2023, China Resources Cement changed its name to China Resources Building Materials Technology, and its Tianyang base was the first cement enterprise lighthouse factory certified by the World Economic Forum, and also the first lighthouse factory of global building materials enterprises. The new Tianyang Lighthouse plant has deployed more than 30 fourth industrial revolution technology use cases, improving energy, labor and equipment efficiency and quality performance through advanced analysis, automatic driving and industrial Internet of Things. The carbon emission of the base is reduced by 24%, the labor productivity is increased by 105%, the unplanned downtime of equipment is reduced by 56%, and the quality stability is improved by 25%.
In this issue of "Lighthouse Enterprise High-level Interview Record", Hou Wenhao, a global managing partner of McKinsey, had an in-depth dialogue with Ji Youhong, chairman and executive director of the board of directors of Huarun Building Material Science and Technology, and reviewed and discussed the journey of the world's first building material lighthouse factory. The following is an edited transcript of the interview.
We think that we are in the leading position in the level of intelligent manufacturing in the cement industry. However, after referring to the lighthouse standard, it is found that there is still a lot of room for improvement. "
Q Hou Wenhao: First of all, I sincerely congratulate the lighthouse factory of the first cement enterprise certified by the World Economic Forum in Tianyang Base of China Resources Cement, which is also the first lighthouse factory of building materials enterprises.". You mentioned that the digital transformation of China Resources Cement needs to brave the deep water area. How do you view the leading role of Tianyang Lighthouse Factory in the digital transformation? How to continue to develop and make the traditional business more competitive? Digital transformation is an important direction of industrial transformation and upgrading. In the company's "14th Five-Year" strategic plan, we have listed "leading the transformation of digital intelligence" as the company's mission. Leading the industry to carry out digital transformation is also an important foundation for the evergreen industry. Tianyang Factory plays an important role in the construction of intelligent manufacturing of China Resources Cement, and it is our first test field.
We launched the pilot project of Tianyang Whole Process Intelligent Factory in 2018. By July 2020, the first phase of intelligent manufacturing project was successfully launched, including 12 digital use cases, and basic supporting projects such as 5G network upgrade, industrial network and information security were also officially launched. By 2022, we have launched more than 30 digital use cases, promoted organizational change through digital transformation, and greatly improved the management and operation mechanism of factories and the digital literacy of personnel.
Q Hou Wenhao: In the transformation of Tianyang Base, which moments do you have a particularly deep impression on?
In addition, in the process of promoting intelligent manufacturing, we have found some gratifying changes. The initial resistance to transformation comes from the management team and employees. Through continuous efforts, we have made continuous improvements in finance, operation, sustainability and human efficiency, so that cadres and employees can see the advanced nature of the lighthouse factory and their own changes, and ultimately let them firmly support the work of the lighthouse factory.
Q Hou Wenhao: I had the honor to visit Tianyang Base in 2016, when we discussed the application of alternative fuels. Seven years later, we have seen the large-scale application of six alternative fuels in Tianyang Base, and most of the domestic waste in Tianyang County has been "contracted" by the base. In addition, we see that the original artificial diesel mining card has been replaced by driverless electric mining card, which fully demonstrates that our digitalization and intellectualization are complementary to sustainable development. From the perspective of cement and steel energy use, low-carbon green transformation is a huge problem. In this regard, what kind of exemplary work has China Resources done? And what kind of work do you plan to continue? In order to fulfill the solemn commitment of "3060", China Resources Cement has also made a corresponding commitment to achieve the carbon peak ahead of schedule in 2025. In the process of practicing double carbon work, the most important task is to comprehensively promote the co-disposal of cement kilns. At present, China Resources Cement has three kinds of cement kiln co-disposal cases of urban and rural domestic waste, municipal sludge and industrial hazardous waste, and 10 bases carry out related disposal work, with a total disposal capacity of more than 1.7 million tons a year, including 510,000 tons of domestic waste, nearly 1 million tons of sludge and 210,000 tons of hazardous waste. In the cement industry, we are one of the enterprises with three types of solid waste disposal capacity.
In the future, we have three aspects of work to do. Firstly, the work of carbon peak and carbon neutralization should be integrated into the overall development situation, and the concept of green development should be established and implemented in enterprises. Secondly, we will continue to improve our environmental management system and continue to develop environmental protection technologies.
