If you dig into the structural system of these buildings, you will find that they are closely related to one enterprise, which is – Shandong Master Construction Steel Co., LTD. (Master).

As a national high-tech enterprise mainly engaged in the construction steel business, mastercard has provided more than 150 million square meters of various building envelope products for thousands of engineering projects, and provided more than 200,000 square meters of clean room envelope materials for many COVID-19 vaccine research and development enterprises, and was named a specialized and special new “little giant enterprise” by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology in 2021!

In the past three years, it is such a “little giant” that has taken an important step of cross-regional factory construction under the empowerment of Siemens, investing 1 billion yuan to build the industry’s first digital and intelligent benchmark factory in Zhenjiang, Jiangsu Province.

 

Mastercard Zhenjiang digital factory

Because of “pragmatic” friendship

A few years ago, faced with the wave of digitalization sweeping across all industries, mastercard also inevitably encountered growing pains. If we talk about the present, how to break the shackles of experience, introduce advanced digital factory technology and lean management concept, and reduce the dependence on labor? If you look at the future, how should you take advantage of the digital east wind to seize the opportunity in industrial upgrading and industry change?

A digital factory from intelligent design to intelligent delivery will solve these problems. In 2019, mastercard located in Zhenjiang and began to build an intelligent manufacturing base radiating the Yangtze River Delta region.

“We knew from top to bottom that we were going to build a digital factory. But what’s the factory like? Where do we start? What level is built? Everyone was still exploring.” “Recalls Lu Zhizhen, manager of digital services at mastercard.
With thinking and questions, Wei Longzhu, chairman of mastercard, after fully understanding the market, found Siemens, which knows manufacturing and is more digital, through industry insiders, and determined the partnership. Siemens and mastercard lasted three years, from digital consulting to the implementation of the one-stop digital journey also kicked off.

Xu Shuheng, general manager of Shandong Wenda Construction Steel Co., LTD., said: “The digital and intelligent production mode has boosted the leapfrog transformation of the production mode of building materials. We look forward to riding this wave to reach a new milestone in digital development.

The Siemens solution gave us a clear view of the future production and development model of the Zhenjiang Smart manufacturing site, and understood that the digital factory will really help us solve the problems and demands in the process of digital transformation and development. This’ pragmatic ‘spirit is a good fit with mastercard.”

Analysis of micro, lean layout

Just as there are no two identical leaves in the world, each digital factory is unique, and the overall layout needs to include many factors such as the factory’s own business objectives, scale, operations and processes. Siemens’ digital consulting services are tailored to help companies find the best path to digital transformation.

“Siemens has an engineer’s mindset and comes up with a very down-to-earth digital solution, unlike many of the consulting firms we deal with.” Speaking of the beginning of the cooperation, Lu Zhizhen said, “From planning to implementation, and then to talent training, we need a partner who can take us step by step.”

In the 4-month digital consulting service, Siemens started from the summary of mastercard’s current situation and pain point analysis, and used its headquarters factory in Binzhou, Shandong Province as a model, according to key control strategies, and conducted data collection, calculation and quantitative analysis for key business scenarios.

“Data acquisition is the first step in a thousand-mile journey, allowing Siemens to accurately simulate and predict the cost, construction and operation of mastercard’s digital factory,” explains Rowan, digital consultant at Siemens. “This digital journey is based on ‘evidence’.”

Based on data modeling, Siemens reconstructed mastercard’s manufacturing strategy, process and other business systems, and delivered the overall design of the digital system, the application design of sub-systems, and the data system design from order to delivery to service. It can be said that Siemens has developed a digital factory roadmap from macro to micro, from static layout to material flow line, including through the process flow and decision-making system, from the plant construction steps to the final presentation. At this point, the “jigsaw puzzle” of mastercard Zhenjiang digital factory is gradually clear and complete.

The release of this consultation report is not the end of the digital journey of the two sides, but means a new start. In the months that followed, Siemens continued to throw “task cards” to the Mastercard team based on its long-accumulated “actual combat” experience, such as setting parameters and collecting data for specific scenario modules. These tasks require the mastercard team to complete independently according to their own business and development needs, and consolidate the cornerstone of digital factory construction in a “go through”.

Have the “number” in mind, simplify the complex

Based on the accumulated understanding and trust, in August 2020, Siemens and mastercard upgraded their cooperation and signed the implementation agreement of Zhenjiang Digital Factory. As the first factory built by mastercard across provinces, the project covers a total area of 150 acres and has 5 production workshops, which is committed to playing a “beacon effect” in the industry.