At the 15th China Manufacturing International Forum held on October 23, Tan Jianrong, Academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, advised the industry to view the booming smart manufacturing rationally to cool down the overheated hype. Tan argued that enterprises must fully deploy digital and network technologies before adopting artificial intelligence. He pointed out that neither robots nor AI can replace an enterprise’s core product design and manufacturing technologies.

“Smart manufacturing is valuable, but it is not a panacea for all corporate problems. It cannot substitute fundamental design and manufacturing technologies, though it can upgrade design standards and product quality,” he stated.

Excerpts from Academician Tan Jianrong’s Speech

Machinery manufacturers primarily produce mechanical goods and equipment, evolving through four phases: mechanization, electrification, informatization and intelligentization. Siemens first put forward Industry 4.0, which was later elevated to Germany’s national development strategy, centered on the enterprise-wide application of electronics, information technology and industrial robots.

In my understanding, the Third Industrial Revolution focused on automation to extend human physical capabilities. The core technology of the Fourth Industrial Revolution is Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS), which drives intelligentization and augments human cognitive capacity.

The United States launched the National Network for Manufacturing Innovation Plan. At the proposal and promotion of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, China rolled out Made in China 2025. Whether it is America’s advanced manufacturing strategy, Germany’s Industry 4.0 or Made in China 2025, all place smart manufacturing at their core. Governments, enterprises and professionals are all highly enthusiastic about smart manufacturing — yet what exactly does it mean?

Many enterprises aim to build digital workshops equipped with robotics and artificial intelligence, which is certainly commendable. In my opinion, before deploying robots and AI, companies must first master digitalization and networking. Robots and AI serve as tools to realize digital and networked production, but they can never replace an enterprise’s inherent product design and manufacturing expertise.

Smart manufacturing brings many merits, yet it is not a universal remedy for every operational trouble. It cannot take the place of core design and manufacturing technologies, only enhancing design performance and product quality. Throughout this whole process, lean production and quality engineering must be consistently implemented.

I hold the view that lean production and quality engineering serve as the prerequisite and foundation of smart manufacturing. No enterprise can implement smart manufacturing with extensive, sloppy production modes. Lean production must be realized first to leverage advanced digital and intelligent technologies. Meanwhile, robotics and artificial intelligence act as critical enablers to achieve lean production and quality engineering.

Therefore, lean production is both the foundation and the objective of smart manufacturing. Our short-term goal in developing smart manufacturing is to deliver leaner production operations.

On-site management is widely emphasized, and rightly so. From my perspective, lean production mainly consists of four key components.

1. Lean Design

This year marks the 40th anniversary of reform and opening-up, during which China’s manufacturing industry has achieved remarkable accomplishments and brought earth-shaking improvements to people’s living standards. Four decades ago, China suffered from a supply-shortage economy backed by a coupon system; daily necessities could only be purchased with coupons, and people across many regions struggled to secure enough food.

Forty years of reform and opening-up have yielded extraordinary achievements. The manufacturing sector turns out massive volumes of goods, and over 250 industrial categories in China are now plagued by overcapacity. What troubles most residents today? Weight management. Women strive to stay slim, while men also need to shed pounds, as excess weight triggers high blood pressure and elevated blood lipids. The shift from worrying about food scarcity to weight control fully testifies to the tremendous progress of manufacturing.

Most domestic manufacturers sit at the middle and lower ends of industrial chains. Their production models remain extensive, simplistic and processing-oriented, with product design standing as a persistent weakness. Chinese enterprises must pursue innovative spirits, original design and creative products. When entrepreneurs develop new products, they must first clarify target users, customer groups and market positioning — all of which are realized through lean design.

2. Lean Machining

3. Lean Assembly

4. Lean Service

The manufacturing sector is transforming into service-oriented manufacturing, and lean production must run through the entire product lifecycle.

Correspondingly, production modes of lean production have evolved. The Taylor system was created in the 1950s, followed by the Ford production system optimized for large-batch mass production yet lacking flexibility. Digital manufacturing adopts the Toyota lean production system, which was originally developed by Toyota Motor Corporation and later systematized and summarized by professors from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

Right after the National Day holiday, the Nobel Prize laureates are announced, and Japan has claimed its 18th Nobel Prize. Premier Li visited Toyota during his recent trip to Japan and was deeply impressed by its technologies. Nevertheless, Japan’s lean practices were ultimately conceptualized and shared globally by American academics, demonstrating their superior capacity for theoretical induction.

Manufacturers are currently facing widespread hardships: fulfilling on-time, quality-compliant deliveries, labor efficiency bottlenecks, excess inventory, defective products and soaring costs keep production staff busy putting out fires daily. Worse still, insufficient R&D manpower triggers a host of troubles, and suppliers often fail to deliver goods as scheduled. Against this backdrop, lean production came into being.

The concept was first proposed by MIT scholars in the International Motor Vehicle Program (IMVP). The Toyota Production System (TPS) was praised as lean production by MIT researchers, yet many mistakenly believe lean production is a purely Japanese invention; its theoretical framework actually originates from American academia.

Beyond lean production, Americans introduced the concept of Just-in-Time (JIT) production. The two concepts are combined as precise production, a term widely adopted across various fields in China, such as the national targeted poverty alleviation initiative proposed by central authorities.

Precise production integrates lean production and JIT production, and its connotation has been generalized to social sciences and other sectors as a universally advanced philosophy. The core logic of lean production is to manufacture required products in required quantities exactly when they are needed, and it falls under the JIT system. Its core goals are zero inventory and rapid response to market fluctuations.

Lean production follows five fundamental principles:Value Principle: Deliver high value-added products;Value Stream Principle;Flow Principle;Demand Pull Principle;Perfection Principle.These principles are essential and instrumental for enterprises to cut costs, boost product quality and shorten production cycles.　

It also sets seven "Zero" targets: zero defective products, zero changeover downtime, zero unnecessary handling, zero inventory, zero production stagnation, zero equipment breakdowns, and zero safety accidents. Each target is supported by specific quantitative indicators.

There are six key enablers for rolling out lean production.Employee Engagement & Workplace Environment

Promoting lean production does not conflict with advancing smart manufacturing. Lean production serves as both the foundation and the ultimate goal of smart manufacturing. The integration of smart manufacturing and lean production empowers manufacturers to advance toward digitalization, intelligence, anthropomorphic automation and green development. This delivers higher efficiency for mechanical transmission and drive systems, smarter operational control, diversified system design, more sophisticated system manufacturing, simplified working environments, and multi-scale system deployment.

The ultimate goal of popularizing smart manufacturing and lean production is to deliver high-quality products, which in turn relies on high-caliber core technologies. Drawing on my own research, I have summarized ten key enabling technologies in this field.