Innovation for Intelligent Manufacturing: Opportunities for Chinese Enterprises
Label: Innovation for Intelligent Manufacturing
Now it is a good condition for Chinese enterprises to move towards intelligent manufacturing and achieve innovation. The innovation of Chinese enterprises is mainly reflected in the following four aspects:
First, the opportunity of industrial revolution: intelligent manufacturing is at the “wind outlet”. At present, the Internet of Things, artificial intelligence, 5G communication, big data and other technologies are setting off a new generation of industrial revolution. When different enterprises enter the same new industry, the role of original technology accumulation is less important than that in the stable development period of the industry, and the starting points of all enterprises are not different. On the contrary, if the industry is still developing linearly, it is difficult for the latecomers to surpass the previous winners. For the first time, the emerging industrial revolution opportunity of intelligent manufacturing has provided Chinese enterprises with the opportunity to compete with the international forefront.
Opportunity is crucial to the development of enterprise innovation. An innovation move cannot win market recognition or support from upstream and downstream if it is too early, and cannot win full development space if it is too late. NCR Company in the United States began to promote online payment business as early as the 1990s. However, at that time, the customer's trust in the Internet transaction mode was not high, and the network speed was slow, so NCR Company's innovative business was difficult to be accepted by customers. Therefore, the company suspended relevant business in 1999. Coincidentally, soon after, the Internet communication services in the United States began to take off rapidly, and users’ acceptance of the Internet also gradually expanded. NCR and the environment missed each other.
Second, education, especially the accumulation of talents in science and technology. At present, China has accumulated the richest human resources in history, and these people have become the backbone of innovation. According to the average number of students in colleges and universities per 100000 people, there were only 22 in 1949, 594 in 1999 and 2857 in 2019. At present, the average length of schooling of the working age population in China is 10.75 years, and 385 million people are educated in high school or above. The accumulation of education will be gradually reflected in the development of all walks of life.
China not only develops rapidly in science and engineering education, but also has a high degree of internationalization of Chinese talents. In addition, enterprises need to arrange employees and cadres to further participate in training according to their own needs. Some enterprises also customize executive training for business schools.
Third, abnormal international competition forces the determination of independent innovation. After more than 40 years of rapid globalization, Chinese enterprises have reached an unprecedented level of understanding of the necessity of independent innovation.
In addition to scientific research institutes and colleges engaged in basic research, state-owned enterprises have the advantages of rich resources, concentrated talents, broad business platforms, and profound technology accumulation. They should also boldly explore the path of scientific and technological innovation in their own business areas, closely cooperate with relevant institutions engaged in basic research, and solve the key problems of the experiment, testing, engineering, and systematization of new achievements.
In the current international situation, state-owned enterprises should take breaking the technological frontier in this field as an important goal to support the national development strategy. This requires state-owned enterprises to be dual, which can not only meet the important needs of national security, national economy and the people's livelihood, but also achieve innovation and breakthrough in the field of science and technology, and layout the application of new technologies to enhance national security and prosperity. To achieve dual goals, leaders of state-owned enterprises need to learn from the management and operation of world-class enterprises, activate the innovation unit within the organization, allocate organizational resources efficiently, and build excellent organizational capabilities.
Fourth, economic development has accumulated the resources needed for innovation. The innovation of products and processes through R&D is an important means of enterprise progress. However, the investment in R&D is large and the success rate is low, which requires the country and enterprises to have strong economic strength as the backing. Today, more and more enterprises have demonstrated rich innovation achievements in fields including intelligent manufacturing, which is inseparable from China's huge R&D investment growth in recent years.
The final embodiment of scientific research achievements is, of course, related to the efficiency of R&D investment, but it must also be the result of the accumulation of R&D investment. From the enterprise side, science and technology manufacturing enterprises have huge investment in R&D. For example, Huawei insists on investing 10% of its annual operating revenue in R&D. BOE strives to leverage various resources to ensure R&D investment. In the case of insufficient funds, we have repeatedly invested hundreds of millions of yuan in innovation and new business. Media has made great efforts to reduce its employees in other areas during the transformation process in the past few years, and the new employees are mainly R&D personnel.