SUNTECH Beam Storage Optimized Textile Warehousing Intelligence

 

The textile economy of China has undergone three decades of rapid development, leveraging its advantages of abundant low-cost labor and natural resources such as non-woven machinery and equipment. As one of the main drivers of economic growth, the manufacturing industry is now facing challenges in transformation and upgrading. The demographic dividend is fading, production costs are rising, and the new generation of migrant workers are increasingly aware of their rights, leading to the need for reform in China's textile industry.

Despite China's status as a major textile machinery manufacturing country, the level of textile machinery production is not yet high, necessitating accelerated transformation and technological improvement by enterprises. The current state of low technological content, low value-added, high labor costs, and low production efficiency of low-end products no longer meets market demands and is incompatible with future enterprise development. Therefore, the transformation and upgrading of textile machinery products is an inevitable trend.

The transformation direction of China's textile industry undoubtedly lies in achieving upgrading through technological advancements and improvements in labor force quality. Enterprises need to increase production efficiency and enhance profitability, surpassing or keeping pace with the rising production costs. This is the true essence of transformation and upgrading, where "automation" or "replacing human labor with machines" is one of the viable pathways.

Difficulties in Hiring-Driving"Automation and Manual Replacement

The traditional textile industry, being labor-intensive, is facing urgent needs for transformation and upgrading as China's demographic dividend gradually diminishes. Mechanization, automation, and intelligence have become effective approaches for transforming traditional industries, promoting industrial upgrading, reducing labor force, and alleviating labor shortages, thus marking the beginning of the era of "replacing human labor with machines" in the textile industry.

Reports indicate that the rising labor costs and long-term structural labor shortages are among the main driving forces behind the trend of "automation and replacing human labor with machines" in the textile industry. In recent years, the growth rate of labor compensation has accelerated, and enterprises have to raise employee wages 1-2 times per year, leading to increased pressure in labor recruitment. The development of the textile industry requires a large number of skilled textile technicians and skilled workers. While the eastern regions have traditionally been the destinations for labor inflows, there is a local labor supply gap, and there is also a phenomenon of returning technical workers from the central and western provinces where migrant workers are employed, resulting in a widespread labor shortage dilemma, especially for textile enterprises in eastern regions. Meanwhile, due to the high intensity of work in the textile industry and high labor mobility, many young workers born in the 1980s and 1990s are unwilling to engage in repetitive and labor-intensive work, resulting in a lack of effective replenishment for frontline workers and long-term labor shortages for many textile enterprises, thus driving the adoption of "automation and replacing human labor with machines." For example, some textile enterprises in southern Jiangsu province face labor shortages of around 10% annually.

At the same time, the demand for intelligent manufacturing in the textile industry has emerged as a result of industry upgrading and high-quality development, making "automation and mechanization" an inevitable trend. Investigations reveal that the quality of textile products is crucial to the competitiveness of enterprises, but the current development of textile product quality in China is not optimistic. The instability of quality not only exists among different enterprises and regions, but also within different batches of products within the same enterprise, directly impacting the market competitiveness of products. In the promotion of stable product quality and high-quality development, intelligent robotic production has unparalleled advantages compared to manual production.

The report points out that the current strategic deployment of "Made in China 2025" and "Industry 4.0", as well as the "13th Five-Year Plan for the Textile Industry" and the corresponding incentive policies for equipment upgrading and replacement at the national and local levels, together constitute the background for the intelligent manufacturing of "automation and mechanization" in the textile industry. Due to the issue of labor costs, coupled with the impact of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), manufacturing powerhouses such as Europe and the United States have shifted their focus to countries such as India, Vietnam, Bangladesh, and Pakistan in terms of labor capital, equipment, and technology, posing challenges to Chinese textile products. Meanwhile, despite the introduction of advanced foreign equipment by many enterprises, the relative technological backwardness of the industry remains unchanged. Therefore, "automation and mechanization" is imperative.

