The output value generated through the use of smart equipment and technology accounts for half of the total at Qingte Group, an axle manufacturer located in Qingdao, Shandong and the first in China to achieve unmanned production and storage.

Established in 1958, Qingte Group now owns six production centers across China and 26 subsidiaries and has positioned itself as a major producer of special vehicles and auto parts.

The company has reached high technological level more than a decade ago by introducing cutting edge manufacturing equipment imported from the US, Germany and South Korea. In 2014, it started the construction of a smart factory with a total investment of 600 million yuan.

Now all the difficult production processes including welding and painting are completed with unattended operation that was realized through introduction of imported equipment and technologies as well as self-developed automatic and informatized equipment.

A 40,000-square-meter foundry is manned by a small number of workers who control automatic equipment and robots. Transfer and recycling of foundry sand are completed underground where a huge smart storage is installed. Dusts and sharp smells cannot be found here.

Normally 4,000 to 5,000 workers would be hired to work at a traditional foundry of such kind. And the employment has been increasingly difficult due to the challenging working conditions. However, the introduction of automatic production lines reduced the required number of workers to 100 and addressed the employment dilemma, according to Tan Qicheng, a technology developer at the company.

The sorting, checking-in and checking-out of products are handled by automatic stackers and the transfer is completed by pallet trollies along fixed tracks. This automatic system improves efficiency in storage by 200 percent.

The company’s research and development ability has been recognized by the central government, undertaking 10 plus projects under national programs. A postdoctoral workstation was established at the company. Its 337 patent applications rank first in the industry.