Economic Transition: Dongguan: A hub for intelligent manufacturing

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Situated in southern China's Pearl River Delta region, the city of Dongguan is known for being the world's largest consumer electronic manufacturing base. But after its labor-intensive industries were hit by the 2008 financial crisis, Dongguan began its process of transformation. Our reporter Ge Yunfei shows us just how Dongguan became known as the world's factory.

Smartphones - a thing most people can't live without in this booming and expanding information age. In 2016, nearly 1-point-5 billion smartphones were produced around the world - with a staggering one-fifth of them being manufactured here in Dongguan - a manufacturing hub of apparel and technology.

Dongguan started with processing material provided by overseas clients. Anything from toys to shoes, from home appliances to electronic products, orders just kept coming in over the last few decades. The city boomed in a short period of time and more than 6 million migrant workers flocked to the city to form the largest manufacturing work force in the world.

But for companies depending on orders from outside and involved in the low-end of the supply chain, crisis may come at any moment.

HUANG HE, GENERAL MANAGER JANUS PRECISION MANUFACTURING, DONGGUAN "In early 2015, we signed around 20 big deals. But by the end of that year, lots of clients canceled orders and we only had 3 orders left. We knew we had a big problem."

Janus used to be number one in China when it comes to making the plastic back plates of smartphones. But when metal back plates suddenly took over, to adapt or to die were the choices left for Janus.

But the company created a third option - this intelligent factory. Boasting 160 automated machines, no workers, and robots carving metal plates without human instruction.

HUANG HE, GENERAL MANAGER JANUS PRECISION MANUFACTURING, DONGGUAN "In this factory, we reduced the number of workers from around 197 people to just 33. And the whole manufacturing process is connected to the cloud. Now we can monitor all the real-time statistics and situation inside the factory."

Now the factory can produce 5,000 back plates every day. Janus is planning to upgrade all of their factories to intelligent bases in the future.

GE YUNFEI DONGGUAN "There are two directions of intelligent manufacturing. The first is making robots like humans, and the second is making humans like super humans or robots. This shows how virtual reality technology is not only for gaming, but also, for manufacturing."

Now, not average migrant workers but skilled technicians are on high demand, especially those who can control the delicate and complicated automated precision machine tools. A technology firm in Dongguan is ready to solve that problem with a portable virtual reality device.

ZOU YAN, MARKETING MANAGER DONGGUAN FUTURE REALITY DIGITAL & TECH. "It can 100 percent simulate real working environments and devices. Students can operate the machines without any restrictions. So it can greatly reduce a factory's expenses when it comes to buying machines.”

As VR makes training of a technician cheaper and much faster, Dongguan is also trying to replicate the real manufacturing process in the virtual world. A local start-up has already invented a platform that can even be used to design plane engines.

XIE HAOSHENG, CEO MILAMO VR INFORMATION TECH. LTD. "Now virtual reality technology can basically replace the traditional computer aided design software. For instance\, now we can use VR to design the components of airplane engines."

YE JIANGHUA, SECRETARY GENERAL DONGGUAN VIRTUAL REALITY INDUSTRY ASSOCIATION "Dongguan has over 30 thousand manufacturing firms, which can be greatly boosted by virtual reality and augmented technology. I believe AR and VR technology will play a key role in transforming Dongguan into a world intelligent manufacturing base."

In Dongguan, a future of intelligent manufacturing is unfolding. The city may accomplish a new turnaround by turning virtual reality into real reality. Ge Yunfei, CGTN, Dongguan.