Necessary of Automation and Mechanization

1. Cotton spinning industry. Large-scale technological transformations, such as combing and simple combing units, high-efficiency and coarse yarn long frames, and automatic winding machines, have achieved new levels of yarn quality indicators, average labor usage per ten thousand spindles, and energy-saving and consumption reduction. In particular, the application of intelligent dropping machines for fine yarns has significantly reduced the labor intensity of fine yarn workers, with a potential reduction in labor usage of over 40%. Taking Changyuan Textile Company in Changle City, Fujian Province as an example, the technological transformation of 10 existing fine yarn workshops with the introduction of fully automated production lines has reduced the number of workers from 504 to 317, with an average monthly increase of 1000 yuan in wages per person.

2. Chemical fiber industry. Through the transformation of intelligent technologies such as flexible automation and energy-saving, the level of product differentiation, quality performance, and production efficiency have significantly improved, resulting in a substantial reduction in labor force. Taking Fujian Baihong Group as an example, after implementing "automation replacing labor", the labor force for the automatic spinning process has decreased by 70%, and the labor force for the automatic packaging process has decreased by 80%; the equipment update cost for automatic packaging can be recovered within 3 to 4 yea

3. Functional textiles. Enterprises have introduced a large number of high-performance automated warp knitting machines, weft knitting machines, circular knitting machines, and supporting finishing equipment, developing various types of functional knitted fabric products for clothing, footwear, home textiles, and industrial use, in response to domestic and foreign market demand trends. Taking Fujian Jinjiang Huayu Weaving Co., Ltd. as an example, after introducing 400 fully automated warp knitting machines at once, the number of workers has reduced from over 800 to just over 200; the ratio of machines per person has increased from managing 1 to 2 machines to managing 5 machines per person; monthly wages have significantly increased from an average of around 4000 yuan per person, and the monthly income of the best skilled workers can reach nearly ten thousand yuan.

4. Footwear and clothing manufacturing. Emphasizing the improvement of design concepts and intelligent manufacturing, the functionality, artistry, and fashion design of clothing have continuously strengthened, and the level of design, sewing, and finishing has made significant progress. Leading companies such as Seven Brand, Seven Wolves, Septwolves, and Jimber have adopted robots to replace manual fabric spreading, and implemented automation in the logistics process, greatly reducing labor intensity and improving production efficiency.

5. Printing and dyeing industry. Based on the experience of advanced regions, after implementing "automation replacing labor" in printing and dyeing enterprises, the water consumption per 10,000 yuan of industrial value-added has decreased by more than 15%, energy consumption has decreased by more than 17%, industrial wastewater discharge has decreased by more than 10%, and the water reuse rate has reached 52.7%, resulting in nearly 60% reduction in labor costs.

SUNTECH Beam Storage Textile Warehousing

In fact, in the textile industry, the most labor-intensive and costly process is the handling and warehousing of goods. The large-scale storage of fabrics and finished products requires a significant amount of warehouse space and manual labor. How can we minimize labor costs and warehousing expenses, while also efficiently storing textiles, raw materials, and textile machinery to fully utilize the existing space? Suntech's intelligent "Beam Storage" system, with its advantages of "small space, large capacity, low cost, and high intelligence," solves the warehousing challenges for textile enterprises and has received unanimous praise from the industry.

Beam Storage is the optimal choice for storing spindles, beams, loom beams, and fabric rolls, and is widely used in pre-weaving preparation, weaving factories, and dyeing and finishing factories. It is an ideal equipment for textile factories to effectively utilize space, reduce floor space, increase storage capacity, achieve efficient storage and retrieval, and realize modern intelligent management. It is similar to a large shelf or a three-dimensional intelligent garage, creating large capacity in a small space, providing convenience for mechanical scheduling with intelligent mode, maximizing floor space savings, and significantly reducing warehousing costs.

SUNTECH is a well-known and long-established textile machinery company that is renowned for its technological innovations. It started with textile and warehousing machinery, and has a wide range of textile machinery equipment involved in finished fabric warehousing, handling, inspection, packaging, and other processes. Among them, Beam Storage is a classic product that has won multiple awards and has applied for multiple patented technologies such as Beam Storage system operation software and chain synchronization detection, and is highly favored by international textile enterprises.