How can a ＂hard core＂ automobile engine serve the soft power of ＂God＂？ ｜ Visit the Global ＂Lighthouse Factory＂
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Source: Xinhua Daily Telegraph, February 3.
Authors: Xinhua Daily Telegraph reporter Liu Huang, Li Kunsheng, Zhang Dianbiao, Huang Hai Bo.
Speaking of the most "hard-core" device of a car, there is nothing more than an engine known as the "heart". Its quality determines the performance and quality of the whole vehicle.
Once this topic is opened, engine terms such as power, displacement, torque, compression ratio and various complex technical parameters have become standard talk materials. It is difficult for laymen to experience the fun of professional communication from these "hard-hitting" data.
However, in Beijing Futian Cummins Engine Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as Fukang), this blunt and boring topic shines brightly: the whole life cycle data of each engine has been transformed into a hard indicator of product strength and a new treasure of user service.
Fukang engine being assembled on the production line. Photo courtesy of respondentsFrom supply end to client end, from design end to production end, in 2020, this diesel engine manufacturer improved product quality and customer satisfaction by 40% by virtue of "end-to-end" digital innovation, and successfully became a global "lighthouse factory".
As an industrial chain supporting manufacturer, how to promote digital transformation and build a global industry 4.0 benchmark enterprise, Fukang’s practice has reference significance.
There is something fishy in the claim form.
Fukang is adjacent to Shahe section of Beijing-Tibet Expressway, only 30 kilometers south of Tiananmen Square.
As early as six or seven years ago, this now-famous "lighthouse factory" had a heated discussion on the path of digital transformation.
"At that time, Industry 4.0 was a very popular concept. Enterprises pursue cost reduction and efficiency improvement, and the government also encourages us to explore and innovate. " Gong Shihua, deputy general manager of the company, recalled.
Workers operate instruments on the production line of Futian Cummins factory. Photo courtesy of respondentsThere are two voices in Fukang: one is to draw a blueprint for intelligent manufacturing from top to bottom; The other is from bottom to top, crossing the river by feeling the stones.
"No matter which side comes up with a plan, all kinds of problems are picked out. As a result, we have to try to do it from the existing investment quota every year. " Gong Shihua said.
However, the progress of this internal compromise plan was once slow.
As a joint venture with equal equity ratio between China and foreign countries, the development of Fukang must take into account the strategic layout of the two major shareholders of Beiqi Foton Motor Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as Foton) and Cummins Company of the United States.
"Futian values supply chain stability, and Cummins pays more attention to product sales data." An insider of Fukang explained.
Chen Hua, the general manager of the company, said frankly that Fukang itself has a gradual and in-depth process of understanding the construction of the digital system.
"In the past, everyone thought that digitalization was unreliable. The management factory had to go to the workshop and watch the machine tool turn, right?" This post-60 s professional manager has been dealing with diesel engine manufacturing for half his life.
Chen Mo, director of the Information Digital Technology Department, recalled that it was not until 2018 that Fukang really found a sense of digital transformation.
Workers operate instruments on the production line of Futian Cummins factory. Photo courtesy of respondentsAt that time, the company spent a lot of energy to improve a new product with high complaint and claim rate. Although the feedback problems have been solved, the complaint rate remains high.
Chen Mogang set up the company’s big data platform and volunteered to try his hand. He led the team to make nine data models, assisted the claim team to screen the claim documents, and found some abnormal claims with false reports.
Subsequently, the company sent people to make unannounced visits to investigate and confirmed their data analysis conclusion that some claims were "tricky". This battle alone will save Fukang hundreds of millions of yuan in compensation costs. Chen Mo and the team are also famous in the unit.
The leaders of the company who tasted the sweetness gave support to many ideas they put forward later, and pushed the construction of enterprise digital system into the fast lane.
"Starting from the specific business pain points, let more people feel the benefits of digitalization and gradually form a virtuous circle." Chen Mo compared the process of digital transformation to putting together Lego blocks, starting with small modules and finally combining them into a complete work.
Futian Cummins technical workshop. Photo courtesy of respondentsIn view of the pain point of high material inventory, they shortened the purchase cycle of some raw materials from two days to four hours through data analysis and algorithm optimization.
"We invested less than 200,000 yuan in total, which reduced the inventory by about 160 million yuan." Chen Mo said proudly.
