Recently, a quiz show on Jiangsu Satellite TV has ignited nationwide enthusiasm for the "Super Brain," and the extraordinary mental prowess of these gifted individuals has left us in awe. If the construction machinery industry is regarded as a complete organism, then intelligence is the "Super Brain" of the construction machinery industry. After the Two Sessions, deepening industrial reform and promoting the transformation and upgrading of China's manufacturing industry have become hot topics in the industrial sector. For the currently sluggish construction machinery industry, how to leverage the advantages of the "Super Brain," take the path of intelligent development and robotic automated production, has become the key to decisive victory in the industry's major reshuffle in this new era.

　　"Intelligence" facilitates leapfrog development of the industry

　　Intelligence is the development direction of information science and technology, referring to applications in a specific aspect that integrate modern communication and information technology, computer network technology, industry technology, and intelligent control technology. Intelligent manufacturing emphasizes the four-dimensional integration of technology, people, management, and information, involving not only material flow and energy flow but also information flow and knowledge flow—that is, the integration of thinking and the convergence of four flows are important characteristics of intelligent manufacturing technology.

　　Some experts point out that for the equipment manufacturing industry, labor is surpassing raw materials to become the largest cost expenditure. If the transformation and upgrading of the equipment manufacturing industry are not accelerated and the path of intelligent development is not taken, the industry's profit margin will be further compressed. China attaches great importance to intelligent manufacturing technology and the adjustment of the automated industrial structure, and regards promoting the transformation of scientific and technological achievements and industrial automation as key development areas, providing scientific and technological support and services for China's economic and social development. The "Twelfth Five-Year Plan for the Development of National Strategic Emerging Industries" clearly states that during the "Twelfth Five-Year Plan" period, the level of intelligence in the manufacturing process in key areas must be significantly improved.

　　According to China Construction Machinery Information Network (www.6300.net), considering the strategic position of intelligent equipment and its important role in promoting the adjustment and upgrading of the manufacturing industry structure, during the "Twelfth Five-Year Plan" period, the state will continue to increase financial support for the research and development of intelligent equipment and will also establish an insurance mechanism for first-set equipment demonstration projects.

　　For a long time, global construction machinery technology products have been monopolized by large international enterprise groups from the United States, Japan, Western Europe, and Russia. After decades of development, China's equipment manufacturing industry has also achieved proud results. Chinese enterprises represented by Zoomlion, Sany, XCMG, and Weichai have set off a wave of overseas mergers and acquisitions, leading the comprehensive upgrading of product technology and market brands in China's equipment manufacturing industry. However, on the whole, China's equipment manufacturing industry is not strong. As the center of gravity of the mid-to-low-end product processing and manufacturing industry shifts to developing countries such as Southeast Asia, and the "re-industrialization" strategy of Western developed countries triggers a "return" trend of high-end manufacturing enterprises, China's equipment manufacturing industry faces challenges in its global position. How to achieve intelligence? Currently, the equipment manufacturing industry is taking only two paths: product intelligence and production process intelligence.

　　With the development of science and technology and strong support from national policies, industrial intelligence will surely make significant progress, and many leading enterprises in the industry have listed it as a key market development target within five years. Kevin Thieneman, President of Caterpillar China, stated that according to the national policy of using informatization to drive industrialization and using high-tech to upgrade traditional industries, industrial intelligence is bound to be the direction of future development. Artificial intelligence technology will be increasingly used in every link of the manufacturing process to achieve intelligent and highly integrated production equipment. Caterpillar is experimenting with a "one-stop" integrated solution that can integrate intelligence throughout the product and its entire production process, greatly improving production efficiency while reducing labor costs.

　　From the perspective of the development trend of intelligent manufacturing in the domestic construction machinery industry, the "Twelfth Five-Year Plan" has put forward higher requirements for the development of the construction machinery industry. Intelligent manufacturing based on flexible production, automation, and digitalization will become the new standard for the industry. It is estimated that by 2015, China's construction machinery industry will have fixed asset investment of 100 billion yuan, of which investment in intelligent manufacturing will reach 30 billion yuan. This will bring the overall intelligent manufacturing level of the domestic construction machinery industry to a new level by the end of the "Twelfth Five-Year Plan."

　　The awakening of "intelligent manufacturing" in construction machinery

　　With the transformation and upgrading of China's construction machinery industry from large to strong, intelligent manufacturing based on automation and digitalization has gradually been noticed and applied by the domestic construction machinery industry. Some enterprises have begun to introduce a large number of automated production equipment and technologies, sending a message to the industry: the concept of producing through intelligent manufacturing is awakening and entering an upward channel. Some enterprises have already begun to seek new development methods in intelligent manufacturing.

　　The construction machinery industry's first foray into autonomous driving was in the field of mining trucks. In the late 1980s, Caterpillar began developing unmanned self-dumping mining trucks, and testing began in 1994-1995. By 1996, its automated 777D mining dump truck was officially launched and gradually entered the market. It is understood that so far, Caterpillar's unmanned 789 mining trucks have been put into application, and the results have been recognized by customers.

　　Another construction machinery giant, Komatsu, has also made great progress in the field of "autonomous mining trucks." Currently, about a hundred of its unmanned 930E mining trucks are in use at mining sites around the world, with significant improvements in product efficiency and safety, also winning customer recognition. In addition, Komatsu has made considerable progress in the field of unmanned bulldozers. At the Fukushima nuclear power plant accident site, where workers could not enter for construction, Komatsu's unmanned bulldozers performed excellently and completed tasks with ease.

