What profound impact will the new coronavirus have on Chinese manufacturing?

The following article is from a digital enterprise, author Dr. Huang Pei

Digital Enterprise
e-works (Digital Enterprise Network) is China's leading and world-renowned intelligent manufacturing professional media, consulting training and research institution, founded by academician Li Peigen, a well-known manufacturing expert and chairman of the Chinese Mechanical Engineering Society. This issue focuses on the spread of dry goods knowledge in smart manufacturing, industrial internet, and digital transformation.
On February 4, the 13th day of Wuhan ’s closure of the city and the 11th day of the Gengzi year, the epidemic of new coronavirus pneumonia originating in Wuhan continued to develop, but each province increased its diagnosis, suspected and close Contact tracking and isolation, through closed management of the community, can effectively prevent more people from being infected, and lay the foundation for the success of the entire war epidemic. The clinical trials of new drugs and the improvement of treatment schemes, I believe that the cure for patients will start To promote effect.

February 3 was the first stock trading day of the Year of the Rat, and the Shanghai Stock Exchange Index fell more than 7%, reflecting from one aspect that the epidemic will have a huge impact on China's economy in the short term. Therefore, I am thinking about what profound impact this sudden public health security incident will have on China's manufacturing industry? What changes are being promoted in China's manufacturing industry?
1. Manufacturing companies will pay more attention to the management of HSE (Health, Safety and Environment)
At the beginning of the outbreak, employees of a listed company in Wuhan became infected. If cross-infection is caused by close contact between employees in the enterprise, it may be a disaster for the enterprise. Therefore, the outbreak will promote the majority of manufacturing enterprises, greatly strengthen the management of employees' health, safety and environment, and strengthen disaster early warning mechanisms.
2.Chinese manufacturing enterprises will promote smart manufacturing more practically
This epidemic coincides with the traditional Chinese New Year. The development of the epidemic has a direct impact on China's manufacturing industry, which means that a large number of workers cannot return to work on time. This is an even worse situation for manufacturing enterprises eager to start, especially small and medium-sized manufacturing enterprises. Therefore, in the long run, the leaders of manufacturing companies will inevitably pay more attention to intelligent manufacturing, promote less humanization and flexible production, and employ more highly-skilled and multi-skilled workers, so that they can better respond to labor fluctuations.

On the other hand, during the fight against the epidemic, the emergence of medical masks, protective clothing, goggles and other protective products was not produced in a timely manner and could not keep up with demand. It would also promote the production of medical materials and medical device manufacturers to pay more attention. Promote the application of flexible automated production lines, build smart factories, and reduce dependence on labor. At the same time, efforts should also be made to improve the intelligence of the logistics supply chain and improve the anti-risk capability of the supply chain.
In addition, through this epidemic, many companies will rethink "zero inventory". In fact, it is necessary for enterprises to maintain a certain inventory of key raw materials and components.
3. Chinese manufacturing enterprises will more actively embrace digital transformation
As the first day of work after the Spring Festival, many companies yesterday chose to let employees work online. Due to the explosive growth of massive services that are difficult to respond to, several online collaboration platforms of major Chinese Internet companies have encountered some problems. This also reflects the actual needs of enterprises for digital technology. It is foreseeable that manufacturing enterprises will put forward urgent requirements for software such as task management, project management, and workflow management for remote collaboration.

The in-depth application of digital technology can help enterprises improve the collaboration efficiency of employees, increase the transparency of production and operations, help enterprises more effectively respond to fluctuations in market demand, shorten the time to market for new products, and even innovate business models. Services used by the product. The most fundamental value of digital transformation is that it can help leaders at all levels of manufacturing enterprises to truly understand the data from all aspects and see the correct trends from the data. What is certain is that after this epidemic, manufacturing companies will pay more attention to the practical application of technologies such as BI, big data analysis and AI, and put forward urgent needs for data analysts.
Just like the various data of the epidemic, if you only look at the current overall data, you can see the rapid increase in the number of infected people, and the situation of fighting the epidemic is very grim. But if we analyze the data outside Hubei separately, we have actually started to develop in a good direction. And if you only look at the data of each province, the value obtained is still limited. You need to carefully look at the data of each city, even the county, to analyze the development of the epidemic more comprehensively. This example demonstrates the value of multidimensional analysis of data.
4. Manufacturing companies will actively promote remote intelligent services based on the Industrial Internet
When unexpected events such as virus epidemics, earthquakes, and typhoons occur, the maintenance service personnel of manufacturing companies often cannot rush to the scene in time. Therefore, the promotion of remote intelligent services based on the Industrial Internet, remote guidance through technologies such as augmented reality, and early warning of faults based on the monitoring of the operating status of equipment, these intelligent services will gradually change from idea to reality.

The establishment of two temporary hospitals in Vulcan Mountain and Thunder Mountain in Wuhan this time put forward a huge demand for construction machinery and equipment and related materials in just a few days. Therefore, it is also a real need to optimize the scheduling of equipment and materials based on the industrial Internet platform.
Obviously, after this epidemic, there will be a clearer direction for manufacturing service-oriented and industrial Internet platform applications.
5. Life science industry will usher in huge development opportunities
For a long time, Chinese pharmaceutical companies are still dominated by generic drugs and lack of innovation capabilities. There are few original drugs like artemisinin. This was detailed in a research report released by McKinsey a few years ago on the comparison of innovation capabilities between Chinese and American manufacturing industries. analysis. Through this epidemic, the country will inevitably pay more attention to the development of various drugs and reagents for the detection, suppression and treatment of viruses, and the public's use of products such as influenza vaccines will greatly increase. Therefore, more and more pharmaceutical companies will strengthen the research and development and manufacturing of innovative drugs and medical devices.

In 2019, China's per capita GDP exceeded US $ 10,000. In China's rapidly developing urbanization process, with the improvement of people's living standards, there will be higher demand for health management and health care, driving the development of related industries. The sudden new crown epidemic will significantly accelerate the development of China's life sciences industry.
In the fight against the epidemic, Wuhan has been assisted by many medical institutions across the country. It is conceivable that after the epidemic is over, the country will further promote telemedicine and smart medical treatment to solve the problem of insufficient medical resources. And manufacturing companies that provide related products and solutions will usher in new development opportunities.
6. The concepts of smart cities, smart homes and smart transportation will be comprehensively updated to drive the development of related industries
The epidemic revealed that in fact, smart cities, smart homes and smart transportation that have been promoted for many years are still on the surface. How can I quickly and accurately locate each suspected new coronavirus pneumonia patient, suspected infection and close contacts? In fact, IoT technology should be able to play a greater role. How can I monitor everyone's health in a timely manner? Early warning of possible diseases? These requirements will promote related companies to develop more smart products and APPs based on smart mobile terminals.

A few years ago, I saw an envisaged scenario. In the future, in-vehicle navigation equipment can navigate according to the concentration of smog and guide drivers to avoid high-polluting road sections. I believe that after the epidemic is over, more auto companies will promote technologies related to the health of drivers and occupants when advancing smart car solutions.
In short, the new crown virus epidemic will not only have a profound impact on China's living service industry and production service industry, but also have a huge impact on the development of the manufacturing industry. It is worth pondering by the majority of manufacturing industry practitioners!
Academician Li Peigen believes that the country needs to collect macro data in various aspects to facilitate the prediction of certain emergencies (for example, Google predicted the flu epidemic in 2009); and companies need to have the ability to analyze social macro data in order to Prepare for emergencies in advance.