Industry entered rising period, plight of enterprises been prominent

Talking about the development in the past year or so, Yang Haifei, director of the ROBOTECH Suzhou equipment R&D center and director of the pre-sales technology center, said that it is expected that ROBOTECH achieve such outstanding results under the current wave of actively promoting Industry 4.0 and intelligent manufacturing. The high-quality development needs of enterprise intelligence and automation are not enough. It is more and more urgent that overall development of the intelligent logistics industry is improving, and most companies have achieved great growth.

"We are also facing 'the trouble of happiness'." Yang Haifei recalled, "For example, in the previous interview, we also said that delivery is the biggest challenge, not only in the implementation of the project, but also in the production capacity of the equipment."

As an industry specialist, Yang Haifei has worked in many well-known international logistics equipment companies successively, accumulated rich experience, and is well aware of the challenges of international companies' development in China. Compared with Chinese companies, the advantages of international companies in technology are the key to their foothold in the local Chinese market. With the development and growth of Chinese enterprises, the gap between the technical level of Chinese enterprises and international enterprises is getting smaller and smaller, and even in some technical fields, it has already presented a situation of "keep abreast".

On this basis, the "native advantage" of local companies has become a key factor affecting the inclination of the competitive scale. Yang Haifei added: "These native advantages are mainly reflected in the flexibility of local companies to respond to customer needs and market trends. International companies also hope to reduce costs through localization, so as to give benefits to customers, but this phenomenon has already passed. It's gone forever."

Innovative technologies and products are the core foundation

Therefore, it has always been the focus of international enterprises that maintain own advantages in the new market environment

For ROBOTECH, innovative technologies and product solutions are the foundation upon which its core strengths are built. As a world-renowned logistics equipment brand, ROBOTECH is committed to integrating and innovating customer needs, industry trends and key technologies to provide customers with high-quality products and solutions.

E-Smart shines

For example, during CEMAT ASIA 2021, ROBOTECH launched a new stacker product represented by E-Smart. It is reported that ROBOTECH has integrated cutting-edge technologies such as virtual debugging, cloud platform, vision technology, and 5G communication into E-Smart, so that traditional stacker products can enter the era of intelligence.

With the help of virtual commissioning technology, ROBOTECH can help customers reduce project construction period, reduce time and economic cost, and establish closed-loop feedback of virtual environment, and at the same time help customers realize capacity efficiency calculation, so as to verify the feasibility of logistics system scheme and identify logistics system The bottleneck provides a basis for optimizing the design of the logistics system; in addition, ROBOTECH can realize the panoramic display of the customer's logistics process in 3D, including one-click switching between different industries and different scenarios.

The role of the IOT intelligent cloud platform is to provide data analysis, data feedback, and remote fault early warning and judgment. Through the cloud platform, ROBOTECH realizes intelligent maintenance, that is, analyzes equipment working condition data, and formulates personalized spot inspection and maintenance plans. Internet of things technology, real-time monitoring of equipment operating conditions; realization of the integration of design, production, operation, and maintenance of the whole project, continuous optimization of equipment.

The introduction of visual technology is also an important innovation of ROBOTECH, which can help customers improve the efficiency of inventory, and provide functions such as automatic measurement of cargo position and visual inspection of anti-collision forks. With the help of visual technology, E-Smart's automatic cargo location measurement has the characteristics of high measurement efficiency, high accuracy, safety and reliability, and high inventory efficiency further helps customers reduce operating costs, and ensure production safety, guarantee goods and equipment. Safe, allowing customers to intuitively understand the operating status of the equipment.

The integration of 5G technology also reflects ROBOTECH's understanding and application of cutting-edge technologies. Utilizing the characteristics of 5G technology's safe, stable and reliable transmission, and with visual technology, ROBOTECH can remotely control and manage the operation of equipment for customers to ensure the progress of the project. Moreover, E-Smart has edge computing function, which can monitor the vibration and current of the equipment according to torque and other data for predictive maintenance of equipment.

Build new advantages from within

"Under the tone of intelligence, our R&D direction is naturally centered on intelligence." Yang Haifei continued, "But innovation is very difficult, a mature new product requires a fixed R&D cycle, which brings 'empty windows' period'. We have to blaze new trails and build strengths in other ways."

With this idea, Yang Haifei began to re-examine the logistics equipment industry. "Empowering the customer industry is the most common slogan in the logistics equipment industry." Yang Haifei thought seriously, "The question is, who will empower the logistics equipment industry? When the wave of Industry 4.0 sweeps the customer industry, logistics Is the equipment industry still on an island?"

After analyzing the industry, Yang Haifei realized the key. The first is the balance between "customization" and "scale", the second is the redefinition of "high cost performance" and "high performance", and the third is the reproducibility of services.

Balancing "customization" and "scale"

The balance between "customization" and "scale", Yang Haifei said that the "individualized" needs of customers are an objective fact, and it is understandable for equipment companies to adopt "customization" in order to meet such needs, but this has also caused a large number of "non-individuals" in the logistics equipment industry. the results of production and delivery. "The logistics equipment industry is also a manufacturing industry, and should be the first to achieve standardization and scale, but the reality is just the opposite." Yang Haifei said solemnly, "Then how should we break this situation?"

In this regard, after re-examining a large number of customer needs, ROBOTECH found the key. Taking stacker products as an example, there are a lot of commonalities in customer requirements in terms of load, carrier, speed, etc., which means that ROBOTECH can realize large-scale production based on these common requirements, thereby reducing equipment prices and truly. Help customers reduce costs. "We can completely achieve 'stock-based' production, which has precedents in other international markets." Yang Haifei added.

On this basis, ROBOTECH will further realize "automatic" manufacturing and empower itself. ROBOTECH believes that the adoption of advanced manufacturing methods can not only optimize its own efficiency and cost, but also convince customers of its capabilities in automation and intelligence. Yang Haifei bluntly said that this will be the future direction of equipment manufacturing.

The redefinition of "high cost performance" and "high performance"

The redefinition of "high cost performance" and "high performance" is a new product positioning made by ROBOTECH based on in-depth understanding of the market environment and needs. Yang Haifei said that in a healthy market, there are both "high cost performance" and "high performance" needs. For enterprises, focusing only on the development of one of the two will inevitably affect their brand power. Therefore, ROBOTECH has diversified to meet customer needs through different series of products, such as black panther, zebra, cheetah, bull, giraffe, lion, and flying fish.

Reproducibility Project Services

Yang Haifei said that the reproducibility of services is a key link that ROBOTECH will focus on in the future to solve the current situation of "difficulty in delivery". Nowadays, the logistics equipment industry generally adopts a "project-based" management mode, which can "concentrate efforts to do big things", but with more and more projects, the project team is becoming more and more bloated, which is inefficient and management. The high cost has seriously dragged down the profit performance of the company.

Yang Haifei further said: "Considering the further growth of the market in the future, we must not continue to use this model to serve customers. We must liberate our employees and let them create greater value on a higher stage." Therefore, ROBOTECH will focus on the optimization of service processes and realize the reproducibility of project delivery through platform products, thereby reducing management costs.

Talking about the future, Yang Haifei said that the market will still have broad prospects and fierce competition coexist, but for enterprises, it is the key to winning the future that they focus on their own improvement while paying attention to customer needs. "ROBOTECH will continue to strengthen its technological advantages, and at the same time will actively seek reform and optimization. While enhancing its own brand power, it will contribute its own strength to the logistics equipment industry's 'island' of intelligent manufacturing and upgrading." Yang Haifei finally said.