Text/Tao Siyue
Europe is experiencing unusually high temperatures this summer, and old buildings are facing restrictions that cannot be retrofitted. Chinese home appliance companies quickly launched punch-free air conditioners;
Faced with the unique needs of the Japanese market, Chinese car companies designed the pure electric light vehicle "Sea Otter" to meet local needs from size, range to scene functions;
"Crying Horse" unexpectedly became popular because workers sewed the corners of the doll's mouth backwards. The manufacturer seized the opportunity to quickly adjust the production line to catch the burst of market popularity...
In recent years, private enterprises have shown unique advantages in responding quickly to market changes, and "flexibility" has become a key word.
For enterprises to increase their market share, scale and standardization were once the keys to success. However, in the face of the new environment of personalized consumer markets and fragmented orders, private enterprises have simply mastered the flexibility of "flexibility" - rewriting production schedules, assembling production materials in advance, and equipping factories with brains. They can not only cater to all kinds of strange demands, but also blaze a new path in fierce competition.
"Assemble" materials in advance and specialize production lines
Building a giant ship requires hundreds of thousands of parts.
Hengli Heavy Industry, a private shipyard, chose to "assemble" production materials in advance.
Relying on the sound and stable domestic supporting industry chain, heavy industry equipment, electrical equipment, marine steel, etc. can be quickly put in place, allowing materials to wait for the ship instead of waiting for the ship.
Hengli Heavy Industry currently has 4 major categories and more than 10 ship types. But "having many categories is also a double-edged sword." Wang Lei, deputy general manager of the production department of Hengli Heavy Industry, said that now shipbuilding needs to have the flexibility to "insert ship and schedule production." When the shipowner has an urgent order, the production capacity of each production line will be squeezed out for a few days, and the squeezed out production capacity will be combined into a new shipping slot. The existing progress will not be delayed, and high-value temporary orders can also be accepted.
Hengli Heavy Industry divides shipbuilding parts into 13 major categories and more than 20 subcategories, and specializes in specialized production. Although there are many ship types, ships of the same model have been mass-produced for many years. Welders, painters, assemblers and other work types do not have to change hands repeatedly among more than a dozen ship types, and can stabilize product quality in standardized assembly lines.
Equip the factory with a "brain" and intelligent scheduling
There are also many private enterprises that choose to install "brains" in their factories.
In the traditional production system, once orders and materials change, the entire production plan needs to be readjusted, which can easily lead to problems such as capacity mismatch, inventory backlog, and delivery delays. The participation of intelligent scheduling effectively solves this problem.
The relevant person in charge of Huawei told reporters that its own factories are equipped with intelligent scheduling systems that can coordinate 90 factories and 35-day order forecast demand. Taking a light industry group as an example, the intelligent system can complete the production scheduling work that four staff members completed in half a day in the past in just 10 minutes. It can save nearly one day of production downtime every month, and the actual utilization rate of equipment has been significantly improved.
In the assembly workshop of Gree Jinwan Factory in Guangdong, each air conditioner is affixed with an RFID (radio frequency identification) "ID card". When it passes through each work station, the system automatically identifies the model, retrieves process parameters, and the equipment performs operations autonomously. This kind of flexible production capability allows the factory to switch production models within 1 minute, supporting the customized needs of "multiple varieties, small batches, and large scale".
In Hubei, Midea's Jingzhou washing machine factory's intelligent collaboration system covers 38 core production scenarios. The production scheduling response speed has increased by 90%, and order change information can be quickly transmitted to various production equipment.
In Anhui, LONGi Green Energy's Wuhu production base embeds intelligent algorithms to dynamically generate optimal production plans based on dozens of dimensions such as order priority, material availability, and equipment operating status.
In Geely Automobile's Qiantang manufacturing base in Zhejiang, the suspended fully automatic material distribution system is like a sky corridor, accurately delivering parts to each workstation, and a complete vehicle can roll off the production line in as little as 90 seconds.
With the "brain" command, the process from production to delivery will be smoother.
Zhang Yunlan, chairman of Qingdao Kute Intelligent Co., Ltd., believes that this model brings triple certainty to private enterprises: inventory certainty without stocking up, certainty of production driven by real demand, and cash flow certainty of efficient capital operation.
Precipitate process experience into standardized specifications
Intelligence is not only the upgrade of equipment and processes, but also the upgrade of process experience into standardized specifications.
For example, LONGi Green Energy has accumulated the practical experience of senior technicians into a standardized knowledge base and digital operating specifications, which new employees can use. This means that no matter who does the production and in which time period, the standard of delivery quality is stable.
In a corner of the factory building of Shaanxi Changyu Aviation Equipment Co., Ltd., several servers are running. These are the digital assets that Changyu Aviation has accumulated over the past 20 years. From forging to machining, from heat treatment to surface treatment, the production data, process specifications, and expert experience of the entire chain are extracted and then "fed" into the model. New employees have changed from "suffering through experience" to "using tools", and young people are running forward on a system that has accumulated nearly 20 years of experience.
Zhang Zixi, founder of Shenzhen Hanzhida Technology Co., Ltd., said that newcomers can get started quickly, which helps solve the problem of inheriting manufacturing experience and provides a low-cost path for the intelligent transformation of small and medium-sized manufacturing companies.
On September 22, the All-China Federation of Industry and Commerce released the "Top 500 Chinese Private Enterprises in 2026" list. A simultaneously released survey and analysis report showed that 60.60% of enterprises have formulated strategic plans for digital transformation and artificial intelligence application. The proportion of enterprises promoting intelligent manufacturing and developing and applying digital products and services among the top 500 companies was 53.20% and 50.00% respectively.
From the "scheduling" of giant ships to the unexpected popularity of dolls with sewn-on mouth corners; from punch-free air conditioners in old European buildings to tailor-made K-cars on the streets of Japan - these seemingly unrelated scenes point to the same ability: whatever the market wants, companies can take on.
Private enterprises are becoming more flexible. At a time when scale is no longer the only moat, the flexibility to receive fragmented orders is becoming a new core strength.
