposed to realize smart clothing manufacturing factories and social smart production from 2023 to 2025. According to the current progress of intelligent manufacturing at home and abroad, it will be difficult for us to realize an intelligent clothing manufacturing factory in the next three years. Why? How far are we from realizing smart clothing manufacturing? I think it will take at least fifteen years to realize a smart clothing manufacturing factory. Why do you say that?
1. Smart clothing manufacturing is a very complex manufacturing system
2016 In 2016, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology of my country defined what intelligent manufacturing is: “Intelligent manufacturing is based on the deep integration of new generation information and communication technology and advanced manufacturing technology, and runs through all aspects of manufacturing activities such as design, production, management, and services. It has its own characteristics. A new production method with functions such as perception, self-learning, self-decision-making, self-execution, and self-adaptation.” From this definition, we can see that, first of all, for a manufacturing company to transform into an intelligent manufacturing factory, it must deeply integrate the new generation of information and communication technology with advanced manufacturing technology, which means that an intelligent manufacturing factory must be built on the digital foundation of all workshops Secondly, all businesses must be intelligent. Only when intelligent design, intelligent production, intelligent management, intelligent services and other businesses are realized can it be possible to achieve self-perception, self-learning, self-decision-making, self-execution and self-adaptation. Smart manufacturing factory, see Figure 1.
The business intelligence of intelligent manufacturing is based on various specific technologies, which is commonly referred to as the ABC of intelligent manufacturing related technologies. Please see Figure 2. As can be seen from the figure, to realize intelligent manufacturing in the manufacturing industry, artificial intelligence technology, big data technology, robotics, metaverse, 5G, digital twins, industrial Internet and platform technology, cloud computing technology, sensor technology, AR/VR are necessary /The realization of MR technology, additive manufacturing technology, longitudinal mold system integration technology, etc.
In 2020, my country released the “Intelligent Manufacturing Capability Maturity Model” (CMMM for short) GB/T39116-2020, which describes the ladder goals and evolution paths that enterprises must achieve when implementing intelligent manufacturing. The benchmark for smart transformation work. See Figure 3.
At present, in addition to the “Global Lighthouse Factory” as a demonstration factory for smart manufacturing factories, most of my country’s manufacturing industries, especially my country’s garment manufacturing industry, are still in the standardization stage of the benchmark smart manufacturing capability maturity model. Between the level and the integration level, that is to say, between digital transformation and network integration, it is still far from the optimization level and the leading level.
Our garment manufacturing enterprises are discrete manufacturing companies. As can be seen from the figure, 67.1% of my country’s entire discrete manufacturing industry is at level one, 15.8% at level two, 7.8% at level three, and 7.8% is at level three. Very few. The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology’s “14th Five-Year Plan for Intelligent Manufacturing Development” clearly proposes to accelerate the transformation of production methods through “two steps” by 2035: First, by 2025, most manufacturing enterprises above designated size will be digitalized and networked, and key industries will Backbone enterprises will initially apply intelligence; second, by 2035, manufacturing enterprises above designated size will fully popularize digital networking, and backbone enterprises in key industries will basically realize intelligence. It can be seen that it still takes time and development to realize smart clothing manufacturing factories.
2. At present, my country’s garment enterprises are still in the stage of digital transformation
Everyone knows that the transformation of my country’s manufacturing industry is carried out in three stages. These three stages are informatization and digitalization. and intelligence. At present, my country’s clothing companies are still in the stage of digital transformation. In 2018, McKinsey & Company and the World Economic Forum (WEF) launched the global selection “Lighthouse Factory” project to find examples of digital transformation in the manufacturing industry. As of March this year, 103 factories from many countries and different industries around the world have been selected as “Lighthouse Factory” ” (See Figure 5 for its global distribution), and China alone has 37, ranking first in the world. Among them, there is only one in the clothing industry, namely the Alibaba Rhino Factory in Hangzhou, my country.
The biggest feature of Rhino Factory is that all manufacturing operations are moved to the cloud. It is an online factory defined by cloud algorithms, and all software in the clothing industry runs on the platform. Therefore, they are a digital demonstrator in the clothing industry. After looking for “lighthouse factory” models of digital transformation in the manufacturing industry in 2018, McKinsey conducted a global survey on the digital transformation of traditional manufacturing companies in 2021. The results said that although 70% of companies have launched digitalization, 71 of them % is still in the pilot stage and has been unable to achieve large-scale promotion of digitalization. The same goes for my country’s manufacturing industry. At present, large and medium-sized enterprises are on average interested in digital transformation.�(UI), see Figure 17.
In other words, this means that smart manufacturing based on artificial intelligence technology will become the main interaction interface between customers and enterprises, and all this will happen in the next 10 years! The “14th Five-Year Plan for Intelligent Manufacturing Development” of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology clearly states that intelligent manufacturing will be achieved through a “two-step approach” by 2035; and then it is related to the complex world manufacturing system that will last 20 years from 2020 to 2040. With the end of the era of great changes in sex, it is not difficult to predict that the realization of smart manufacturing by clothing companies is not far away. It will be realized in the next 15 years or so, that is, between 2035 and 2040!
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