Midea Air-Conditioning Breaks 2016: Smart Manufacturing

The slogan popular in Midea Air Conditioning is: “The air-conditioned people who are honored in the United States are proud to increase their share of the market, and they are ashamed to give up sales. They are proud to sell the consoles and are not ashamed to talk about consoles; The pride of the frequency conversion is just as shameful as selling at a constant pace. It is proud to change the structure. It is ashamed to sell only the low end. It is proud to sell stocks and ashamed to sell at will. It is proud to save ammunition and waste resources. Shame; proud of creating performance, ashamed of being on the scene.”

The seemingly simple morale-boosting slogan reflects the perception of leading companies in the severe 2016 air-conditioning market environment. The industry generally believes that the air-conditioning market in 2016 will still maintain its downward trend in 2015. How to break is a big mountain placed in front of each air-conditioning company.

In 2015, Midea Air-Conditioner focused on the core connotation of air conditioning such as refrigeration, heating, and energy saving. Through product innovation, it stabilized the market. In 2016, Midea Air-Conditioner took “Intelligent Manufacturing” as the core of its market breakthrough. Intelligent manufacturing is the only way for enterprises to transform their roads. At present, Midea Air-Conditioning has begun its transition to intelligent manufacturing.

As of 2015, Midea Air-Conditioning has invested a total of 1 billion, achieving an average automation rate of 16.9% (air-conditioning industry average of 7%) for all manual and intelligent automation lines, 562 robots, and 22,000 workers. By 2018, the number of robots will reach 1,500, the automation rate will reach 50%, and the monthly peak value of products will reach 5 million sets. The number of workers will also be controlled from 28,000 in 2015 to 16,000 in 2018.

It is reported that the United States has a total of six home air-conditioning plants, including the Guangzhou factory and the Wuhan plant in early 2016 to achieve full intelligence. And the two smart factories can realize customized C2M production in 2016. The greatest benefit of high-efficiency customized production is to resolve the industry's inventory crisis. In the next five years, Midea Air-Conditioning plans to invest 4 to 5 billion yuan to gradually realize the standardization and modularization of the rest of the factory's smart factories to respond quickly to the market.

The ultimate goal of a smart factory is to achieve stable product quality, optimal cost, and flexible delivery. This point is particularly important for companies to improve their competitiveness in the premise of a poor market external environment.

The improvement of product quality and production efficiency brought by the smart factory is immediate. According to reports, the production line of Midea Air Conditioning 10 years ago, the time required to change type (production of A products, transfer to production of B products) takes 45 minutes, the pass rate of one assembly is only 97%, and the information quality control point 6, workers The number is 160, there is no robot, the automation rate is 4% and the external machine is 8%. In the full-intelligent production line, the conversion time is as short as 3 minutes, the pass rate of one assembly is 99.9%, the control point of information quality is 108, the number of workers is 51, and the number of robots is 68. The automation rate is 64% for internal machines and 65% for external machines.

With regard to the impact of “smart manufacturing” on the competitiveness of enterprises, Wu Wenxin, president of Midea’s home air conditioning division, believes that “From the point of view of corporate competition, smart manufacturing, especially in the era of excess products, has fierce market competition, and the requirements of users are very high. Harsh, this is an era of consumer sovereignty, companies must improve product quality.In addition, companies need to quickly respond to market demand, now more and more personalized needs, traditional manufacturing can not be solved.Furthermore, consider the cost of labor As well as the macro environment, companies must realize intelligent manufacturing."

"Intelligent manufacturing is the only way for the future development of Chinese companies. It's not that you don't do it, but it must be done. Times will force you to do this," says Wu Wenxin.

Midea Air-Conditioning Breaks 2016: Smart Manufacturing