Transformation And Upgrading: How To Break The Cocoon Of Lanxi Textile Industry

With the theme of "Zhihua Textile Sails to the Sea", Jinhua "Unveiling" Innovation Challenge Competition for Common Problems in Textile and Garment Industry and "National High level Talent Service Line" in Lanxi was officially launched recently. More than 10 technical teams from all over the country, centering on 12 technical problems in the textile and clothing industry, joined hands on the spot to seek the "best solution".

The textile industry is Lanxi's traditional advantage and pillar industry. In recent years, on the one hand, Lanxi's textile industry has been further activated through digital transformation, and on the other hand, affected by the epidemic situation and the international and domestic environment, the industrial development still faces considerable pressure.

Can we solve some common problems in industrial development? How does Lanxi textile industry break through against the trend and realize butterfly transformation? This activity has aroused great concern and thought.

(I)

Let's look at a set of data first.

There are nearly 600 textile enterprises, including 164 above designated size textile enterprises, with a total industrial output value of 27.59 billion yuan, accounting for one third of the industrial economy of Lanxi, forming a relatively complete industrial chain of spinning, weaving, printing and dyeing, colored cloth, jeans, etc.

There are about 50000 employees in the textile industry, including nearly 30000 front-line workers.

In 2022, it will produce 2.04 billion meters of cotton elastic leisure fabric, accounting for 80% of the national market share; The export of denim is 460 million meters, accounting for 1/7 of the total export volume of China and 2/3 of Zhejiang, which can circle the globe 11.5 times when connected.

The data not only reflect the quality of golden business cards such as "China's famous weaving city", "China's textile industry base city", "China's denim fabric export co construction base", but also reflect the hidden worries such as "quality is not high enough", "industry is not strong enough", and "cake is not big enough".

In recent years, under the guidance of General Secretary Xi Jinping's "Lanxi is a typical industrial city", Lanxi has deeply promoted the strategy of "strengthening the city through industry" and worked hard to build "a typical industrial city in the new era". Specifically, in the textile industry, we will focus on building a "smart weaving demonstration site", implement "smart manufacturing to build a city", promote transformation and upgrading, and accelerate the development of the textile industry.

In June 2019, Lanxi launched the establishment of an intelligent manufacturing demonstration city in the textile industry. This year, Lanxi listed the intelligent weaving upgrading project as one of the "Ten Projects", issued the Implementation Plan for the Intelligent Weaving Upgrading Project, and formulated the task objectives for this year and the next five years. In particular, grasping the opportunity of "No.1 Project" of digital economy in the province, we started to explore the path of digital transformation of textile industry, and led the high-quality development of traditional industries with industrial digitalization, which has achieved remarkable results.

For example, through intelligent transformation, Wanzhou Group has basically achieved full access to equipment, full extraction of data, traceability of products, and single accounting. The efficiency has increased by 12.3%, the error rate has decreased to 1%, loom efficiency has significantly improved, and water, electricity, and steam consumption has significantly decreased.

At the 2021 Chinese textile industry intelligent manufacturing on-site meeting, the digital transformation model of Lanxi textile industry was praised by Yu Jianyong, president of Donghua University, Chen Wenxing, president of Zhejiang University of Technology and other academicians of the Chinese Academy of Engineering.

Chen Wenxing made no secret of saying that the intelligent manufacturing of Lanxi textile industry has realized data interconnection, replication and promotion.

(II)

Industry is the most intuitive embodiment of a region's competitive strength and development level.

Lanxi's textile industry has developed with achievements, problems and weaknesses. It is undeniable that in the process of transformation and upgrading, Lanxi textile industry has inevitably encountered problems and weaknesses such as slow development, low industrial profits, weak risk resistance, obvious lack of investment in science and innovation, still heavy pace of green development, and shortage of industrial labor.

For example, lack of people. According to the investigation of China Cotton Textile Industry Association, the average age of employees in most textile enterprises across the country is between 40 and 45 years old. Although wages have been raised continuously, young workers who can work sustainably still cannot be recruited. The lack of jobs has affected the normal operation of enterprises.

