HEFEI - A drone hovered above a home appliance industrial park in eastern Chinese city of Wuhu, Anhui province. Equipped with several detection devices running in sync, it efficiently fed real-time production scenes back to the "smart brain" using a 5G network.
"Every manufacturing process is working to improve quality and efficiency," said Guo Kexiong, digital director of the Midea Kitchen and Heating Intelligent Home Appliance Industrial Park.
After a decade of fierce price competition, the profit margins for ordinary household appliance makers in China have dwindled considerably, positioning the sector as a more conventional industry.
Yet, the integration of smart technology is igniting a transformative revolution that presents new opportunities for the country's home appliance manufacturers to survive and thrive.
Smart manufacturing
Hefei, the capital city of Anhui, is now home to two "lighthouse factories" for home appliances -- Media Group's laundry machine plant and Haier's air conditioner plant. Lighthouse factories are plants recognized by the World Economic Forum (WEF) for their leadership in the Fourth Industrial Revolution. By 2023, of WEF's 153 lighthouses across the globe, 62 are based in China.
Haier's plant, included into the WEF list last year, is the world's first lighthouse factory for home central air conditioning appliances. In this factory, the hustle and bustle of production workers has given way to cameras that can "see through" the interior of parts, while inspectors wearing AI glasses patrol the facility in an orderly manner.
Advanced algorithms, digital twins and knowledge graphs have been integrated into the research and development, production and testing processes of home central air conditioning units, leading to a significant improvement in product quality and production efficiency.
The Haier Hefei factory has pioneered an innovative platform that integrates big data technology with ant colony optimization (ACO), sparing the traditional trial-and-error methods.
As a result, the factory has seen a 58 percent decrease in product defect rates, a 49 percent increase in per capita efficiency and a 22 percent reduction in manufacturing costs per unit. Additionally, it has achieved a significant reduction of 447,600 tons of carbon dioxide emissions annually in manufacturing processes.
According to the white paper released by the WEF in December 2023 titled "Global Lighthouse Network: Adopting AI at Speed and Scale," the newly recognized lighthouses in 2023 have implemented AI with high impact across every step of the supply chain.
Meiling, a renowned refrigerator maker in China, was once on the brink of bankruptcy in the 1980s. It made a remarkable turnaround by shifting to refrigerator manufacturing. Now, Meiling stands at a new crossroads, striving to embrace intelligent technologies to revitalize the traditional industry.
The fridge-maker has built an industrial internet platform called "Lingyun," which integrates over 1,700 upstream and downstream enterprises into a unified online system, connecting approximately 24,000 industrial equipment terminals.
"This approach addresses common issues across the industrial chain," said Hu Mingyong, director of the Intelligent Manufacturing Institute at Changhong Meiling Co Ltd.
China aims to accelerate the transformation and upgrading of traditional manufacturing industries. It is targeting a penetration rate of digital R&D and design tools above 90 percent and a numerical control rate of critical processes above 70 percent by the year 2027.
Smart appliances
Meanwhile, the burgeoning industry also provides a glimpse into the future of smart homes and the potential for a more connected and convenient way of living in China.
Smart homes and related industries have emerged as new growth areas in the country. From January to July, the retail sales of energy-efficient and smart home appliances grew at a nearly double-digit rate, significantly outpacing the average level of home appliances and audio-visual equipment categories, according to the National Bureau of Statistics.
This development comes as China has introduced subsidies for home appliance products, promoting the upgrading of these traditionally manufactured goods to become smarter and more environmentally friendly.
On display in stores are innovative appliances like gas stoves with integrated screens that display instructional cooking videos, garment care machines offering both ultraviolet sterilization and gentle drying, and treadmills with built-in cameras that provide real-time feedback on the runner's form.
At IFA Berlin 2024, the world's leading trade show for consumer electronics and home appliances, which was held earlier this month, Haier displayed its new smart products, which utilize the Internet of Things and AI technologies to enable seamless connectivity between household appliances.
Its smart refrigerator can automatically adjust the temperature based on the stored food, extending the shelf life. Users can also remotely control and manage home appliances. Haier's smart washing machine employs AI algorithms to optimize washing modes, saving water and electricity while protecting the fabric of the clothes.
According to an industry report by JD.com, one of China's largest e-commerce platform, home appliances such as panoramic cameras, multi-function cookers, fruit and vegetable washers and facial steamers saw their sales surge more than tenfold year on year on the platform in 2023.
Also, the market share of high-end products, in categories like integrated stoves, dry cleaners and dishwashers, increased by 40 percent to 70 percent at brick-and-mortar stores that year, according to the report.
