The Department of Industry and Information Technology of Anhui Province has announced the list of Advanced-Level Smart Factories for 2026, and the "Constant Velocity Drive Shaft Smart Factory Based on Full-Process Digital Intelligence" of Qianchao Intelligent Manufacturing (Wuhu) Co., Ltd. has been selected.

Addressing pain points in traditional manufacturing models—such as low efficiency, coarse management control, high energy consumption, and difficult quality traceability—the factory has implemented intelligent upgrades across the entire production chain from four key dimensions: infrastructure, system architecture, production line upgrades, and application scenarios, empowering lean production with digital intelligence.

To solidify the digital infrastructure foundation and ensure safe production, the factory has continuously improved its digital hardware infrastructure, built a highly stable and secure industrial-grade network architecture, and fully deployed industrial PON networks and IoT data acquisition gateways, achieving full coverage and networking of all types of production equipment. At the same time, a comprehensive terminal security protection system has been established to safeguard production data security, equipment operational stability, and workshop order.
An integrated digital management system has been built to break down data silos across the entire process. The factory has deeply integrated core systems including SAP, MES, WMS, PLM, and SRM, connecting data across R&D, production, warehousing, supply chain, and operations. Relying on a unified enterprise data middle platform, it has achieved online flow of all business processes, real-time collection of production data, and digital decision-making for business management, establishing a modern digital management model that is efficient, collaborative, precise, and controllable.

In terms of intelligent production line equipment upgrades to build high-end smart manufacturing capacity, the factory has phased out old equipment and introduced high-end intelligent equipment in batches, including 3D vision robots, hard-turning and hard-milling precision machines, intelligent three-dimensional warehouses, and AGV unmanned delivery equipment. It has built multiple specialized intelligent production lines for shafts, bell housings, and star-shaped sleeves, as well as automated assembly lines, significantly improving machining precision, efficiency, and automation levels, thereby strengthening the production capacity foundation.

The factory has implemented full-scenario intelligent applications to achieve end-to-end digital intelligence control across the entire chain. It has rolled out 18 typical intelligent manufacturing application scenarios, including digital design, intelligent production scheduling, and dynamic production progress tracking, realizing closed-loop digital intelligence control from product R&D and design to finished product delivery. Currently, the factory's intelligent manufacturing level ranks among the industry's top.

Through comprehensive and in-depth intelligent construction, the factory has achieved a qualitative leap in production operations, delivering significant economic, quality, and energy-efficiency outcomes. It has formed an annual production capacity of 9 million constant velocity drive shafts, and this solution has been promoted and replicated across multiple production bases within the group.

In terms of production efficiency, the numerical control rate of key equipment and the equipment networking rate have both reached 100%, with overall production efficiency increasing by 25.25% and the on-time order fulfillment rate rising by 35.26%, addressing industry challenges such as delayed manual scheduling, equipment idleness, and unstable order delivery.
In quality management, leveraging 3D vision online inspection, SPC process control, and single-piece full-process traceability systems, the product defect rate has decreased by 10.12% year-on-year. This enables precise and rapid identification of root causes throughout the production process, ensuring that core product performance reaches domestically leading and internationally advanced levels.

In terms of green manufacturing and cost reduction, the comprehensive energy consumption per unit of output value has decreased by 20.17%, with significant improvements in water resource and solid waste utilization rates. Warehousing turnover and material distribution efficiency have been greatly optimized, with inventory turnover increasing by 20.19% and material distribution error rates nearing zero, effectively ensuring stable production operations.

The selection of the Wuhu Qianchao Intelligent Manufacturing Smart Factory as a provincial-level advanced smart factory represents an important achievement in the company's quality improvement and efficiency enhancement, and serves as a vivid example of Wanxiang's steady advancement in intelligent manufacturing capabilities. Building on its existing large-scale production capacity and mature intelligent manufacturing system, Wuhu Qianchao Intelligent Manufacturing will continue to iterate its smart factory development, deepen the application of artificial intelligence and big data-driven intelligent decision-making, and strive to build an Industry 4.0 benchmark lighthouse factory, continuously enhancing its refined, intelligent, and green manufacturing capabilities.