Digital technology penetrates the front, middle and back ends of the industry, and Dongguan builds a new ＂moat＂ for the furniture industry
How to seize the new opportunities of digital transformation in the era of digital economy is a must-answer for Dongguan furniture industry to achieve high-quality development.
As a famous furniture manufacturing city in China, Dongguan’s furniture industry is famous at home and abroad. As a characteristic industry in Dongguan, how to seize the new opportunities of digital transformation in the digital economy era is a must-answer for the furniture industry to achieve high-quality development.
At the beginning of this year, Dongguan proposed to promote the digital transformation of the furniture industry cluster, with a clear transformation goal of personalized customization transformation, using digital technology to penetrate the front, middle and back ends of the furniture industry, extending from manufacturing business to high added value at both ends of the value chain, and realizing the transformation from "production + sales" to "product + service" by 2025.
Industry insiders said that, unlike other industries, the furniture industry is still a non-standard industry to a large extent. There are many product materials, complex processes, and small order volumes. Its digital transformation is difficult to achieve in one step. Although some leading enterprises have taken the lead in digitalization, the digital transformation of Dongguan furniture industry is still in its infancy.
Lin Guorong, vice chairperson of the China Furniture Brand Alliance, said that most of the furniture industry in Dongguan produces high-end home products, which also makes the digital transformation of the furniture industry in Dongguan more difficult. "But Dongguan’s advantages are also obvious. Relying on industrial Internet platforms such as Huawei Cloud and Wewin Big Data, the furniture industry will have great technical advantages in digital transformation, and will explore more local solutions for the digital transformation of Dongguan furniture industry clusters."
Industry digital transformation is still in its infancy
According to the digital transformation roadmap planned by Dongguan, the digital transformation of the furniture industry cluster mainly involves four parts: leading enterprises to create digital transformation system integration solutions; support enterprises to transform production lines, develop intelligent, collaborative and flexible production and processing models, and promote enterprises to transform into new production models such as personalized customization and modular furniture; promote the application of advanced furniture design technologies such as virtual simulation and 3D design, and strengthen the intelligent design of furniture products linked with smart home systems; guide enterprises to accurately grasp the end point retail situation.
However, combing the digitization process of Dongguan furniture industry can find that, in addition to the leading enterprises "one ride without dust", the vast majority of enterprises are "jogging in small steps" according to their own actual conditions, and are not in a hurry to digitalize in an all-round layout. The digital transformation of the furniture industry presents a bipolar phenomenon.
Mousse health sleep joint stock company isDongguanThe only listed company in the furniture industry, as an industry leader, is undoubtedlyDongguanThe "leader" of the digital transformation of the furniture industry. Entering the Mousse intelligent digital factory, the large screen of the industrial Internet will collect the layout and real-time progress of all kinds of equipment. In the production area, the bed net spring machine intelligently forms the string net, and the automatic edge machine operates in an orderly manner.
Due to non-standard products, the home furnishing industry has been facing many pain points such as high cost of personalized production and too much reliance on manpower. Mousse, on the other hand, has installed a "smart brain" in the factory by building an Industry 4.0 intelligent manufacturing system based on the soft furniture industry, allowing custom home furnishings to have flexible production lines and carry out modular and large-scale production.
In recent years, Mousse has introduced world-class automated and intelligent equipment and industrial processes such as Siemens. At the same time, it is equipped with an intelligent decision management platform. It integrates CRM, SAP, MES, WMS and other full systems to open up the integrated production process of orders. Production personnel can monitor and analyze the system data of each product in real time. On-demand customized C2M business model can quickly schedule production according to customer personalized and non-standard customized production needs. Customers are fully automated and visual processes from order placement to product delivery, making it one of the most automated production workshops in China’s furniture manufacturing industry.
Unlike Mousse, Dongguan Chuangyu Industrial Co., Ltd. chose to "gradually transfer" on the road of digital transformation. In early July, Chuangyu joined hands with Guan Enterprise Shufu to complete the upgrade and closure of Enterprise Resource Planning, and 17 major modules such as business management, group operation, and material management have been launched. Through Shufu Enterprise Resource Planning, Chuangyu Group has opened up data sharing in material control, finished product warehouse management, sales, and procurement, so as to realize data transmission between the brand end and the factory end, improve production efficiency and reduce error rates.
Southern finance media reporter learned that as the first step of digital transformation, many furniture enterprises in Dongguan have settled in Enterprise Resource Planning. But most enterprises have only penetrated the internal management link, connecting the front-end supply chain, back-end marketing, store end points and service links, and have not fully realized the integration and digitalization of the whole process. The digital transformation of the production line is still in the initial stage due to the high cost and complicated process.
"At present, our digital equipment is only for the early standardization of cutting, edge sealing, punching and other aspects. Last year, we introduced a device for the manufacture of wooden door patterns, which can realize digital three-dimensional cutting. But we have more than 40 processes, which are more complicated, and some process digital equipment is still difficult to achieve." Lin Guorong, chairperson of Chuangyu Group, introduced.
Let products and designs take the lead in digitalization
Many industry insiders said that most of Dongguan mainly produces high-end home furnishing products, with extremely high requirements for craftsmanship and higher difficulty in digital transformation. Take Rongma Furniture as an example, as a high-tech enterprise with a global professional designer and R & D team, the main production of sofas includes more than ten processes such as nail racks, cotton, and leather, all of which are completed by workers by hand. "Whether the sofa is well done or not, whether it is full or not, depends on manual realization," Rongma Furniture technicians said.