After a series of exploration and practice, Fukang has established six application systems, including digital products, customer support, quality big data, digital supply chain, digital factory and digital operation, and the digital transformation has entered a critical period from quantitative change to qualitative change.
During the interview, Chen Hua casually opened the enterprise WeChat in the mobile phone to the reporter, and the information on the operation status of the production line was readily available.
"I used to be skeptical, but now I am firm." Chen Hua said, "Today, Fukang’s digital exploration has been ahead of American factories."
Digital application is not limited to internal.
Walking into Fukang heavy-duty engine production workshop, the environmental and air quality monitoring data such as temperature, humidity, noise and brightness on the big screen can be seen at a glance.
Here, each engine has to go through more than 200 processes, and the complexity of production can be seen.
Cylinder blocks that have undergone many processes, such as cleaning, thickness machining and so on, are automatically delivered to the assembly line by unmanned AGV cars-every time the assembly robot screws a screw, its rotation angle and torque value are well documented.
Futian Cummins Technology Center. Photo courtesy of respondentsIn 2020, two engine cylinder blocks broke in Yunnan. The experts sent by Cummins also failed to find out the cause of the accident.
According to past experience, the simplest way to improve is to thicken the engine block. But this not only increases the cost and weight of the engine, but also reduces the cargo capacity of the vehicle in disguise.
Through big data analysis, Fukang engineers found that the local temperature suddenly rises and falls frequently, and the engine cooling system parameters failed due to the reaction delay due to the extreme weather with abrupt temperature difference in mountainous areas. Data diagnosis has changed the original improvement scheme.
"Problems that used to be discovered in four or five months are now detected by data models, and solutions are found in two or three weeks." Big data manager Liu Yuanfu said.
For Xiong Liu, the director of product department, the significance of digitalization lies in quickly building user application scenarios and speeding up the process of product design and iteration.
"When designing engines for muck trucks and dump trucks, our idea is to improve the heavy-duty engines for tractors, but we are not familiar with the application scenarios of these two types of vehicles." He explained.
Soon, they found the answer from the comparison of engine data: unlike tractors that run long distances, muck trucks and dump trucks mostly flow in urban areas, stop and go because of loading and unloading goods nearby, and the engines are often in low-to-medium load or idle state.
On the digital production line, the rotation angle and torque value of each screw are well documented. Photo courtesy of respondents"We combined the actual operation of vehicles, optimized products in a targeted manner, reduced fuel consumption by 10%, and users were satisfied." Xiong Liu said.
In 2019, Fukang realized that digital applications could not be confined to enterprises, and began to build a digital ecosystem from supply to client.
Tianrun Industrial Technology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as Tianrun), the largest crankshaft manufacturer of internal combustion engine in China, is not only a supporting supplier of Fukang, but also a fan of the global "lighthouse factory".
According to Lin Yongtao, deputy general manager of Tianrun Industry, although the two sides did not share data and information like the satellite factory, they did not stop at the simple product matching relationship-no matter the replacement of crankshaft materials of imported models or the optimization of oil hole structure of light truck products, more cooperation came from the consensus of digital transformation.
At present, as the "best supplier" of Fukang, Tianrun’s production line automation rate is close to 90%, and the pilot project of "Black Light Factory" is progressing smoothly …
Compared with the production design end, the challenges faced by the supply chain are relatively arduous. Some weak small and medium-sized suppliers can hardly afford the cost of digital transformation. After the completion of Fukang industrial SaaS platform, it is expected to provide them with low-cost digital products.
Workshop of Futian Cummins Factory. Photo courtesy of respondentsAfter being selected as the "Lighthouse Factory", more colleagues came to visit and exchange, including several brother enterprises in the Cummins system.
"In the beginning, they took a fancy to which module, so they had to take it back directly. After in-depth exchanges around some specific business pain points, they are more interested in specific solutions and even put forward the intention of helping the overall planning of the digital system. " Liu Yuanfu said.
What’s more exciting is that Fukang’s digital construction plan has been continuously iterated, and it has begun to export successful experiences, and has realized millions of yuan in income, taking shape from industrial digitalization to digital industrialization.
At the beginning of last year, with the help of the Economic and Information Department of Changping District, Beijing, the Fukang digital technology team broke through the circle to help a listed company in the material field make digital transformation.
"These businesses are likely to be future growth points." Chen Mo said.
The common "God" is the owner.
