A robot arm works on an assembly line at a smart factory in Nan'an, east China's Fujian province. (PHOTO: XINHUA)

By Staff Reporters

Nan'an, a county-level city in Quanzhou, southeast China's Fujian province, has stepped up efforts to upgrade its smart manufacturing industry and launched a number of high-level technological innovation platforms to develop core technologies in key areas.

In recent years, Nan'an has introduced major R&D institutions, including the National Intelligent Foundry Industry Innovation Center, and cooperated with Shanghai University Research Institute, Tongji University Design Innovation Center, and Nan'an Huada Stone Industry Technology Research Institute, to speed up the smart transformation of industry.

This has helped the city make great progress in such areas as 3D printing, water valves and stone materials.

In Quanzhou (Nan'an) High-end Equipment Intelligent Manufacturing Park, China's first 10,000-ton 3D printing full-process intelligent factory ushered in a new development phase in the smart transformation of the equipment manufacturing industry.

Professional teams from universities and institutes are also introduced to cooperate with local companies to make innovations in intelligent water valves.

Experts specialized in the fields of mechanical electronics, embedded systems, energy conversion and control circuits, intelligent systems, and sensor technology, have carried out key technical research on the "remote intelligent water valve," and developed a number of technologies with independent intellectual property rights.

At the same time, to accelerate the full integration of the industrial Internet and the traditional stone industry, Nan'an has established an industrial Internet platform for the application of stone materials.

Leading enterprises benefit from the major innovation platform and are able to accelerate their digital transformation. In Jiumu Group's high-end factory, which mainly produces smart toilets, all mechanical equipment is controlled by a 5G application, realizing man-machine collaboration in the production line and greatly improving production efficiency.

Through photovoltaic power generation, water saving and other emission reduction measures, the factory can achieve 18,000 tons of carbon emission reduction every year.

In the future, Nan'an will continue to support the establishment of new types of R&D institutions by adopting efficient and flexible market-based mechanisms and attracting more experts to motivate innovation and facilitate its high-quality development.