Germany put forward the "High-tech Strategy 2020" in 2010. In 2011, the German Academy of Science and Technology (ACATECH) adopted the name of Industry 4.0, which made it famous at the 2011 Hanover Industrial Fair. Driven by the national policies of the German government, Industry 4.0 has become the most noticeable manufacturing issue in the world after the reflow of manufacturing in the United States. Industry 4.0 is regarded as the fourth industrial revolution relative to the popularization of steam engine, electricity and computer. In the German government defined in the history of industrial development, the United Kingdom, the United States, Japan, is listed as one of the first three stages, the German 4.0 came out in the industry and marketing appropriate, condensed the powerful effect, cultivating on momentum ahead of the United States in 2011 to advocate advanced manufacturing partnership (AMP), a leading industrial nations sense of crisis. Based on the insight into the nature of Industry 4.0, this paper examines its influence on the creation of customer value in the manufacturing industry.


Smart manufacturing is not all flashy

First of all, we believe that the German government equates Industry 3.0, represented by Japan, with computerization, which is an important reason for the misunderstanding of Industry 4.0.


Although in the 1980s Japan's electric-motor industry was a global leader, its competitiveness was not in computers or electronic components, but in the Japanese production model, which was influenced by the automobile industry. Therefore, strictly speaking, TPS of Industry 3.0 exceeds computerization and informatization. At the end of January 2018, Yoshiko Kaneko, a senior expert in intelligent manufacturing at NEC, a Japanese manufacturing systems manufacturer, made several important points in a report welcoming us to our visit.


"Manufacturing enterprises should first do a good job of combining their own production process and supplier process basis, to use IT to get twice the result with half the effort!" ;


"It's more important than anything to help customers and businesses understand the purpose of IoT adoption!" ;


"Internet of things combined with the cloud, it looks like a cool or cool fashion or trend, but the implementation of the manufacturing site is still very simple, need to be realistic!" In fact, smart manufacturing is not new at all. RFID and bar codes are the Internet of Things, and Data Mining is like big Data.

Japan's leading industry 3.0 is neither an information tool nor an arithmetic function represented by MRP, but the most basic and customer-oriented standardization and process. Therefore, if IT is believed that importing IT tools or investing in smart factories can make profits, IT is typical to regard the means as the end, and the promotion significance will be greatly reduced. Therefore, for the most concerned issue of operators: "The government actively advocates, can the investment in Industry 4.0 really be recovered?" The author's answer is quite clear: "This is an unanswered question because Industry 4.0 represents a digital technology, a means." We believe that for the purpose of value creation, Industry 4.0 is essentially an extension of precision system and a precision intelligent manufacturing. On the basis of the refined system, it is the biggest challenge to meet the intelligent manufacturing of Industry 4.0 to develop Solution Business from the perspective of customer value and uphold the open spirit.

Customer value creation: Makino vs. Fanuc


Originating from the Toyota production system, the precision system advocates "manufacturing for post-production process" and "leveling production", which is essentially characterized by customer value, precision process, and stable and predictable output. These qualities are what Industry 4.0 is all about. Toyota insists:


(1) first reasonable process and then computerization;


(2) Use your mind and heart to "improve";


(3) Learn together with suppliers.



And these three insist, it is the soft power that dominates the success of intelligent manufacturing. In contrast, a sophisticated system that adheres to fieldism risks ignoring the new intellectual capabilities of ICT. In other words, ICT technologies have contributed to the rapid pace of manufacturing, the cheapness and ubiquity of sensors, and the IoT has enabled the IoT to provide superior issues and problem solving with scientific basis. It may be the most important contribution of Industry 4.0 to further emphasize the combination of customer value and value creation of data acquisition and analysis from sensors, and to form a precise and intelligent manufacturing that eliminates waste completely and has the spirit of individual customization. We recently visited Makino, a large Japanese tool machine manufacturer, and had a very in-depth exchange with ministers Takagi Kumoto and Takeika Tatsumoto. We see Makino reaching historic heights in terms of market opportunities. The combination of precision systems on the ground floor and IoT applications demonstrates the synergy between the two. The traits we observed include:


1. Pay attention to and adhere to the internal control, improvement, verification and inheritance of core technologies (such as spindle);

2. Pay attention to the ability of technical system integration, and the integration method is mainly based on the technical achievement of personnel, supplemented by the application of software tools;

3. Machine to machine software development with the most pragmatic OEE (comprehensive equipment efficiency) as the pointer, do not talk about abstract projects such as big data;

4. The same concept is also used in on-site assembly progress, personnel potential, supporting material supply and supplier management;

