How big is the gap between China's Industry 4.0 and developed countries?

Germany emphasizes "hard manufacturing", the United States focuses on "soft services", and Japan highlights artificial intelligence. In the context of the bleak world economic growth prospects, the global industrial 4.0 revolution has taken place gradually. This revolution is not a single technology lead, but shows the characteristics of different technologies and elements.

Compared with developed countries, China's industrial 4.0 revolutionary gap is still relatively large. Only by breaking through the misunderstanding of understanding, the transformation and upgrading of the whole system, the implementation path, and the leading forces can we seize the new round of industrial revolution.

Industry 4.0 activates the global economy

On July 19th, the latest forecast of the World Economic Outlook released by the International Monetary Fund showed that the global economy will grow by 3.1% in 2016 and will increase by 3.4% in 2017. This forecast is down by 0.1 percentage points from the April data, which means that although the world is slowly recovering, the downward pressure is greater.

While the financial market turmoil has intensified and the world economic growth prospects are bleak, new technologies such as sensors, robots, 3D printing, and the Internet of Things have emerged in an endless stream, promoting the continuous development of intelligent manufacturing and industrial innovation, and bringing new hope to the world economy. Against the background of weak growth and technological innovation, the industry believes that the Industry 4.0 revolution will be a good way to save the global economy.

At the 46th annual meeting of the World Economic Forum held in January this year, participants generally believed that a new round of industrial revolution has taken place gradually. The main keywords can be summarized as integration, digitization, intelligence, personalization, and service. Wait. In this process, “service” plays a more important role than the previous three industrial revolutions, especially customer-oriented personalized services. In particular, the integration of manufacturing and service has become a prominent feature of Industry 4.0.

Klaus Schwab, founder and executive chairman of the World Economic Forum, said that at present, the world has entered the early stage of the fourth industrial revolution, and the emerging new technologies will have a subversive impact on the world and even incite human beings to recognize themselves. know.

Bill Gates, the founder of Microsoft and the leader of the third industrial revolution, said that the main feature of the fourth industrial revolution that people are welcoming is the integration of technologies, and innovation in the digital field may continue to lead.

Zhao Houlin, secretary-general of the International Telecommunication Union, said that the innovation of the new round of industrial revolution is not only from big companies, but also that SMEs and enterprises and people in developing countries may become an indispensable part of the industrial revolution. Difficult to see; Matthew Grob, chief technology officer of Qualcomm, said that the fourth industrial revolution is not only driven by a technology, artificial intelligence and learning algorithms, high-speed and low-cost communication technology, will be new industry An important part of the revolution.

Experts believe that Industry 4.0 brings rapid and disruptive changes in many areas and can significantly increase productivity, which will bring new growth drivers to the global economy. Nariman Bellavis, chief economist at IHS, a global consulting firm, said that in recent years there has been an explosive growth in new technologies, and labor productivity will increase dramatically as people continue to invest in new technologies. This means that the world economy will achieve rapid growth in the long run. If companies and governments continue to increase investment in new technologies, these new technologies will become a good way to save the global economy.

Developed countries differentiated and promoted Industry 4.0

In terms of industries, the related technologies that led the fourth industrial revolution have already begun to emerge. Unmanned vehicles (automobiles and drones), 3D printing, advanced robotics, new materials, the Internet of Things and genetic engineering are considered to be the core driving technologies in Industry 4.0. At the same time, artificial intelligence and learning algorithms, high-speed and low-cost communication technologies, the application of artificial intelligence in social media, virtual reality technology, etc. are also considered to bring subversive changes.

From the perspective of different countries, the industrial 4.0 of the developed countries such as the United States, Japan and Europe has different processes, but it has both national characteristics and mutual advantages.

German Industry 4.0 emphasizes “hard manufacturing”, which means that the technology is excellent, the quality is excellent, and the concept is excellent.

As a pioneer, more than 40% of companies in Germany have adopted the Industry 4.0 platform. The core of German Industry 4.0 is to develop intelligent manufacturing technology and intelligent production mode of manufacturing industry, to realize the digitalization of the whole life cycle of the product and the entire manufacturing process. Mainly for the development direction of three major intelligent strategies: “smart factory”, focusing on intelligent production systems and processes, and the realization of networked distributed production facilities; “smart production” mainly involves production logistics management and human-computer interaction of the entire enterprise. And the application of 3D technology in industrial production processes; “smart logistics” mainly integrates logistics resources through the Internet, Internet of Things, and logistics network, and fully utilizes the efficiency of existing logistics resource suppliers, while the demand side can quickly obtain Service matching, get logistics support.

Among them, the German Siemens electronics workshop is the representative of the German "smart factory". The intelligent robots in the factory are responsible for more than 50,000 products per year, involving the assembly of 1.6 billion production parts. The reliability of the huge production line can reach 99%, and the product traceability is as high as 100%.

Unlike the “hard” manufacturing that Germany emphasizes, the United States is more focused on promoting a new round of industrialization in “soft” services, connecting virtual networks to entities to form more efficient production systems.

Wang Xiaoming, a researcher at the Development Research Center of the State Council, said that the United States has promoted the development of advanced manufacturing to a national strategy and hopes to reshape the manufacturing industry with new revolutionary production methods. From an industry perspective, the formation of the industry organization Industrial Internet Alliance has announced the clarion of the CCP's entry into the industry 4.0 era.

Zeng Yubo, the director of Tianhe Zhichao, believes that the US version of Industry 4.0 is actually the "Industrial Internet" revolution. In the process, in addition to the US government's policy support, the industry alliance took the lead in building an important promoter of development. The concept of "Industrial Internet" was first proposed by General Electric in 2012. Then the five leading companies in the United States jointly formed the Industrial Internet Alliance (IIC) to promote this concept. In addition to manufacturing giants such as General Electric, IT companies such as IBM, Cisco, Intel and AT&T are joining the alliance.

In Japan, Industry 4.0 is closely related to its national conditions and is led by artificial intelligence.

There are so many people in Japan, and the problem of aging is often serious. This situation forces the government to attach great importance to the development of artificial intelligence technology when considering the overall policy, and gives preferential tax system, concessional loans, tax reductions, etc. Policy support has enabled artificial intelligence technology to achieve significant growth in Japan.

At the same time, the Japanese government has never reduced its focus on the development of high-end manufacturing. In recent years, it has launched a large-scale technical strategic plan and increased investment in emerging technologies such as 3D printing. It is understood that since the 1990s, Japan has joined hands with countries such as Europe and the United States to launch an international cooperation plan for smart manufacturing, and has invested 150 billion yen (100 yen or about 6.32 yuan) for a period of 10 years. Development and manufacturing in the advanced intelligent manufacturing industry.

How does China seize the opportunity?

In June 2015, China's version of Industry 4.0 programmatic policy document "Made in China 2025" was released to promote Chinese manufacturing to seize this historic opportunity to comprehensively upgrade its level and competitiveness. However, industry experts believe that the basis for China's development of industry 4.0 is still weak compared to developed countries, and the gap is large.

How can China seize the opportunities in the new round of industrial transformation?

Experts believe that the most urgent task is to break the misunderstanding of ideas and comprehensively promote transformation and upgrading from the fields of technological innovation, personnel training, management concepts, scientific research investment, and system construction.

Wang Yi, deputy dean of the Science and Technology Strategy Consulting Institute of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, said that there is now a misunderstanding in China that Industry 4.0 is only a “technology upgrade.” In fact, the gap between China’s industrial system and developed countries is still large, and it is a systematic gap, not only Technology, management or policy is weaker than others, and many industries are still in the industrial 2.0 stage as a whole.