In Chengdu, at the heart of the Chinese Southwest, is located one of the most modern factories in the world. As an example of the Industry 4.0 concept of the German giant Siemens, the machines and products in the facility communicate with each other in real time and all processes are managed and optimized by computerized systems. The result is an extremely high level of productivity and quality.
At first glance, Chengdu looks like all other industrial towns in south-west China: rectangular concrete skyscrapers, broad highways, which encompass a small old-town district, where you can try the spicy foods that are typical for the Sichuan province and create a slightly more relaxed lifestyle than that in Beijing.
But for many, the city that houses 15 million inhabitants is an extremely attractive place to do business in the perspective of its rapid development. Today, the region attracts companies in regard to its expertise in the field of digitalization, which goes far beyond the average levels for the country.
The Siemens electronic components plant in Chengdu is a brilliant example of this. It is the only place in China, where companies wishing to digitalize their production can do a real time monitoring of the process. The result is a huge interest in the plant and the facility has more than 5,000 visitors each year.
The factory in south-west China has been built for two years and started to work at the end of 2013. Today, it produces almost three million final products each year. SIMATIC controllers are designed to control and automate machinery and plants. This saves time and money and also improves product quality. They manage everything from on-board systems for cruise ships and industrial manufacturing processes in the automobile industry to ski lift systems. The plant quality level was 99.99885 percent. 60 percent of production is for the Chinese market, while the remaining 40% are exported worldwide.
In addition to the high levels of automation and quality control of the facilities in Chengdu, all production processes are recorded digitally. The software is powered by about 13 million pieces of data every day, most of which is processing information. It is used to manage all production and quality assurance processes.
And a curious fact: from nearly 400 people working at the plant, only one is a German.