The shell of Fukang engine is divided into red and orange colors, and the orange series is a model specially designed for the parent company Futian. Futian is also the most important downstream main engine factory of Fukang.
Last year, the light diesel engine for Fukang truck won the single champion product of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, partly due to the strong market position of Futian commercial vehicle.
Workshop of Futian Cummins Factory. Photo courtesy of respondentsHowever, not all Foton cars are equipped with Fukang engines. Thus, the competitive pattern of domestic diesel engine market.
In terms of industrial chain, Fukang is separated from the owner by the main engine factory and service station; But from the perspective of value chain, everyone is creating value for end users, and there is only one common "God".
After realizing the digital operation of the factory, Fukang began to realize the information dividend brought by data flow: the digitization of end-user control behavior and equipment working conditions is a blue ocean market with greater potential. Fukang has shifted from reducing costs and increasing efficiency in factory operation to increasing the value of user operation.
"Commercial vehicles are used to make money. Car owners are most concerned about two things: one is to reduce TCO (total cost of ownership), and the most important thing is fuel consumption; One is to improve attendance, and the key is to reduce failures and processing time. " Gong Shihua analyzed.
In 2021, Fukang set up a digital service center, which linked the terminal vehicles and the service background through the cloud platform to dynamically monitor the operation of vehicles entering the network. At present, nearly 700,000 commercial vehicles have been connected to the network.
This engine manufacturer, which used to be limited to dealing with downstream OEMs, began to talk directly with millions of users. The development of IIoT technologies, such as Internet of Things and Internet of Vehicles, makes it possible to directly contact factories and users.
According to Xiong Liu, there are more than 20 sensors in Fukang engine, which can dynamically monitor various parameters remotely and report the engine abnormality to the driver in time.
"A small problem like coolant leakage may cause big trouble if it is not handled in time. It will take three to five days to repair it alone." Gao Xiaofeng, Director of Customer Support Department, said.
The service station of the main engine factory is generally selected for the fault maintenance of commercial vehicles. When the national standard engine was first introduced, the service station workers were inexperienced in dealing with faults, and the problem was a little more complicated, so the light diagnosis had to waste a lot of time.
"We provide a customized diagnosis plan for the service station in time, and it usually takes no more than 5 steps to find the cause of the failure." Jing Jing, manager of digital service center, said.
Their remote calibration service is very popular among drivers who are tired of queuing at service stations. 20,000 Fukang engines have been successfully calibrated and upgraded remotely.
If we say that the services provided by the digital service center only reach users with the help of the parent company’s Futian e-App and Futian Call Center, the Fukang App tailored for fleet customers is an attempt for Fukang to independently develop users.
How to help customers choose vehicles suitable for their own transportation scenes, how to diagnose the factors of high fuel consumption of vehicles, and how to calculate the reasonable maintenance cycle of customers, these are the most concerned issues of fleet customers, and Fukang School has made great efforts.
Bai Yongguo, the fleet account manager, serves the fleet with more than 200 vehicles, covering more than 80,000 commercial vehicles.
"According to the monitoring situation, for vehicles with good road conditions and short driving distance, we suggest extending the maintenance cycle from the original 100,000 kilometers to 120,000 to 150,000 kilometers. This can save customers a lot of costs. " Bai Yongguo said.
However, Fukang, which focuses on engine manufacturing, wants to break through the "separation wall" with end users, not only to overcome technical problems.
The Customer Support Department has conducted live broadcasts of Science and Technology Day on platforms such as Tik Tok and Aauto Quicker. The interaction in the live broadcast room was not as enthusiastic as the planning team expected.
"It took a lot of planning, and it may not touch the excitement of customers. We think it is a trivial matter, but the customer feedback is very good. " Jing Jing said.
A data engineer reported that for some time, customers always complained about high fuel consumption, but the monitoring data showed normal indicators. The other party accused Fukang of inaccurate data and deliberately underreporting.
After investigation, Jing Jing and his colleagues found out that the system uses "hard" indicators such as daily fuel consumption and weekly fuel consumption, while customers only understand the daily expression of "how far can you run with a full tank of oil" and "how many tanks of oil do you need to add for a business trip".
As a result, Fukang technicians quickly changed the client display page to "How many users have you defeated?" similar to the computer boot speed score.
"Find the real problems that customers care about and express them in the language of customers. Everything must be constantly summed up in practice. " Jing Jing said.
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