Smart manufacturing needed

A worker at a glass plant in Luoyang, Henan province. Factories across the country accelerated production after the Chinese Lunar New Year holidays. [Photo/China Daily]

China should speed up efforts to boost the development of its manufacturing with artificial intelligence as part of its broader efforts to promote industrial transformation and as an alternative means to resolve its looming labor shortage.

To this end, the country should accelerate the building of an intelligent manufacturing system and a public-services platform as well. It also needs to make greater efforts to achieve breakthroughs in the independent manufacturing and industrialization of some key parts, equipment and systems in this sector. Only in this way can China's high-end manufacturing avoid excessive dependence on foreign technologies.

Intelligent manufacturing will also provide China with advanced equipment, such as robots, to replace workers in labor-intensive industries and enterprises that are increasingly plagued by labor shortages.

In fact, due to the rising costs of raw materials, fluctuating market demand as well as lingering operational pressures, some domestic manufacturing and services enterprises have already turned to robots or other intelligent equipment in recent years. This has not only helped save labor costs, but has also made it possible for them to use limited funds to increase their R&D and raise productivity.

However, the outlook is not that optimistic for robots and other smart equipment at present in China, partly because of the backward development of this sector. Despite the enormous demand, China's robot market is now overwhelmingly dominated by foreign brands. The high prices of imported key parts mean robots sold at home are expensive, which has hindered their popularization among domestic enterprises, especially small and medium-sized ones.

To address this issue, the country should make greater efforts to develop its own intelligent manufacturing and implement its ambitious development strategy mapped out for domestic manufacturing by 2025.

The above is an abridgement of a People's Daily article published on Thursday.