In the world's first national supply chain expo, a Chinese steel mill moved the model of its smart workshop into the exhibition hall themed digital tech.
Instead of a smokestack plant, Nanjing Iron & Steel Co. (NISCO) is making its manufacturing more digital and supplying more sophisticated and tailored components to its global customers.
Featuring "just in time and customer-to-maker (JIT-CTM)," the new workshop, which started operation in 2020 with the support of robotics and digital virtual technology, could run by merely five workers per shift, said Xu Xiaochun, NISCO's executive president, at a seminar during China International Supply Chain Expo (CISCE). The expo, the first of its kind in the world devoted to promoting industrial and supply chain collaboration, is being held in Beijing from Nov. 28 to Dec. 2.
NISCO, one of the exhibitors from traditional industries, defined itself as an innovation-driven enterprise, and set up shop in the expo's digital tech area. A Mixed Reality (MR) helmet was on display, which can provide real time digital assistance to workers, and has already been applied in the workshop.
"Our management has changed from the experience-driven one to data-driven one. Through the intelligent algorithms and the industrial internet, the development cycle can be shortened and the collaborative efficiency of the industrial chain can be improved," said Xu.
NISCO's quality steel has been used in Saudi Aramco oil pipelines, Qatar World Cup stadium, and Siemens offshore wind power turbine, to name just a few.
Also at the expo is GZTech, a startup founded in 2018 and specializing in digitally-controlled pulsed laser devices. The products it has brought to the CISCE are mainly used in hard and brittle material processing, surface marking and cleaning.
"China used to import laser devices, now we started to explore global market with more affordable products," said Peng Yong, GZTech global trade manager. "They are 50 percent cheaper and have the equal quality."
Within one year, GZTech's sales increased from nearly nil to 20 million yuan (2.81 million U.S. dollars) in overseas market in 2023, finding customers in the United States, Mexico, Turkey, India and Germany.
"It's a small bite in this sector," said Peng. "But a diversified group of suppliers is definitely favorable for a secure global supply chain."
E-COMMERCE
As more small and medium-sized Chinese manufacturers started to tap the global market potential, e-commerce platforms played their parts. The Nanjing-based Weichi group is one of them.
Weichi, an online intermediary that helps increase exposure of mechanical and electrical accessories made by local exporters via overseas social media and search engines, saw a rapid growth during the past few years.
"We serve more than 2,000 Chinese foreign trade enterprises every year and most of their clients come from the United States and Europe," said Yang Qingyao, marketing manager of Weichi, at his booth.
Overseas buyers in mechanical and electrical supply chains paid more attention to quality and affordability than brand awareness, and the online platform facilitates those global transactions, Yang added.
Newegg, a Los Angeles-based online retailer of computer hardware and consumer electronics, came to expo because it is optimistic about China's local IT gadgets that upgrade from low-priced products to prestigious brands.
"The made-in-China product price per order at Newegg achieved 300 U.S. dollars, which is the highest in North America for IT product platform," said Chen Gang, executive vice president of Newegg Group China.
Other companies including Amazon Global Logistics, Walmart, Google, VISA and Mastercard set up booths at the digital tech zone of CISCE, to look for business opportunities on the Chinese supply chain.
SUPPLY CHAIN EXPO
Rebeca Grynspan, secretary-general of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, said at the CISCE's opening ceremony that the real story of globalization is written through supply chains, an interconnected network that connects continents, especially in a digital age.
In 2022, China's digitally-delivered service trade value rose 3.4 percent year on year to 372.71 billion U.S. dollars, hitting a historic high, according to the Ministry of Commerce. By the end of 2022, the number of Chinese digital service platform enterprises with an individual market value of over 1 billion U.S. dollars had exceeded 200.
"Now the global supply chain is constantly evolving and diversifying to support our digital economy," said Wang Binying, deputy director general of World Intellectual Property Organization, at the expo.
An initiative put forward at the ongoing CISCE called for more support for enterprises to strengthen cooperation in building digital infrastructure such as information communications, cloud computing, data centers, and smart cities.
Events like CISCE are important and unique in their ability to bring together people up and down the supply chain, said Pamela Coke-Hamilton, executive director of the International Trade Center.
The CISCE came after a succession of meetings and trade shows China hosted this year, including the Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation in Beijing, the China International Import Expo in Shanghai and the Global Digital Trade Expo in Hangzhou, in an effort to secure and expand the global supply chain and inject new impetus into world economic growth.
At the just-concluded second Global Digital Trade Expo held in Hangzhou this week, deals on 32 projects with a total value of over 155.8 billion yuan were reached by leading enterprises in the sector including those from Germany, France, Japan, Hungary and Singapore.
"Digital connectivity is set to be one of the biggest difference makers when it comes to the future of trade," said Coke-Hamilton. "And China has a lot of experience in this area and can share best practices and lessons learned with small businesses of other developing countries."