Lanxi is also facing the dilemma of "the aging of textile workers and the shortage of highly skilled personnel". Although through a series of measures such as "recruiting talents", "increasing training efforts", "going out to grab people and work", "training+competition+grade recognition", the contradiction between "difficult to recruit" and "difficult to retain" has been alleviated, it is still very prominent. In a recruitment in February this year, the golden shuttle textile light blocking workers planned to recruit 27 people at one time. At this year's two sessions in Lanxi, Zhang Meihua, a national textile industry technical expert, a representative of Lanxi Municipal People's Congress, and director of Jinsuo Textile Production Workshop, also submitted the Proposal on Accelerating the Training of Workers in Lanxi Textile Industry, proposing to carry out order based training to meet the individual needs of textile enterprises for talents of various types of work.

Another example is lack of technology. At present, in the textile industry, highly skilled talents are "scarce resources". The technical support behind skilled talents is undoubtedly the key to innovative development and high-quality development of textile enterprises. With the advent of the wave of intelligent and digital transformation and upgrading of the industry, the pace of building an intelligent manufacturing demonstration city in the textile industry has been accelerated, and the technical requirements of various production processes of Lanxi textile industry have also been "upgraded".

To put it bluntly, if we want to find a "blood road" in the transformation and upgrading of the textile industry, technological innovation is an inextricable barrier. The "intelligent manufacturing" road with "intelligent equipment, intelligent system, intelligent decision-making" as the core elements is the only way. This is exactly the common problem faced by Lanxi textile enterprises. The 12 technical problems of the textile and clothing industry to be solved in this "unveiling" are proof of the "lack of technology".

For another example, the lack of markets, funds, difficulties in project approval, and obstacles in the extension of the industrial chain have also seriously restricted the high-quality development of Lanxi's textile industry.

It is extremely urgent to break through the bottleneck and promote a new round of development.

(III)

"The problem cannot be avoided. If we do not face up to it, reflect on it, wake up and rise up, Lanxi Textile is likely to miss a 'window', or even an era!" At the mobilization meeting for the transformation and upgrading of Lanxi textile industry held last year, the words of the leaders of Lanxi City can be described as a powerful blow.

Transformation and upgrading is the process of upgrading the industry from the middle and low end of the value chain to the middle and high end, and is the key to comprehensively improving the economic competitiveness and reaching a new level.

It can be said that transformation and upgrading is the only breakthrough of Lanxi textile industry. Under the new situation, Lanxi textile industry must seize the opportunity, move with the times, follow the trend, and accelerate the pace of transformation and upgrading. Only in this way can we improve our core competitiveness, seize the commanding heights of the industry and achieve high-quality development.

How to transform and upgrade? The author believes that the following three aspects are the key points.

First, break through the innovation barrier. Innovation is the first driving force for leading development, and also an inexhaustible driving force for an industry to continue to move forward. The intelligent transformation of Lanxi textile industry is a road of innovation. However, Lanxi has not done enough. It needs to increase its efforts to attract talents, deepen the "unveiling", promote "zero land technology innovation", speed up technological innovation, management innovation, brand innovation, "create conditions without conditions" in the face of problems, "make impossible possible" in the face of challenges, and forge a new path on the road of innovation.

The second is to extend the industrial chain. It is of great significance to extend the industrial chain and improve the resilience of the industrial chain to enhance the competitiveness of the industry. In order to promote the high-quality development of Lanxi's textile industry, we must show new achievements in strengthening the chain, supplementing the chain and extending the chain. For example, we will strengthen R&D and innovation in new fiber materials, textile green manufacturing technology, advanced textile products, textile intelligent manufacturing and key equipment and other fields, complement the short boards of the industrial chain, and form a textile industrial cluster with a more complete system, larger scale, and higher openness.

The third is to take a smart road. At present, a new round of scientific and technological revolution and industrial transformation continue to evolve, and the manufacturing industry has an obvious trend of digitalization, informatization and networking. As an important starting point for the transformation and upgrading of the manufacturing industry and high-quality development, intelligent manufacturing is injecting new momentum into the development of Lanxi's textile industry. To our delight, Lanxi has found a set of "Lanxi experience" in intelligent manufacturing. However, intelligent manufacturing is a very complex system engineering. Lanxi still has a long way to go to build a high-quality textile intelligent manufacturing system. The top priority is to unswervingly take the "smart manufacturing road", change "to" I want smart transformation ", vigorously promote the construction of" industrial brain+future factory ", and accelerate the development of the textile industry towards high-end, intelligent and green.

There are only backward enterprises and no backward industries. To build Lanxi into an "intelligent weaving demonstration site" and realize the transformation of the textile industry, it is necessary to go straight to the pain points, difficulties and blockages, actively embrace new technologies, actively explore new changes, and accelerate the journey to a new blue ocean of intelligent manufacturing.