Secondly, China Resources Cement has creatively put forward the "3C" carbon reduction theory in the industry, that is, to carry out carbon reduction practices around low carbon at the source, carbon reduction in the process and carbon removal at the end. Source carbon reduction refers to the selection of low-carbon raw materials; process carbon reduction refers to the reduction of carbon dioxide emissions and energy consumption in the process by improving process technology and equipment; end carbon removal refers to the carbon sequestration products that we are developing to absorb carbon dioxide so as to re-solidify carbon dioxide. Around this goal, we have promoted the theory and practice of "3C" carbon reduction, and have achieved some results. In the past two years, our combined energy consumption has been reduced by more than 7-8 kg (standard coal consumption), and carbon dioxide intensity has been reduced by 2% compared with 2020.
Thirdly, around the field of "double carbon" and new energy materials, we will explore opportunities for the development of new materials such as low-carbon cement, thermal insulation materials, photovoltaic industry, high-purity quartz, spherical silica powder and polysilicon, and open up new tracks.
First there is unified thinking, then there is from 1 to N
. "Enterprise digital transformation is a strategic issue, not a technical issue, not dispensable, nor icing on the cake."
Q Hou Wenhao: Some traditional ideas hold that technological transformation and management can bring benefits, while digital transformation can bring limited benefits. This process needs to unify ideas and change ideas. How do you unify your thinking and remove the ideological barriers in the transformation through the construction of the lighthouse factory? Everyone can achieve the same efficiency through capital investment and technological transformation, but can not form differentiated competitiveness. The deep integration of
"digital" and "lean" creates a spiral curve of long-term benefit improvement. The benefits of digital transformation are actually a long-term spiral curve. In the process of deep integration of digitalization and management, production and operation, it is gradually released through the integration and collision of "digital" and "lean". To break the barrier of conceptual thinking, we need not only ideological unity, but also management support, but also benefit results. Unity of
thought: We need to unify an important understanding internally-the digital transformation of enterprises is a strategic issue, not a technical issue, not dispensable, nor icing on the cake, but a comprehensive improvement of enterprise management, and a way for enterprises to catch up and surpass. The digital transformation of enterprises requires a strategic determination to draw a blueprint to the end, as well as long-term strategic execution.
Management support: The drive and implementation of strategic direction need the continuous promotion of management. Firstly, establish a "holding-base" top-down two-level digital transformation promotion organization, with the holding company as the leading group and the base as the working group, to jointly promote the work; secondly, form and operate the transformation working mechanism to ensure the progress of the transformation work from the four aspects of special decision-making, progress management, benefit tracking and resource coordination; Third, improve the evaluation mechanism, guide the long-term and short-term development orientation; rely on the level evaluation and performance evaluation to track, evaluate, feedback and adjust the long-term and short-term transformation objectives, and give full play to the role of evaluation.
Benefit demonstration: with "economic benefit" as the scale and "digitization rate of key areas" as the scale, the "two scales" jointly quantify the value of intelligence. Quantify the effectiveness of digitalization from the aspects of cost reduction, efficiency improvement, quality improvement and overall improvement of environmental protection level, so that management and employees can realize the actual value and hidden value of digitalization, truly feel the benefits of digitalization, and promote the achievement of the same desire.
Q Hou Wenhao: In Tianyang Base, I was particularly impressed by a use case, "remote monitoring and diagnosis of equipment and centralized intelligent operation and maintenance". This use case has been successfully deployed from Tianyang pilot to all production bases of China Resources Cement. In your opinion, how does China Resources Cement think and plan to extend the best practice of "Tianyang Lighthouse" to other holding bases, so as to realize the large-scale expansion of the value of digital transformation from point to area and from 1 to N? Starting from a single lighthouse factory, building a "lighthouse group" is inseparable from three elements.
First, the scene is the "starting point". The selection of typical scenarios and value mining are particularly important. For example, "Equipment Intelligent Diagnosis Center" has surpassed "Financial Manpower Sharing plus" and become a new generation of operation and maintenance expert capability sharing and operation and maintenance mode transformation action, which originated from the common difficulties of the cement industry, such as difficulty in predicting equipment failures, high operation and maintenance costs, low personnel efficiency, and high requirements for staff maintenance skills. Therefore, it is the first foundation for the subsequent large-scale expansion to cut into the scene problems with industry commonality and holding commonality.
Second, the platform is "hard support". Advanced IIOT technology architecture, with industrial Internet platform to accelerate the integration of applications, is the "hard support" of the era of "scale expansion" and "comprehensive race" of intelligent manufacturing, as well as the "big killer" of accelerating the decisive battle.
