According to the “Several Opinions on Accelerating the Construction of ‘Future Factories’” (Document No. 4 [2021] issued by the Municipal Party Committee), after enterprises submitted their applications, preliminary reviews were conducted by the economic and information technology departments of various districts, counties, and cities, followed by expert evaluations and consultations with relevant municipal-level departments, Zhejiang Wanxiang Precision Engineering Co., Ltd. has been designated as a “Future Factory” in Hangzhou for 2021.

Against the backdrop of digital reform, Hangzhou is focusing on “Industrial Brain + Future Factory” to comprehensively and systematically advance the construction of the “Future Factory” system. This initiative aims to drive innovation in manufacturing methods, restructure organizational forms, and transform industrial models, thereby accelerating the pace of digital transformation in the manufacturing sector. Since last year, following the convening of the Hangzhou Conference on High-Quality Manufacturing Development and the Promotion Conference for “Future Factory” Construction, the Municipal Bureau of Economy and Information Technology has, in three successive batches, collected and screened 326 enterprises as candidates for “Future Factory” cultivation, and has organized expert reviews and on-site audits. The 48 enterprises selected this time represent Hangzhou’s first batch of officially designated “Future Factories,” setting a new benchmark for the integration of the digital economy and manufacturing.

Wanxiang Jinggong specializes in the production of automotive components, with its main products including wheel hub bearing units, wheel hub bearings, anti-lock braking systems, and electronic parking systems. The project “Digital Workshop for Wheel Hub Bearing Units Supplied to BMW Vehicles by Zhejiang Wanxiang Jinggong” was also recognized as a 2021 Digital Workshop in Zhejiang Province, a Key Enterprise Technology Transformation Project in Hangzhou City, and a Demonstration Project for Intelligent Manufacturing in Xiaoshan District.

Wanxiang Jinggong has fully integrated the workshop’s previously separate areas for quenching, turning, grinding, and assembly. By comprehensively deploying more than 15 types of core intelligent equipment across five categories—including high-end CNC machine tools, loading/unloading robots, gantry robots, online inspection equipment, and logistics systems—Wanxiang Jinggong has overcome the technical and equipment limitations in the automatic detection of the pre-compression state (negative clearance) of third-generation hub bearings. The company has also implemented lean one-piece flow production, robot substitution, MES, PLM, and QDS systems, achieving integrated optimization across all stages—from design and process development to management, manufacturing, and logistics. As a result, Wanxiang Jinggong now boasts capabilities such as fully automated online inspection, automatic error-proofing, digital product traceability, and comprehensive quality control. This has optimized resource allocation and significantly enhanced the precision of production management and intelligent decision-making capabilities.

Through digital and intelligent transformation, quantitative optimization of the product manufacturing process has been achieved. By fine-tuning and matching parameters, the product takt time has improved by 48%, and the product development cycle has been shortened by 30%. Moreover, by analyzing and controlling quality data collected on-site via SPC, we can accurately reflect the quality status of products in real time, gain a thorough understanding of the scrap rates and quality conditions at each process stage, and receive early warning alerts—playing a critical role in enabling precise analysis of product quality. Furthermore, by integrating inspection equipment with processing equipment, we have enhanced information feedback between devices, thereby reducing product dimensional deviations caused by wear and tear of consumables such as abrasives and cutting tools. This integration plays an essential role in improving the process capability of equipment and enhancing product quality stability, successfully lowering the product defect rate by 15%.

In 2022, Wanxiang Precision will continue to enhance its capabilities in digital design and management, as well as intelligent manufacturing, accelerate the innovation and upgrading of its intelligent models, and constantly leverage technology and innovation to strengthen the company’s core competitiveness, striving toward becoming a provincial “Future Factory.”