Everyone knows about the sharing economy, but do you understand shared manufacturing?

Shared manufacturing, also known as manufacturing sharing, or manufacturing resource sharing, is an application innovation of the sharing economy in the field of production and manufacturing. It focuses on all aspects of production and manufacturing and uses the sharing concept to transform scattered and idle production. Resources are gathered, flexibly matched, and dynamically shared to new models and new business formats on the demand side.

At present, there are already many cases of shared manufacturing in our country, such as in the fields of mechanical processing, electronic manufacturing, textile and clothing, scientific research instruments, industrial design, inspection and testing, logistics and warehousing, etc. Typical shared manufacturing platforms have formed a variety of new models and new business formats such as production capacity docking, collaborative production, and shared factories, showing great development vitality and potential.

In the first half of this year, Fujian Shishi’s “Shared Factory” was launched, providing production sites and warehousing facilities for small and medium-sized enterprises, and providing orders for companies that have difficulty receiving orders. Despite the impact of the epidemic, 120,000 pieces of overseas clothing were quickly put into production through sharing and collaboration; in some cities, light industry companies split and shared links such as design, order taking, and assembly to reduce market risks and integrate supply chain capabilities.

In response to the current situation that large enterprise robots, CNC machine tools, flexible production equipment and other equipment are idle, and small and medium-sized enterprises have needs but cannot afford to purchase them, Shenyang Machine Tool has developed a product that integrates industrialization, intelligence, informatization, The networked and integrated i5 intelligent machine tool cooperates with companies such as Digital China and Everbright Financial Holdings to promote the on-demand C2M2C (Customer to Manufactory to Customer) sharing economy model.

In the context of the rapid development of the sharing economy, shared manufacturing has quietly emerged in our country, and manufacturing is becoming the main battlefield for the development of the sharing economy. Shared manufacturing is currently popular, which undoubtedly creates conditions for the sharing of cutting-edge manufacturing techniques and processes, and can also help the transformation and upgrading of the equipment manufacturing industry. For example, companies in some parks and industrial clusters can try to share factories, testing equipment, production facilities, etc. In the future, they can even share funds, experience, and technical services.

On the whole, shared manufacturing factories include functions such as pilot testing, trial production, and mold opening of technology and product development in the pre-production process, and promote the industrialization and commercialization of scientific and technological achievements in the production implementation process. It has two major attributes: supporting manufacturing R&D and supporting mass production. A shared manufacturing factory with mass production attributes requiresCNC machine tools, intelligent detection, production and warehousing space, industrial robots, service processors, intelligent operating systems, industrial Internet of Things, cloud computing platforms, data processing and storage and other configurations are required to achieve the purpose of capacity sharing.

Manufacturing companies face both challenges and opportunities. As an industrial Internet platform linking these manufacturing companies, their mission is even more arduous. The "platform + factory" model under "shared manufacturing" is inseparable. Open the platform. How to build an industrial Internet platform with fast response speed and high response accuracy has become an urgent problem that needs to be solved next.

The network platform supported by modern information technology is the core carrier and basic support for the development of the sharing economy. As far as the manufacturing field is concerned, relying on the industrial cloud platform can open up the business flow, information flow, and capital flow between upstream and downstream enterprises in the business chain, provide collaboration in supply chain, R&D, design, production and manufacturing, and support cross-enterprise and cross-regional cooperation. Industrial chain collaboration can promote the optimal allocation of various resources, help improve production efficiency and convert production benefits.

Shared manufacturing, as a mainstream field in the development of the sharing economy, is widely optimistic about its development prospects. Perhaps in a few years, using smart factories as a window, we will be able to see more new business formats and new results spawned by shared manufacturing.