Realizing Industry 4.0 starts with lean production

With the introduction of China Manufacturing 2025, how to achieve industrial 4.0 in manufacturing plants has become a hot topic. During the period, experts, scholars and industry veterans have made their own suggestions and opinions based on the actual situation of the manufacturing industry. Among them, lean production has been widely recognized. A large number of industry people believe that the realization of Industry 4.0 is inseparable from lean production.

Of course, before we understand Lean, we must first understand what stage China's Industry 4.0 is at. At the China Machine Tool Industry Development Forum in November this year, Mr. Ning Zhenbo, the chief consultant of the Information Technology Center of AVIC Group, put forward his own views on the status quo of China's industry 4.0. He said that China is now digesting Industry 4.0, far from consumption. The stage of Industry 4.0.

To this end, he also gave a vivid example: Industry 4.0 has an evaluation standard, which was established by the German Academy of Science and Engineering and some universities. In the past few years, they evaluated the Siemens town factory in Nuremberg, Germany. If 4.0 is the perfect score, the Siemens factory in Nuremberg scored 3.5 points. Then it evaluated the automobile industry of Bosch in Germany. It scored 3.4 points. The same team was invited. The same evaluation criteria evaluated Huawei in China with a score of 2.7. The year before, Xinhua News Agency visited Nuremberg with the delegation and interviewed the factory owner. He asked him: You are now 3.5, when can you reach 4.0? The boss considered the reporter for a long time, 15 to 20 years later.

It is not difficult to see from Mr. Ning Zhenbo's discourse that developed countries are still doing the same, and there is still a long way to go in China's realization of Industry 4.0. Although the road is far away, it still has to go on. The pursuit of the realization of Industry 4.0 is the only way to become an industrial power. Completing lean production is a key step in the transformation and upgrading of manufacturing plants.

Lean, automation, intelligence and intelligence are the four axes of the realization of Industry 4.0. Among them, lean is the basis of other three, and lean is accompanied by the whole process of the enterprise going to Industry 4.0. Of course, the road to lean is not easy to go. It is even more difficult to have lean thinking and actively take lean actions.

Unified lean thinking

On the surface, lean systems are helping companies build a production and operation system that continues to enhance competitiveness, low cost, short delivery, and multiple varieties and small batches. But in essence, the key to lean production lies in people, how to use systematic methods to develop people's ability to solve problems, and through the use of tools to develop scientific thinking skills. Therefore, it is extremely important to unify the people's thinking and let the company's leadership and executives fully understand the process and role of lean.

For example, at present, training is an important way for many companies to motivate employees to change, but the facts show that the training has little effect, training can not help employees completely inertia, and employees have a good attitude towards training. Such improvement activities have had limited success.

Therefore, companies must first cultivate the lean thinking of employees. First of all, business leaders should learn to lean leanly and use lean leadership to introduce lean improvement activities and guide employees to do it. Secondly, start with small improvements and micro-improvements that can be done around the world, so that employees can realize the benefits of change. Employees will take the initiative and actively make changes to further build interest and confidence.

Lean action

After solving the problem of how to do it, it is natural to return to the methodological problem, because all problems will be attached to the process. However, each company's lean progress is different, and the relevant actions and methods are different.

For example, from the waste of the factory, there are eight common wastes in the factory: waiting for waste; waste of transportation; bad waste; waste of action; waste of processing; waste of inventory; excessive manufacturing (premature) waste; waste. Different lean actions are required for different waste behaviors, which can reduce mass production and reduce large-volume purchases for inventory waste, but some companies can always keep less inventory or low inventory, so this is not applicable to them. Too much manufacturing (premature) waste is extremely serious, and you need to take appropriate action.

In short, in the process of lean production, no matter which one must find the corresponding solution: solve the problem of process speed can find tools and methods related to lean production; solve the problem of process stability and volatility, can Find Six Sigma related tools and methods; if the existing process capabilities are not enough to solve the problem, look for tools and methods related to process design. Every enterprise needs to proceed from its own actual situation and make corresponding adjustments.

Persevere in improvement activities

The essence of lean is continuous improvement. It does not require the company to have a professional team to manage lean work, but requires each employee to participate in the improvement work. As a lean creation company, Toyota does not have a dedicated staff to manage lean production, but their lean production is doing very well, which is due to their continuous improvement activities.

First of all, employees must have a sense of improvement and awareness of efficiency. Managers should make improvement as part of employee performance appraisal to increase employee motivation.

Second, the improvement is to be visualized. Visualization can expose problems and identify breakthroughs for improvement. For example, if you want to improve the flow of goods, you must collect the operation of the logistics vehicle at all times of the day, where it has been waiting, where the blockage occurred, where the car happened, with this moment The running state can only find the problem.

In short, lean is in every corner of the production, every link, and tireless improvement activities are the starting point of lean. On the way to the industry 4.0, lean is the foundation and the process. Of course, in return, Lean can enable enterprises to achieve automation, intelligence and intelligence more efficiently than their competitors, and provide financial and cultural support for Sanhua Construction.