March 23 2018, Beijing—Chinese Digital Enterprise Portal e-works announced that Chinese Industry and IT Convergence Forum 2018 successfully closed in Holiday Inn Shanghai Pudong Kangqiao, Shanghai. Focusing on the topic of “Exploration and Practice on Industrial Internet”, the two-day forum attracts 600 participants. Industry experts, CEO and CIO of well-known manufacturers are invited to share views on the industrial internet and their transformation and upgrading practices under the Made in China 2025 initiative.

Chinese Industry and IT Convergence Forum 2018

Professor Peigen Li, Chinese Academy of Engineering Fellow, President of Chinese Mechanical Engineering Society shared 10 hotspots respectively in the fields of Chinese manufacturing and smart manufacturing. Professor Li pointed out that smart manufacturing is a long journey. One of the important foundations of smart manufacturing is digitalization and network, so it can’t be achieved in one step. He suggested Chinese manufacturers to grasp the trends in internet fusion innovation and find the innovation points to develop appropriate transformation and upgrading plan and become competitive.

Professor Peigen Li, Chinese Academy of Engineering Fellow

The forum was largely supported by Shanghai Municipal Commission of Economy and Information. Ms. Ying Zhang, Engineer-in-Chief of the Commission addressed the forum. She pointed out that industrial internet is at the important phase of scale expansion. China is vigorously promote the deep integration of internet big data, artificial intelligence, and real economy and accelerating to become a manufacturing power. As a advanced city in developing industrial internet, Shanghai introduced many policies to promote the innovation in industrial internet and achieved notable results.

Ms. Ying Zhang, Engineer-in-Chief of Shanghai Municipal Commission of Economy and Information

Mr. Heyuan Xu, Deputy Chief Engineer of China Academy of Information and Communications Technology (CAICT) made a speech titled “The development of Industrial Internet Industry”. He said that “Industrial Internet is the key network infrastructure that meets the development of industrial intelligence and is of the futures of low latency, high reliability, and broad coverage. Right now AII in China has three basic elements, namely data, network, and security”.

Mr. Heyuan Xu, Deputy Chief Engineer of CAICT

Dr. Pei Huang, e-works CEO gave a speech of Cutting-edge Trends on Smart Manufacturing and Industrial IoT. Dr. Huang systematically introduced the connotations of smart manufacturing and listed advanced application practices in China and around the globe. He also analyzed the cutting-edge trends in industrial internet, posed 18 scenes in building smart factories and 7 reflections on industrial IoT applications. Dr. Huang believes that smart manufacturing is the further advancement of deep integration of industrialization and information. The goal of smart manufacturing is the intelligentization and innovation of the whole value chain of manufacturing. It is a long and gradual system engineering to promote smart manufacturing. Manufacturers should be rational and practical and consider their own characteristics to avoid haphazard investment.

Dr. Pei Huang, e-works CEO

Six manufacturing companies shared their experiences and practices in smart manufacturing and integration of information and industrialization, which are CRRC Xichuyan, Yonggu Group, Astronergy, Shanghai Liangxin Electrical, Aokang Shoes, and Shantui Construction Machinery.

Mr. Zhexian Zhou, CEO of CRRC Xichuyan introduced their pains and three measures in transformation, namely smart manufacturing enabling technologies to keep steady operation and cut maintenance cost, IT measure to improve quality and benefits, 3D simulation to meet customer needs and realize collaborative production.
The Astronergy smart factory in Hangzhou can real time monitor each production process. The system can do the detection and automatically analyze sensor data and send early watch report.

Mr. Zhengming Wang, CIO of Shanghai Liangxin Electrical pointed out that many manufacturers often has the inconsistent issues between user requirements, software solutions, and enterprise capacity. Shanghai Liangxin explored and tried many times to adjust through feedbacks in making customized products and finally solved the consistent issue.

Mr. Weiliang Wang, CIO of Shantui Construction Machinery regarded big data as a resource and tool, which enterprises could take as a reference but shall not be over-reliant on.

Smart Manufacturing Experience Sharing

Many mainstream software vendors brought their smart manufacturing solutions and successful cases, including IBM, SAP, Siemens, HP China, Yizit, Pangus, Sangfor, Shenzhen ELS Technology , Stratus Technologies, BenQ Guru, ZWsoft. Through the presentations, audiences understood the dynamics and fronts of many cutting-edge technologies like block chain, IoT, big data, machine learning, and edge computing.

Over 25 international and domestic software vendors participated the forum: PTC, Dassault Systemes, KMsoft, PISX, Altair, Autodesk, Siemens, NVIDIA, ANSYS, Vancloud, Fahon-Sinda, Anwise, Ease Soft, Siou (SOA), SIMP, Zhizaoyun, UGITC, VFA, Tianyu Soft, ZWsoft, LINKABLE, IGE+XAO, Aonesoft.

Exhibition Stands

In the 3 panel discussions, manufacturing c-level executives and industry experts had in-depth discussions on the topics of smart manufacturing and industry transformation, prospect of industrial internet, and integration strategy of industrialization and IT application.

Panel discussion

The forum also includes the 15th IT Application Appraisal and Award Ceremony, on which announced Outstanding CEO 2017, Outstanding CIO 2017, Outstanding Software and Solution 2017, and Best Practice 2017.

The 14th IT Application Appraisal and Award Ceremony

The forum has been hosted successfully for 15 years and became the most influential and authoritative event in the industry. The top 10 hotspots showed the manufacturing transformation and upgrading in China. The awards have established models and demonstrations in promoting information and industrialization integration and inspired Chinese manufacturers and IT workers.