　　In November 2013, Shantui successfully applied unmanned driving technology to its fully hydraulic bulldozers. Through independently developed control programs, it achieved full compatibility between on-board operation and wireless remote control operation. After repeated demonstration, research, and debugging of the control strategy, control mode, and control parameters of the remote-controlled bulldozer, it successfully realized remote control of all basic functions such as starting, shutting down, travel system, and working device system of the bulldozer.

　　At the 2014 Construction Machinery Product Development (Beijing) Forum, Ma Zhu, Deputy General Manager of XCMG's Earthmoving Machinery Business Unit, painted a picture of the intelligent era: in the construction machinery industry, the application of intelligent manufacturing technology can not only ensure the stability of product quality, improve labor production efficiency, and improve workers' working conditions and labor intensity, but also accelerate the upgrading and transformation of enterprises, break away from homogeneous product competition, and enhance product brand value. The purpose of the intelligent manufacturing system is mainly to achieve information integration of multiple systems and effective organizational management of production, realizing data informatization, management intelligence, and control automation. Through the comprehensive integration of information technology, manufacturing technology, organizational forms, and labor behavior, the comprehensive capability and level of the manufacturing system are improved. The construction of the intelligent manufacturing system achieves the integration of design, process, manufacturing, and management, ultimately building an intelligent enterprise.

　　Introducing "industrial robots" becomes a major trend

　　The application of industrial robots is also an important manifestation and key project of intelligence. The research and development and manufacturing of industrial robots have obvious advantages for industrial development. A beneficiary manufacturing enterprise stated: "The efficiency of one welding robot is roughly equivalent to four or five welders. In addition, it is easy to standardize management and can further improve the efficiency of the entire production system. Moreover, there is no need to consider various costs such as pensions, unemployment, medical care, insurance, work-related injuries, public holidays, and overtime pay. Why not do it?"

　　It can be seen that with the progress of science and technology, the cost-effectiveness of industrial robots is approaching an inflection point, and acceptance is gradually increasing. Industrial robots have already formed a trend of replacing manual labor in many fields, and in the construction machinery industry, most enterprises' application of industrial robots is mainly concentrated in the welding field. For example, Zoomlion's Yuanjiang Industrial Park officially launched the welding robot production system for the internal welds of mixer truck drums on October 24, 2012. By mid-November of the same year, with the installation, commissioning, and official delivery of the 11th welding robot in the structural workshop of Zoomlion's Engineering Crane Company Quantang Industrial Park, the welding processes for the four major structural components of Zoomlion's wheeled crane booms, turntables, frames, and outriggers fully entered the robot era. Sany, from the successful application of the first batch of 4 welding robots and 2 cutting robots in 2008 to now, robots can be seen almost everywhere in the entire production process of Sany Heavy Machinery, from the first process to the last.

　　According to statistics from the International Federation of Robotics (IFR), from 2005 to 2012, the average annual sales growth rate of global industrial robots was 9%, while the average annual sales growth rate of China's industrial robots during the same period reached 25%. In 2014, China will become the world's largest robot market. By 2015, China's domestic annual supply of industrial robots will exceed 20,000 units, and the installed base will exceed 130,000 units. Therefore, under this general trend, the comprehensive introduction of industrial robots into the manufacturing processes of construction machinery enterprises will soon become an irresistible trend.

　　The road to intelligent development is long and arduous

　　In line with the situation, China's construction machinery enterprises urgently need to continuously explore the path of high-end transformation and upgrading and actively promote intelligent development, but this will undoubtedly require a difficult process.

　　Ma Zhu, Deputy General Manager of XCMG's Earthmoving Machinery Business Unit, emphasized that intelligent manufacturing is the goal of "Made in China." China is a major manufacturing country. Now, with changes in domestic and international situations and rising labor costs, the transformation and upgrading of China's construction machinery industry is imminent. Exploring how to apply intelligent manufacturing technology in this field and putting it into action has become a top priority. With economic globalization and social informatization, market competition is increasingly fierce, and customer needs are becoming increasingly diverse. For the construction machinery industry, a typical industry, to survive and develop in the face of brutal domestic market international competition and the challenges of new technologies and processes, it must solve the TQCS problem—that is, to meet the needs of different customers with the fastest time to market (T), the best quality (Q), the lowest cost (C), and the best service (S). The most effective means to solve this problem is intelligent manufacturing.

　　It is understood that in the domestic construction machinery industry, more than 25% of enterprises are in the stage of not yet starting intelligent manufacturing construction, 43% are in the stage of single-item coverage of intelligent manufacturing, 22% are in the early or transitional stage of integrated improvement of intelligent manufacturing, and only less than 10% of enterprises are in the stage of relatively comprehensive breakthrough application of intelligent manufacturing technology. Moreover, international brands occupy an advantageous position in intelligence, and national independent brands still need new technological breakthroughs in intelligence. "At present, the vertical development of China's equipment manufacturing industry chain is very uneven, with large differences between large and small enterprises, which restricts the industry's development toward high-end." Zhan Chunxin, a deputy to the National People's Congress and Chairman of Zoomlion, pointed out that China has three enterprises among the top ten in the global construction machinery industry, but supporting components are still provided by thousands of small and medium-sized enterprises, with overall low levels, and core component technologies are mostly in the hands of foreign enterprises.

　　The construction machinery industry is a sunrise industry with high technology content and high production concentration, and high barriers to entry. For construction machinery enterprises to truly form competitive brands and push them to the market, they need further improvement, especially by strengthening the development capability of key core components. As one of the four major trends in construction machinery, "intelligent manufacturing" has become a keyword in today's enterprise development. Enterprises should not judge heroes by scale and speed but should pursue endogenous growth and innovative development, exploring up and down on the road of intelligent development and fighting in the market.