At the same time, the government advocates the transformation of enterprises to new production models such as personalized customization and modular furniture, requiring them to adjust their processes according to customer needs. They also face problems such as the large number of non-standardized links and the difficulty of large-scale output due to small quantities.
Faced with the challenges of transformation, many companies have turned to breaking through, taking the lead in digitizing their products and designs, promoting the application of advanced technologies such as virtual simulation and 3D design, strengthening the segmentation of the population, strengthening the iterative upgrade of smart home systems and products, and climbing towards high value-added links.
"We are currently the first to digitize product design. This year, through AI intelligent design, we have realized the virtual simulation of the exhibition hall. Consumers can experience products interactively on the Internet, accelerating the digitalization process of our flexible production," said Lin Guorong, chairperson of Chuangyu Group.
Using the core technology of Industry 4.0 to combine the Internet, big data, Internet of Things, etc. with industrial production, create a flexible production chain, realize the interconnection of factories, consumers, products and information data, and gradually realize the production and service, is the inevitable direction of the furniture industry. As an important territory with the strongest interaction and experience in the home furnishing industry, soft furniture has brought new growth points to the furniture industry. Relevant statistics show that it is expected that by 2023, the global smart home market will reach 510 billion yuan. The huge market space of smart home has attracted major enterprises to enter the market. The digital transformation of Dongguan furniture industry is the epitome of it.
In the field of smart home, Mousse has long created a "tailor-made personal healthy sleep system" in the industry. The newly developed T10 intelligent healthy sleep system can monitor heart rate, snoring, and deep sleep through built-in sensors in the mattress. When users have sleep problems, the Legend26 smart healthy sleep system will tailor sleep solutions, provide psychological intervention guidance such as sleep music and CBTI, and realize closed-loop management of the smart healthy sleep ecosystem.
As one of the first companies in China to lay out smart homes with smart furniture as an entry point, Rongma Furniture’s Livable Home brand has become one of the first companies to enjoy the benefits of the smart home industry. Walking into the smart exhibition hall of Rongma Furniture, with the help of "artificial intelligence + Internet of Things" technology, customers issue instructions to artificial intelligence "Xiaole": open the viewing mode, the curtains in the house will automatically close, and the sofa will also be adjusted to a comfortable angle. Livable Home injects artificial intelligence and Internet of Things technology into sofas, beds and other furniture items to create a "smart home".
Looking at the digital transformation process of Dongguan furniture industry cluster, it can be seen that actively integrating into the development trend of smart home is a highlight of the digital transformation of Dongguan furniture industry. Based on its own smart platform, creating a cloud platform interface that can be opened to the outside world, connecting to Huawei Hongmeng system, and promoting the home to upgrade to the smart IoT healthy field will be an important direction for the digital transformation of the industrial cluster in the future.
Big data and artificial intelligence deeply empower the industry
Southern finance media reporter survey found that although walking in the forefront of digital transformation, and Dongguan furniture industry cluster development has become a general trend, but due to different enterprises production and operation mode, and the degree of embedding of the industrial chain is different, leading furniture enterprises did not output a set of unified applicable to the industry’s digital transformation integrated solutions, each enterprise’s digital system, equipment, direction, etc. are independently customized, the status quo of information islands is obvious, furniture industry cluster digital transformation still maintains the "go it alone" situation.
With the foundation of industrial software in the early years, Foshan Weishang Furniture, which has a certain Internet gene, has become a benchmark enterprise in the custom home furnishing industry, and actively provides digital intelligence transformation solutions for upstream and downstream enterprises in the industry, shaping a classic path of digital transformation for furniture enterprises. And in Dongguan, such a case is about to be born.
Walking into the small laboratory of Interface Technology Co., Ltd., located in Songshan Lake, several 6-axis industrial robots and automation equipment are conducting research and development and production of various products.
As a technology-based innovation enterprise engaged in supply-side technology development and channel expansion in the furniture industry, Interface Technology has accumulated a lot of technical experience in the use of industrial 6-axis robots for processing processes including sheet metal, square material, soft material milling, surface forming, and supporting tooling equipment. It is mainly used in single-piece to small-batch production, targeting the majority of small and medium-sized furniture enterprises.
"In terms of solid wood furniture, the technology can initially meet the customization needs of some high-end customers. At the same time, due to the establishment of product and process databases, the robot production process makes it possible to produce single pieces to small batches on demand," said Wang Huaiqun, head of the interface technology department.
At present, Interface Technology is actively seeking cooperation with small and medium-sized furniture enterprises in Dongguan. "We hope to build intelligent furniture production units that can empower small and medium-sized enterprises, truly solve the practical difficulties of small and medium-sized furniture enterprises in digital transformation, and launch intelligent manufacturing system solutions for the furniture industry that can be implemented." Jiang Wei, founder of the company, said.
In terms of solving the information islands between enterprises, Dongguan furniture enterprises actively use Huawei Cloud, Wewin big data and other industrial Internet platforms for digital transformation. Lin Guorong told the Southern Finance and Economics All Media reporter that he has established a separate technology company and joined hands with Huawei to create a "data Rubik’s Cube". "We hope to create a solution together with Huawei, and use a central platform to link different software and systems in the integration industry. Enterprises bring their own data to the station. As a peer-to-peer exchange, the platform will provide enterprises with corresponding user portrait analysis, logistics matching services based on big data, etc."
"Making big data and artificial intelligence technology deeply empower the industry is the core goal of the digital transformation of Dongguan’s furniture industry in the future," Lin Guorong said.
(Author: Zheng Kangxi, a trainee reporter for Southern Finance and Economics All Media, Editor: Yu Changhuan)