Anhui Telecom： Accelerate the layout of ＂industrial brain＂ to help build ＂digital Anhui＂

Manufacturing is the lifeblood of the national economy. Since the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, Anhui has ushered in a historic leap in manufacturing from a traditional agricultural province to a newly industrialized province, and then to an accelerated manufacturing province.

In order to better serve the high-quality development of Anhui’s manufacturing industry, in recent years, China Telecom Anhui has accelerated the layout of the province’s "industrial brain", empowered enterprises to network, digitalize and intelligently transform, and helped Anhui’s manufacturing industry digitally develop and manage service levels. At present, China Telecom Anhui has built regional "industrial brains" in Anqing, Xuancheng, Fuyang, Huaibei and other places, serving nearly 1,000 enterprises in the province.

"Industrial brain" to create a new manufacturing ecosystem

From a manufacturing province to a manufacturing province, the manufacturing industry has huge potential for transformation and upgrading. Over the past ten years, Anhui Province has continued to focus on "industrial interconnection, intelligent transformation and digital transformation" to strengthen the digital empowerment of the manufacturing industry.

In order to actively implement the decision-making and deployment of the Anhui Provincial Party Committee and Provincial Government on the digital economy and the national "14th Five-Year" Digital Economy Development Plan, and the overall plan for the construction of "Digital Anhui" in Anhui Province, the General Office of the Anhui Provincial Government officially issued the "Action Plan for Accelerating the Development of the Digital Economy (2022-2024) ", proposing that by 2024, Anhui will strive to take the digital transformation of the industry to a new level, significantly improve the level of digital industrialization, and continuously improve the digital infrastructure.

"Simply put, the industrial brain is the’baton ‘for the government to empower and make decisions, and it is also the’Treasure box’ for the digital transformation of enterprises." According to the person in charge of the relevant department of China Telecom Anhui Company, the industrial brain is a new digital infrastructure that is oriented to the digital, networked and intelligent needs of the manufacturing industry, builds a service system based on massive data collection, aggregation and analysis, supports the ubiquitous connection, elastic supply and efficient distribution of manufacturing resources, and realizes knowledge modeling, softwareization and reuse through the integration of industrial technology and knowledge. It provides various innovative applications for manufacturing enterprises in the form of industrial APPs, and eventually forms a new manufacturing ecosystem of resource enrichment, multi-party participation, win-win cooperation and collaborative evolution.

At the end of 2019, China Telecom Anhui began to lay out and plan the construction of "industrial brains" in provinces, cities, districts and counties. In early 2020, the province’s first municipal "industrial brain" – "Anqing Industrial Brain" – was completed. After two years, the projects have successively taken root in Xuancheng, Fuyang, Huaibei and other cities.

Explore innovation to create "industrial brain" benchmarking applications

In early 2020, China Telecom Anhui cooperated with Anqing Zhumeng Park to build the "Anqing Industrial Brain" to explore a new model of enterprise digital transformation. Since the "Anqing Industrial Brain" was put into operation, more than 200 enterprises have been introduced and more than 50 digital factories have been built.

"Anqing Industrial Brain" data base. Photo courtesy of Anhui Telecom

Anqing Huanxin AAT Company is an automobile piston ring manufacturing enterprise. The original equipment data basically stayed in the workshop. In order to empower the enterprise’s digital transformation, China Telecom Anqing Branch deployed more than 30 gateways in the foundry workshop to collect data from more than 100 equipment and more than 5,000 data collection points. Based on the digital platform of the foundry workshop built by the "industrial brain", the unified management and scheduling of processes, materials, personnel and equipment is realized.

With the help of "industrial brain", Anqing Huanxin AAT has achieved digital transformation and upgrade. Compared with before the transformation, the defective rate of enterprise products has been reduced by 1.5%, the operation rate has been increased by 2%, the response speed has been increased by 15%, the mold change efficiency has been increased by 11%, and the overall efficiency of the factory has been increased by 10%.

In addition to Huanxin AAT’s "5G + Digital Workshop", currently, based on the "Industrial Brain", Anqing has also built a number of benchmark applications such as Anqing Yizhimei’s "5G + Digital Factory", Anqing’s "Hong Kong-China Smart Archive", Hengruida’s "5G + Smart Factory", Anqing Petrochemical’s "5G + Digital Factory", and Huanxin ATG’s "5G + Digital Workshop".

Enabling wisdom with numbers to help regional industrial digital transformation

In July 2021, China Telecom Xuancheng Branch proposed to build a "Xuancheng Industrial Brain" around the development of Xuancheng’s industrial Internet and the modernization of the ten industrial chains, to consolidate the foundation of the industrial Internet, to promote enterprises to go to the cloud, use data, and empower intelligence, and to help Xuancheng’s manufacturing industry develop with high quality.

At present, "Xuancheng Industrial Brain" has built a regional-level industrial brain that integrates the iWork OS industrial operating system, data operation center, and Internet portal, operates a "5G +" industrial Internet innovation laboratory, and cultivates a technical service team of more than 200 people covering cloud network security, 5G, and industrial Internet. Combined with the industrial brain consulting and diagnostic function, it visited and investigated more than 670 enterprises, and issued more than 340 diagnostic reports for the shortcomings of enterprises in networking, informatization, and digitalization. Covering issues such as digitalization of production processes, automation of scene processes, intelligent transformation of internal and external networks, and synergy of enterprise development, it has vigorously promoted the digital transformation of Xuancheng’s manufacturing industry.

The operation of industrial enterprises in various districts and counties of Xuancheng is collected and analyzed by the "Industrial Brain", which is intuitively and clearly displayed on the large screen. Photo courtesy of Anhui Telecom

At present, the "Xuancheng Industrial Brain" has attracted more than 300 enterprises to settle in and built more than 30 digital factories. In Guangde Lixin Special Steel, the internal and external network transformation is carried out through 5G customized network, and the data transmission delay is reduced by more than 60%. In Jingde Huangshan Bench Drill, the NB-IoT narrowband Internet of Things is used to collect, sense and integrate equipment data, and the whole process of production, sales and service is cloud-managed, which helps the company’s market share increase by 3%.

Deeply empowering the "digitalization" of enterprise production

On the morning of September 16, 2022, the unveiling ceremony of "Fuyang Industrial Brain" was held at China Telecom Fuyang Branch.

"Fuyang Industrial Brain" is positioned as a municipal-level industrial Internet comprehensive platform that serves the networked, digitized, intelligent, and green transformation and upgrading of major industries in Fuyang. It is based on the three basic bases of cloud, network, and security, and the three core mid-platforms of data mid-platform, AI mid-platform, and industrial mid-platform. With multiple industrial applications, it has ten core capabilities such as enterprise diagnosis, digital workshop, and policy docking.

At present, the platform has launched 253 applications, mainly including manufacturing, operation and management, R & D and design, procurement and supply, warehousing and logistics, and other applications, to deeply assist enterprises in digitizing all production links.

"Fuyang Industrial Brain" data room staff are debugging the deployment environment. Photo courtesy of Anhui Telecom

In the next step, China Telecom Anhui Company will accelerate the construction of "industrial brains" in various places, actively explore new models and new ideas, and rely on its own cloud network security new infrastructure base capabilities to build a comprehensive, regional, industrial-level and other "industrial brains". Continuously improve platform service capabilities, enrich industrial scene applications, and help the high-quality development of the province’s manufacturing industry by promoting enterprise transformation and upgrading. (Xie ******, Dou Hu, Gu Yu)