Editor's Note: Starting from scratch, knocking the bell, exploring the road from top to bottom. This is an interview program aimed at core executives (including but not limited to chairmen, founders) of listed companies in the science and technology innovation sector. What are some of their lesser-known legendary experiences? What changes have they experienced in their mindset before and after the company went public? "Dialogue with Science and Technology Innovators" explores with you, looking forward to the future.

In this issue, the guest of "Dialogue with Science and Technology Innovators" is Zhu Zhenyou, Chairman of Jiangsu Beiren.

"True 'intelligent manufacturing' is not just the combination of software and hardware, but the core lies in the manufacturing process, ensuring high and stable efficiency in product yield."

▍Personal Introduction

Zhu Zhenyou, a senior engineer, founder, chairman, and general manager of Jiangsu Beiren, graduated from Shanghai Jiao Tong University with a Ph.D. Zhu Zhenyou has been engaged in research and development in machine vision, robot systems, and robot welding applications for a long time, obtaining multiple invention patents, and being honored with titles such as the Ministry of Science and Technology's "Ten Thousand Talent Plan", Jiangsu Province's Innovative and Entrepreneurial Talent, and the Leading Talent in Suzhou Industrial Park.

▍First Tag

From intelligent manufacturing to intelligent "quality" manufacturing practitioners.

▍Company Profile

Jiangsu Beiren's main business is the research and development, design, manufacturing, and sales of robot system integration, machine vision, manufacturing information software, and intelligent manufacturing systems, focusing on the automotive industry. It is a provider of intelligent manufacturing overall solutions based on industrial robots, offering professional services for customers' intelligent factory construction from 0 to 1. In 2024, while deepening the domestic market, the company actively expanded overseas markets to explore new performance growth points. Establishing Hong Kong Beiren, Mexico Beiren, and Germany Beiren, they are also expanding into North America and Europe, making rapid progress in business.

On October 28, reporters from the Star Market Daily News (Xu Jie, Qiu Siyu) reported that in the industrial landscape of Suzhou Industrial Park, there is a typical landmark shining with the brilliance of intelligent manufacturing – Jiangsu Beiren Intelligent Manufacturing Industrial Park. Since its official launch in 2022, this park, covering over 0.03 million square meters with a built-up area of nearly 0.06 million square meters, has become a new engine for innovation and development at Jiangsu Beiren.

Recently, reporters from the Star Market Daily News learned during on-site visits that the completion of the Jiangsu Beiren Intelligent Manufacturing Industrial Park has not only enhanced the company's flexible and intelligent product and production line integration capabilities, but also promoted the implementation of new product R&D and intelligent manufacturing demonstration line projects.

Jiangsu Beiren focuses on robot system integration and intelligent manufacturing in the automotive industry, mainly providing professional services for the intelligent factory 'from 0 to 1', involving the research and development, design, production, assembly, and sales of new energy car welding production lines, flexible automated welding production lines, laser processing equipment, manufacturing information software, and digital workshops.

For enterprises, how to transition from intelligent manufacturing to intelligent 'quality' manufacturing? During this visit, Zhu Zhenyou, the Chairman of Jiangsu Beiren, shared the company's entrepreneurial journey, market layout, technological innovation, and other stories with the 'Star Market Daily' reporter.

▍Constructing a combination of vision + software + new materials.

As a provider of overall intelligent manufacturing solutions based on robot system integration in the 'AI + manufacturing' field, Jiangsu Beiren has a deeper understanding of 'intelligent manufacturing'.

"True 'intelligent manufacturing' is not just the combination of hardware and software, the core lies in manufacturing processes, ensuring high and stable efficiency of the products produced to be of high and stable efficiency." Zhu Zhenyou, Chairman of Jiangsu Beiren, told the reporter of the 'Star Market Daily', "On the same production line, the appearance differences between Company A and Company B may not be significant, but the performance in delivery time, product offline qualification rate, etc., may vary greatly."

According to Zhu Zhenyou, the production line delivered by Jiangsu Beiren is capable of achieving product offline in 21 days, with a product manufacturing pass rate of over 95%, leading the industry.

Zhu Zhenyou told the reporter of the 'Star Market Daily', "In fact, most customers consider multiple factors when making purchases, such as: product quality, process know-how, project management capabilities, supplier stability, rather than simply pursuing the lowest price."

Regarding the recent focus on research and development, Zhu Zhenyou revealed that the company is currently mainly focusing on three aspects: first, vision technology. In welding environments, there are strong interference factors such as arc light, smoke, etc., so in this special application scenario, the application of vision technology for recognition needs further research and improvement. For this reason, Jiangsu Beiren has established a dedicated R&D team.

