Nanjing, January 21 (Xinhua) -- Automated production lines, digital workshops, smart factories, cloud computing platforms... Anchored in the key word of high-quality development - "new productive forces", traditional manufacturing is undergoing unprecedented changes. Cepai Group Co., Ltd., located in Huai'an, Jiangsu Province, which is engaged in the R&D and manufacturing of oil and gas drilling wellhead devices and instrumentation equipment, has in recent years focused on the manufacturing of high-end energy valves, continuously promoted industrial transformation and upgrading, and built Asia-Pacific's leading high-precision intelligent manufacturing flexible production lines, becoming a vivid example of the "digital-driven" development of the traditional manufacturing industry.
"For a manufacturing enterprise to gain an edge, it must have its own unique advantages. For Cepai, I think it's intelligence and digitalization," said Liang Guihua, chairman of Cepai Group. The oil and gas exploitation equipment industry has long been regarded as a "depression" in intelligent construction due to its characteristics of multiple product varieties, large volume, long manufacturing processes, high degree of customization, and high requirements for automated and digital technical solutions. Since 2018, Cepai Group has increased investment in technological transformation in aspects such as factory internet infrastructure construction, intelligent upgrading, process improvement, and application system integration; in 2021, it built a flexible manufacturing industrial internet platform; in 2022, it completed the full coverage of 5G network in the factory; in 2023, 256 equipment in the whole factory achieved information interconnection...
Through continuous upgrading and transformation, Cepai Group has built Asia-Pacific's leading flexible automated production lines, becoming a representative "lights-out factory" in the industry: through the core MES platform, it realizes transparency in the production process and refinement in production management; through the QMS platform, it achieves real-time collection of quality data throughout the product lifecycle and quality traceability; through the integration of ERP, PLM, SRM and other systems, it realizes the positioning, tracking, and control of materials, and conducts comprehensive and scientific management of the entire product lifecycle. At present, Cepai Group's key equipment networking and numerical control rate reach 100%, the product defect rate has dropped to 0.7%, the quality loss rate has decreased to 0.03%, and the product development cycle has been reduced from 92 days to 73 days.
How to meet the diversified needs of different users for products on the basis of "flexible manufacturing"? Cepai Group focuses on innovating and optimizing production organization forms, operation management methods, and business development models to promote various products to achieve high precision, multiple varieties, small batches, and high customization. For example, in the field of high-end energy valve manufacturing, through the enterprise private cloud platform independently developed by Cepai Group, offshore oil valve and wellhead experts around the world can conduct online R&D and design, exchanges, as well as online drawing review and approval, realizing personalized product customization.
Talking about the "secret" of the continuous growth of the company's performance, Liang Guihua also said: "Doing a good job in 'specialization, refinement, characteristic, and innovation' is Cepai's development strategic policy; refining the market, vigorously developing independent innovative products, and making products refined, detailed, and to the extreme is our unchanging purpose."
Adhering to independent research and development of core technologies, Cepai Group has formed a systematic R&D layout. It has established long-term and stable cooperative relations with many universities and research institutes such as Nanjing University and Southeast University, and actively promoted industry-university-research cooperation; established R&D centers such as Jiangsu Provincial Enterprise Technology Center and Jiangsu Provincial Fluid Control Engineering Technology Research Center to promote the industrialization of a number of scientific and technological innovation achievements. The independently developed, designed and produced cage-type throttle valve products can withstand 1300 hours of erosion under high temperature and high corrosion conditions, with significantly improved stability, breaking the monopoly of European and American countries in this field.
In recent years, Cepai Group has successively won many honors such as National High-Tech Enterprise, National "Little Giant" Enterprise of Specialization, Refinement, Characteristics, and Innovation, Jiangsu Provincial Intelligent Manufacturing Demonstration Factory, Jiangsu Provincial Internet Benchmark Factory, and Jiangsu Provincial Five-Star Cloud Enterprise. Its industrial layout has gradually expanded, and its products are exported to more than 30 countries around the world.
"Cepai will continue to explore technological innovation, deepen 'intelligent transformation and digital transformation', help enterprises optimize resources, save energy and reduce emissions, expand the competitive advantages of products and services, and strive to achieve greater breakthroughs in the field of high-end valve manufacturing," Liang Guihua said. (Joint research by the Research Office of Jiangsu Provincial Government)
