Midea-KUKA Smart Manufacturing Industry Park Established in Guangdong, Marks the Era of ‘Smart Manufacturing in the Greater Bay Area’ in China

The Launching Ceremony of Guangdong Intelligent Manufacturing Innovation Demonstration Park and Sino-German Intelligent Manufacturing International Cooperation Demonstration Zone and the concurrent Ground Breaking Event of Midea-KUKA Smart Manufacturing Industry Park took place in Shunde on March 28, 2018. The Vice-Governor of Guangdong Province, Chen Liangxian, the Director of Investment Promotion Agency of the Ministry of Commerce, Liu Dianxun, the Secretary of CPC Foshan Municipal Committee, Lu Yi, Midea’s Chairman & CEO, Paul Fang and Dr. Till Reuter, CEO of KUKA AG as well as senior management from both companies, attended this grand event. With the inclusion of the planning of Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area in the Report on the Work of the Government by China's State Council, Shunde will have a strategic role to play by being the backbone of smart manufacturing in the Area. The city will exert all its efforts to develop the whole-value-chain smart manufacturing and implement the planning of the Guangdong Intelligent Manufacturing Innovation Demonstration Park. Midea-KUKA joint venture, a cooperation between the Fortune 500 Company and the world-class automation champion, is among the first to operate its Smart Manufacturing Industry Park in the central area of the Zone. This is also the very first project to have been launched after the setup of the joint venture.

It has always been Midea’s aspiration to pursue operational excellence along the whole value chain and to achieve optimal synergy by integrating different segments both upstream and downstream. The launch of the Midea-KUKA Smart Manufacturing Industry Park will be a key step to realize Midea’s ‘smart2’ strategy. As a technologies group with businesses in consumer appliances, HVAC, robotics and automation systems, and smart supply chain (logistics), Midea is well aware of the complexities and pain points of China's manufacturing industry. By leveraging KUKA’s expertise in robotics and automation, the Midea-KUKA joint venture expects to build in the Smart Manufacturing Industry Park a comprehensive industrial pattern integrating the R&D, manufacturing and sales functions. This way, the site could, by riding the momentum of the development of the Greater Bay Area, boost the future development and upgrade of the smart manufacturing industry in Shunde and even the whole South China. With an investment plan of RMB 10 billion, the Midea-KUKA Smart Manufacturing Industry Park and the related businesses will cover an area of approximately 800,000 m2. Functional structures, including the smart manufacturing base, offices and R&D labs, showcasing areas and apartment buildings for high-caliber personnel will be built in phases to form a whole-value-chain smart manufacturing hi-tech park, which would feature four major businesses, namely, smart manufacturing, smart logistics, smart healthcare and smart home. Also to be built in phases in the future would be the robot manufacturing center, the R&D center as well as the application demonstration center.

Along with the materialization of the Framework Agreement on Deepening Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Cooperation in the Development of the Greater Bay Area, there has arisen a new topic for the creation of any international science and technology innovation center, which is how to build the modern industrial system by coordinating industrial synergy. The master plan of Midea-KUKA Smart Manufacturing Industry Park has undoubtedly given a clear answer to that, and it would become a vanguard in the transition into the smart manufacturing pattern in the Greater Bay Area. In order to further incubate the robotics industry, related projects including the development of drive and control systems, and the development and production of critical parts such as servo motors will be scheduled. Also to be developed will be some related industries, for instance, robot system integration and application extension, and robot testing and certification.

In pursuit of its ambition to develop and integrate valuable resources in the manufacturing industry, Midea-KUKA has also planned to create synergy by inviting companies both up and down the value chain of the smart manufacturing industry to set up their presences in the Industry Park so as to strengthen the Park’s overall competitiveness. Backed by the favorable conditions of Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, an international exemplary industrial cluster of smart manufacturing of over 1,450,000 ㎡ in land area and RMB 100 billion in output value has started to take shape.