ERKE (Mianyang) Industrial Co., Ltd., located in Santai County, Mianyang, impresses visitors with over 40 intelligent garment production lines working at full capacity, with workers energetically busy fulfilling new clothing orders for the upcoming year.
"At the beginning of this year, we received orders for more than 1.5 million sets of summer clothing, and we anticipate even more orders in the coming months," said Xu Zhiyun, Production Director of ERKE (Mianyang) Industrial Co., Ltd. He explained that the company collaborates with SAP, IBM, and other companies, integrating big data and artificial intelligence to create digital core competitiveness. Simultaneously, they continue to focus on brand, product, and service improvements, resulting in consecutive years of increasing profits. In 2022, the company achieved a total output value of 840 million yuan, a year-on-year growth of 6.7%.
Inside the ERKE (Mianyang) Industrial Co., Ltd. workshop, rows of state-of-the-art intelligent sewing machines are operated skillfully by workers. Under the close coordination of human-machine collaboration, fabrics gradually take shape. Xu Zhiyun explained that the new intelligent sewing machines, powered by microcomputer intelligence, enable production control and quality monitoring, effectively enhancing production efficiency.
The company doesn't stop at basic equipment; in its production workshop, fully automated fabric cutting machines straighten and lay out fabric on cutting tables. An intelligent clothing slicing machine automatically cuts fabric into the required shapes and sizes for production. Fabric pieces are smoothly gliding on the intelligent hanging production line, allocated to respective workers based on the smart system's instructions. The entire production process is permeated with intelligent equipment.
Furthermore, the company has implemented a new intelligent statistical system that can real-time track each worker's dynamic output. Approaching a workstation, the machine's LCD screen clearly displays that the station has completed 810 pieces on that day. Xu Zhiyun remarked, "With this system, we can instantly calculate workers' productivity and settle their wages before the end of each day."
Leaving ERKE (Mianyang) Industrial Co., the reporter visited Mianyang Jialian (Jiaxi) Printing and Dyeing Co., Ltd., a key textile industry leader in the provincial and municipal industrial park. Stepping into the production workshop, machines roar, and production lines operate at full throttle.
"We currently have eight digital production lines, each with a production capacity of 20 million meters, resulting in an annual output value of 2 billion yuan," said Du Tao, the company's leader. The application of digital production methods has not only improved the efficiency of the enterprise but also enhanced product quality. Jialian Printing and Dyeing has become the largest and technologically advanced workwear fabric research and manufacturing enterprise in western China, with workwear fabric production accounting for 10% of the national total. Various composite special protective workwear fabrics have covered markets in more than 60 countries in Europe and America.
Walking through the Santai County Industrial Park, it's not just Hongxing Erke and Jialian (Jiaxi); intelligent equipment and tidy factories are visible everywhere. For example, Hanbinlin Footwear Co., Ltd., located in the industrial park, has introduced a flexible vision-guided robot cold bonding automatic forming line, capable of quickly achieving high-precision 3D modeling and automatically extracting adhesive trajectories for new shoes, producing 40,000 pairs of shoes per month. Anjina Sports Goods Co., Ltd., relying on standard factories, took only five months from settling in to production. In 2022, the company signed a cooperation agreement with a total investment of 3 billion yuan, aiming to build the province's first smart manufacturing digital industry park for clothing.
The reporter learned that the textile and apparel industry is a traditional pillar industry in Santai County, with a prominent scale, comprehensive categories, and high technological level. In recent years, the county has adhered to the overall strategy of "strengthening leaders, supplementing the chain, gathering clusters," strengthening key enterprises, forging chains, enlarging clusters, nurturing ecology, optimizing the business environment, optimizing the competitive environment, and optimizing the development environment for textile and apparel enterprises and the industry. As of now, there are 14 large-scale textile and apparel enterprises in the county, achieving an annual industrial output value of more than 5 billion yuan. The Santai County Industrial Park has been recognized by the China Textile Industry Federation as a "national textile industry transfer pilot park" and is also a key project for building a "specialized clothing industry park" in Mianyang City.
Implementing intelligent transformation of production lines is an essential path to create a high-quality textile and apparel industry cluster. In recent years, Santai County has vigorously implemented the innovation-led project, cultivated and developed potential, and deeply applied internet, big data, artificial intelligence, blockchain, 5G, and other information technologies in textile and apparel enterprises. This has led to the establishment of an independent innovation system, achieving intelligent transformation and upgrading, researching and developing a large number of new technologies and products, comprehensively enhancing core competitiveness.
At the same time, to activate the intelligent manufacturing momentum of the textile and apparel industry, Santai County further deploys innovation chains around the industrial chain, accelerating the transition from "manufacturing" to "intelligent manufacturing." It has successively supported and guided key enterprises such as Jialian (Jiaxi), Hongxing Erke, investing more than 80 million yuan. Collaborating with universities and research institutes such as Xi'an Engineering University and Sichuan Textile Research Institute, they have jointly established enterprise technology centers and engineering technology research centers, significantly improving product technical content and quality benefits.