Third, culture is "soft power". After the process of digital transformation from point to area and from 1 to N, the deep remodeling of culture is the most important step to maintain the transformation results and realize the transformation value. In this process
, Tianyang Factory has played a role as a source of dissemination of digital scale benefits of China Resources Cement, and has played a demonstration role.Based on advanced automation, Internet of Things, artificial intelligence, 5G and other advanced technologies, 35 4IR use cases have been built and deployed to help Tianyang achieve cost reduction, per capita cement production increase, human efficiency improvement, cement quality improvement and carbon dioxide emission intensity reduction, thus forming a new competitiveness in the downward process of the industry cycle. And gradually transform to resource-saving, environment-friendly and sustainable development. At present,
our advanced application cases and reform achievements have been gradually extended to 35 cement plants of China Resources Cement, which is our comprehensive internal promotion and application. At the same time, intelligent application products based on internal experience are also extended to the two major industries of electric power and chemical materials after adaptive transformation, sharing achievements across industries and forming a mutual aid ecosystem.
Three "star" training,
"New employees, new technologies and new models" will become the "new troika"
driving the realization of the three core competitiveness in the digital age. Q Hou Wenhao: You mentioned the "Starry Sky, Spark and Starlight" plan for digital talent training, which sounds very distinctive. "Starlight" refers to the cultivation of digital literacy of management talents, "Spark" refers to the cultivation of outstanding engineers in intelligent manufacturing, and "Starlight" refers to the cultivation of digital talents at all levels. How do you see the role of capacity building in digital transformation? How to consider the training system of "Starry Sky, Spark and Starlight"?
One is to be "comprehensive". Digital literacy is an "all-staff project", and "digital employees" are indispensable. Therefore, the cultivation should cover not only the "leader" of the digital transformation, that is, the "leader" of each business unit, but also the "builder", that is, the personnel directly involved in the equipment, quality, electrical, mining and other intelligent manufacturing related positions of each unit, but also the "supporter", that is, all levels of the line of wisdom. And other professional line related talents.
The second is to "classify". The roles of "leaders", "builders" and "supporters" in promoting digital transformation are different, and the abilities needed and the ways of training are also different. As the "head goose of change", the "leader" needs digital cognition and digital leadership. On the basis of expanding the horizon, it condenses the consensus of change through benchmarking research and discussion. As the "backbone", "builders" need digital execution, on the basis of consolidating knowledge, combined with the project to enhance the ability to solve problems, in order to achieve the unity of knowledge and practice. As a "professional force", "supporters" need strong professional accomplishment and business understanding ability. In addition to the means of regular training, they also combine special lectures, on-site learning, conference group building and other ways as supplementary support.
Third, we should "focus". We should clearly understand the focus of the current digital transformation. For example, the focus of our transformation in the early and middle period of the 14th Five-Year Plan is "Intelligent Manufacturing", so the teaching of the three classes of "Star, Spark and Starlight" focuses on "Intelligent Manufacturing". This focus is not only reflected in the main courses of the three classes, but also flexibly supplemented based on the actual progress of the transformation. For example, combined with the introduction of agile working mode, the "Spark Class-Digital Translator" project has been launched to select a group of "IT & OT" (Information and Operation Integration) compound talents who can not only clarify business needs for technical personnel, but also interpret technical insights for business personnel.
Q Hou Wenhao: We are in a homogeneous competitive industry, China Resources Cement from traditional cement enterprises to modern building materials enterprises is the best choice. In this process, are we exploring the introduction of new materials, new energy and new technologies to form the second growth curve? In addition, how can we improve our core competitiveness through these methods? "New employees" refer to all "digital employees" with digital literacy; "new technology" includes both the internalized application of new technology and the creation of new technology; "new mode" refers to the decision-making mode, management mode, operation mode and business mode of applying digital technology.
Q Hou Wenhao: China has a group of diligent, reliable and intelligent manufacturers. Can you send a message or two to these people in the same way? Manufacturing industry can not stop the trend of "high-end, intelligent and green". Manufacturers are extremely firm in their pursuit of digital transformation and will do their best to achieve it.
At present, the cement industry has serious overcapacity, the impact of peak staggering production on the supply side has declined significantly, the "competition and cooperation relationship" formed over the years has broken down, and the pressure of industry operation has doubled.
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