5. The Internet of Things and AI will not replace human resources. After practical analysis and separation of work contents, it can even make use of surplus human resources such as housewives to alleviate the impact of fewer children and the elderly, and to meet the flexible demand of the development of peak seasons. Fanuc, in the foothills of Mount Fuji, offers a different way of thinking. Fanuc is like a kingdom, with 39 factories or research buildings, six of which were guided by the small needle. Adhere to the quality and guarantee service can be called two major characteristics, so almost all manpower is invested in the development of technology and business services, other departments are devoted to, unlimited use of automation equipment such as robots. The machining, robot assembly and servomotor assembly we visited are examples of this concept in practice. In combination with industrial robots and NC controller promotion, it is very intelligent. As a result, Fanuc's manufacturing philosophy is very different from Toyota's, and they don't push TPS, says Koko. In the Internet of Things, Fanuc holds an open view, focusing on the control, technology and machine connectivity that it is good at, and has no intention of getting involved in the cloud or big data. Makino's product characteristics, such as variety, small amount and customization, are similar to Fanuc's locking of core or extended monomers of mass-produced manufacturing equipment, such as robots and NC controllers. Although the types are different and high customer value drives high profits, they are in the same way.

The three characteristics of value-creating intelligent manufacturing


After all, Fanuc is a special case, and Panasonic's recent proposition is also very representative: the idea of high-quality mass manufacturing has hindered the innovation of Japanese manufacturing companies, and the trend of custom-made, diversified and small products based on customer value is the mainstream of innovation. With the increasing popularity of product digitalization and the Internet of Things (IoT), a smart society has emerged. However, when we look at the manufacturing site itself for products that support the needs of an intelligent society, the value creation application of the Internet of Things has three characteristics:


First, the Internet of Things (IoT) represents the world of IT technology applications, which have surpassed enterprise barriers, represented by MRP in 1985, and by ERP in 2000. The Internet of Things has the ability to grasp the changes inside and outside enterprises in real time, and distinguish the core competence of individual enterprises from the operating resources of public finance, so as to avoid network risks and enjoy an open innovation environment.


Second, the data or results obtained in the preceding paragraph are used to achieve the state of the control system and pursue optimization. Optimization here represents a problem-solving process. From a customer value point of view, it can also be said that it is a manufacturing service-oriented or software process to solve customer problems.


Third, come up with solutions. To a system, it represents a process that can adjust autonomously to achieve goals in response to changing conditions. Such as automatic driving, automatic troubleshooting, software automatic upgrade. In the physical system or inter-organizational relationship, the resolution mechanism includes the level of reliability or trust relationship. Open innovation was proposed by Professor Henry Chesbrough of the University of California, Berkeley, who advocated that enterprises break the closed research and development boundaries, widely share the materials and energy of innovation with the outside world, and achieve the goal of sharing knowledge and creating a market together. We compare Japanese semiconductor companies (e.g. Vacuum, Canon), which were on par with ASML from the Netherlands 20 years ago. Today, the gap is more than five times, and open innovation is the main reason. Recently, Field System led by Fanuc and Toyota's autonomous driving development have advocated public patents or open networking and adopted open innovation strategies, which are based on their own. In the next chapter, we will put forward the basic 3S (Sensor, Software, Solution) architecture of intelligent manufacturing, which includes the application architecture of physical system and network system. Just as we divide customer value into functional value that can be measured objectively and scheme value that reflects customer use process, part of the level of intelligent manufacturing can be measured objectively with tools or indicators, while the other part can only be identified subjectively by customers, that is, through actual use or experience results.

Three challenges of practicing intelligent manufacturing


Relevant studies in Germany have pointed out that small and medium-sized enterprises are the biggest bottleneck in the implementation of Industry 4.0, and the Japanese small and medium-sized enterprises also have relevant findings. Small and medium-sized enterprises are limited in capacity and talent, of course, is an important reason, the whole industry can hand in hand to meet the challenge of the three concepts of intelligent manufacturing changes, is the most important key.


First, insist that the post-production process is the customer and focus on the contribution to the end customer. Propose solutions by observing the actual operation process or contribution to the end customer in pursuit of win-win situation. Including material management, component processing, machine assembly, product delivery, customer service, comprehensive implementation to play the effect of intelligent manufacturing.


Second, adhere to the service-led logic. Customer value does not come from product performance, but from customer's use value or perception process. The service-oriented logic that attaches importance to customer value is the spiritual indicator of Solution Business from selling products to providing solutions.


Third, create an open platform and trust mechanism. In the era of the Internet of Things, only openness can create 3S value and make the pie bigger and better. Only trust can move from information sharing to value sharing and jointly prevent information outflow and hacker attacks.