Jiangsu Beiren has mastered core technologies such as visual recognition, visual guidance, and visual inspection. Especially for the scenario of unordered loading and unloading of sheet metal materials, systematically mastering 3D+2D visual inspection and visual guidance technologies. Through demonstration projects and on-site testing, the feasibility of the solution for unordered loading and unloading of sheet metal materials has been verified.

Second is software. The next step for the intelligent manufacturing industry is to move from automation to intelligence. "Taking the newly signed order in Mexico as an example, nearly 170 robots need to be used on the production line, requiring a smart 'brain' to coordinate the work of nearly 170 robots. Therefore, software is the company's key focus for future research and development," said Zhu Zhenyou.

It is worth mentioning that Jiangsu Beiren is currently developing a 'human-shaped' welding robot for industrial scenarios. It is reported that the company has accumulated a large amount of data in the welding process, which will also be implanted into this industrial humanoid robot product in the future to improve the automation, intelligence, and adaptability of the production line, as well as to address the current constraint of lack of welding labor.

Third is new materials. Currently, new materials in the field of new energy vehicles are becoming increasingly abundant. With the introduction of new material standards, the number of connection methods is gradually increasing. Based on this, Jiangsu Beiren has established a dedicated R&D team to study the connection process of new materials.

However, with the rise of integrated die casting, will the share of the traditional welding and joining industry be affected? This has undoubtedly become a focus of discussion in the new energy vehicle ecosystem in recent years.

To this, Zhu Zhenyou said, "Integrated die casting is indeed a trend in the industry, but it is not realistic to completely cast the entire vehicle body, instead it reduces the number of parts that need to be welded. Therefore, it is unrealistic for integrated die casting to completely replace the welding of components, and cost-effectiveness factors also need to be considered."

Accelerating "going global" and diversified development of new business.

Since the beginning of this year, Jiangsu Beiren has clearly identified two major strategic directions: one is "going global"; the other is the adjustment of customer structure.

It is reported that the company's main battleground for its "going global" strategy is the North American and European markets. As of now, its overseas large orders this year exceed 0.4 billion yuan.

In terms of delivery cycles, domestic orders are approximately 8 months to 1 year; while foreign orders range from 1 year to 2 years. "It also depends on the development cycle of the customer's new car models. For example, Huawei launches a new car model in 6 months, which has a shorter project development and delivery cycle; while customers like BMW have longer cycles." explained by Zhu Zhenyou.

Regarding customer structure adjustments, due to the "cannibalization" of the domestic new energy automotive industry ecosystem, Jiangsu Beiren is gradually reducing the volume and even abandoning some customers with payment method differences and risky operational conditions.

As the new energy automotive industry becomes more and more "cannibalized", Jiangsu Beiren has set its sights on the energy storage "cake". 2023 is the company's first year to layout its energy storage business. After more than a year of exploration and layout, "it is expected that the energy storage business will positively impact the company's performance next year." revealed by Zhu Zhenyou.

In the field of energy storage, Jiangsu Beiren is dedicated to the research and development, production, and sales of commercial and industrial energy storage systems, as well as the research, development, and sales of energy storage PACK products, energy storage asset operation, and the research and design of fully automated energy storage production lines.

Aerospace & defense is also one of the key sectors where Jiangsu Beiren has strategically positioned itself. According to reports, the company has been expanding its business in the high-end equipment manufacturing field such as aviation, aerospace, defense, shipbuilding, and heavy industries, and has served many large customers including Shanghai Aerospace, Shenyang Aircraft, Shenyang Liming, Caterpillar, Xi'an Kunlun, Shanghai Zhenhua Heavy Industries, Sany Heavy Industry, Xuzhou Heavy Industry, and more. "It is expected that the growth in the second half of this year or next year will be greater. " disclosed by Zhu Zhenyou.

Worth mentioning is that in the new energy business sector, leveraging its existing operations, the company plans to expand its wireless charging products. These products are mainly targeted at the two-wheeled electric vehicle market, focusing on the safety and intelligent wireless charging services for electric two-wheeled vehicles.

Frequent fire incidents caused by charging two-wheeled vehicles have increasingly raised concerns about the safety of their charging. Zhu Zhenyou told the "Star Market Daily" reporter that the company's new product attempts to fundamentally improve the safety issues related to charging two-wheeled vehicles. Subsequently, the "Star Market Daily" reporter will continue to follow up on the related product developments.