In the wave of digital transformation in the manufacturing industry, Shanghai Weiyuan Machinery Equipment Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as “Weiyuan Machinery”), an enterprise in Songjiang Economic Development Zone that has been deeply involved in the machine processing industry for 25 years, is ushering in a profound self-transformation.
Not only has a new company “Micro Intelligence” been established through internal incubation, but it has also recently reached strategic cooperation with universities and enterprises such as Donghua University, Tianfu Technology, and Hansi Industrial.
This series of actions marks that this specialized and new small and medium-sized enterprise in Shanghai is accelerating its transformation from a traditional parts processor to a comprehensive solution provider of “AI + advanced manufacturing”, empowering the high-quality development of the industry with multi-dimensional innovative practices.
The AI tool that refines “the best in manufacturing”
The birth of Weishu Intelligence originated from Weiyuan Machinery’s keen insight into the industry’s pain points in real production scenarios.
“The current manufacturing industry is faced with the dilemma of separation of ‘people who understand manufacturing do not understand AI, and people who understand AI do not understand manufacturing’.” Chen Xin, the company’s general manager, said that in order to solve this pain point, in the second half of last year, Weiyuan Machinery took the lead in conducting AI application trials internally and launched modules such as “AI Intelligent Inspection”.
Take the bubble annotation and inspection item sorting in the paper inspection of mechanical drawings as an example. The traditional manual method usually requires engineers to review the drawings one by one, manually number them, enter them into Excel and check them repeatedly. A single complex drawing often takes 2 to 4 hours.
After the introduction of AI intelligent inspection, the system can generate the first draft of bubble annotation and inspection list in about 3 minutes, and engineers only need to review and make necessary corrections.
After the internal use of Weiyuan Machinery, the efficiency of the quality inspection process has been increased by 5 times, saving 800 – 1,000 hours annually, which is equivalent to releasing the workload of a full-time quality inspector for nearly half a year, and completely saying goodbye to overtime to rush for reports; and the missed inspection error rate has been reduced to less than 0.1%: compared with the 3% – 8% error rate in the manual quality inspection industry, “AI automatic generation + structural verification” reduces the error rate by more than 95%.
After enjoying the benefits, companies shared relevant applications with their peers and received positive feedback. In order to transform the successful experience of internal verification into market-oriented services, Weishu Intelligence Source came into being.
“The core concept of Weishu Intelligence is not to replace labor with AI, but to liberate employees from tedious processes, solve repetitive labor in the manufacturing industry, and then break through efficiency bottlenecks, allowing employees to focus on links that require more manual review and judgment.” Chen Xin told reporters.
Weishu Zhiyuan takes quality management as the entry point, relies on the internally verified “AI Intelligent Inspection” module to solve quality inspection pain points, and launches the “Weitu Intelligent Inspection” AI drawing paper inspection tool.
It can provide standardized digital intelligent products and customized services around the company’s core business scenarios. In the future, it will also launch AI tool products that “best understand the manufacturing industry” such as automatic generation of process quotation modules, manufacturing vertical intelligence agents and models.
All products are polished based on real production scenarios, oriented to solving practical problems, ensuring usability on the ground, and providing low-cost, implementable intelligent solutions for small and medium-sized manufacturing companies.
Building a new ecosystem of digital intelligence empowerment
If internal incubation is the cornerstone of Weiyuan Machinery’s breakthrough in “intelligent manufacturing”, then cross-border integration is its engine to amplify the potential of innovation.
While its own technology continues to be refined, Weiyuan Machinery has not stopped at cultivating internal scenes, but has set its sights on a broader industrial ecology.
In terms of core technology research and industrial empowerment, Weiyuan Machinery introduces multiple resources to accurately solve the pain points in different subdivisions.
For example, in response to the problem that process knowledge in the precision shaft machining industry relies on manual experience and the trial and error cost of new product development is high, Weiyuan Machinery and Donghua University recently signed a contract to jointly carry out the “Process Knowledge Map and Intelligent Assisted Design of Complex Shaft Parts” project. Relying on the cutting-edge algorithms of universities and real production data of enterprises, they will jointly build an “intelligent process brain” to promote the transformation of the field of precision shaft machining into knowledge and intelligence.
At the same time, Weiyuan Machinery is actively building a full-link empowerment model.
In response to problems such as drawing recognition in traditional manufacturing that relies on manual labor, is error-prone and inefficient; production links have serious data silos and lacks full-process digital management; and advanced technologies are difficult to deeply integrate with manufacturing scenarios, Weiyuan Machinery and Weishu Intelligence have joined forces with Tianfu Technology to reach an AI+ advanced manufacturing strategic cooperation to explore the intelligent analysis of drawings and connect production data, build a digital closed loop from design to production, and develop replicable AI+ manufacturing templates.
In addition, in view of the pain points of the chemical adhesive industry such as long R&D cycle, dispersed data assets, lack of full-process traceability system, and low degree of automation, Weishu Zhiyuan and Hansi Industrial have reached a strategic cooperation on “AI technology management system”. The two parties will optimize formula design through AI simulation and data analysis, reduce trial and error costs, and will build a full-process data center to achieve full link traceability from R&D to production. The AI-driven factory automation system will optimize production parameters, reduce human intervention, improve production capacity and stability, and will strive to create a digital benchmark for intelligent transformation in the adhesive industry.
From internal incubation of AI tools, to joint universities to build “process brains”, to cross-border creation of industry digital benchmarks, this series of layouts of Weiyuan Machinery shows the specific path for traditional manufacturing enterprises to transform into “intelligent manufacturing”.
Through the deep integration of “technology-scenario-ecology”, Weiyuan Machinery is trying to use digital intelligence achievements to provide a reference practical sample for the transformation and development of the manufacturing industry.
