With the rapid development of new generation information technology and the rise of new consumer concepts, the demand for small order quick response and flexible customization has become increasingly urgent, especially in the textile and clothing industry.

As one of the most representative enterprises in the domestic textile and clothing industry, Jiangsu Hongdou Internet Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as 'Hongdou'), in conjunction with China Unicom, has explored the creation of a '5G flexible production textile and clothing industry Internet platform', broken through the traditional production mode, built a '5G+MEC' cloud side collaboration capability, and deeply aggregated the industrial chain, design, research and development and other resources, changing the previous low value-added development model into a small batch, multi variety, personalized, high value-added customized production model, effectively helping the textile and clothing industry to transform and upgrade to intelligent and green.

Market demand orientation drives industry innovation and upgrading

The textile and clothing industry, as a traditional pillar industry and an important livelihood industry in China, is currently in a critical period of transformation and upgrading.

From the perspective of market demand, under the new consumption concept, the fast delivery mode of small batches, high frequencies, and multiple categories is gradually taking the stage. The traditional clothing manufacturing and business model based on extensive production of large batches, low frequencies, and few categories on assembly lines cannot quickly adapt to market changes and urgently needs to find smarter production methods.

From the perspective of industry development, with the deep integration of the digital economy and the real economy, the industrial structure is accelerating adjustment, and new technologies, products, and models are constantly emerging. It is imperative for enterprises to undergo intelligent transformation and digital transformation and upgrading. Textile and clothing, as a labor-intensive industry, is no exception.

Red Bean Group, located in Xishan District, Wuxi City, is a leading brand in the textile and clothing industry. It has long been deeply involved in professional fields and is committed to promoting the fashion, branding, digitalization, high-end, and green development of the textile and clothing industry. It has grown from more than 20 employees in 1982 to a large multinational enterprise with nearly 30000 employees, 2 listed companies on the main board, and 2 industrial parks. Its industries involve four major fields: textile and clothing, rubber tires, Taxus health, and park development. It has been among the top 500 private enterprises in China for many years.

Based on the needs of the industry, Jiangsu Hongdou Industrial Internet Co., Ltd., an innovative science and technology enterprise under Hongdou Group, took the lead in accelerating its exploration, and cooperated with China Unicom to develop the '5G flexible production textile and clothing industry Internet platform'. Based on this platform, Hongdou has independently developed 5G measurement warehouses, 5G trackless flexible intelligent manufacturing, and intelligent labeling to achieve personalized customization, intelligent design, flexible and fast production, and one-stop clothing traceability, bringing consumers a new consumption environment and shopping experience that integrates physical scenes and technology.

Three major 'remedies' to achieve personalized customization and flexible production

Based on the new consumption trend of individualization, fashion, customization and diversification, and relying on the '5G flexible production, textile and clothing industry Internet platform', Red Bean has independently developed three modules, namely, 5G measurement warehouse, 5G trackless flexible intelligent manufacturing and intelligent logo service, covering the whole process of clothing individuation and customization, and accelerating the transformation from 'traditional textile manufacturing industry' to 'smart textile'.

In the early stage of personalized clothing customization, the 5G intelligent energy body warehouse integrates advanced plate making technology in the clothing field, as well as laser 3D measurement and 720 degree visualization measurement technology. Through MEC cloud based intelligent algorithms for point cloud data calibration and fusion, personalized clothing customization can be achieved with 30 second intelligent scanning, 1-minute personalized customization, 5-minute automatic publishing, and 7-day free delivery of ready to wear clothing to customers' homes, timely meeting consumers' personalized customization needs.

In personalized clothing customization production, the 5G trackless flexible intelligent manufacturing module adopts AI intelligent self-learning and advanced prediction algorithms, combined with production factors such as humans, machines, materials, and methods. Based on AI's automatic learning of worker skills and expertise in processes, it generates a skill radar map based on workers, automatically matches the best skilled workers for production, and achieves maximum efficiency per unit time. At the same time, relying on the world's first 5G AGV robot, each workstation can complete specific tasks as an independent unit and be closely integrated with other production systems, scheduling systems, etc., improving production efficiency by over 20%.

For consumers, customized users can track the entire customization process in real-time through the QR code and link of the intelligent identification service system. Based on this, enterprises can also solve consumer needs in a timely manner, increase contact and interaction with consumers, and improve consumer satisfaction and experience.

Under the application guarantee of the three major modules, this solution achieves three major innovations while ensuring product quality stability. One is user centricity, where users shift from passively accepting standardized products to actively leading product supply, selling products shifts from standardization to personalization, and service boundaries shift from sales departments to enterprise wide departments. The second is data connectivity, which achieves consistency, coordination, and accuracy among various business departments, and improves the overall collaboration level of the enterprise. The third is the flexibility of production, which enhances the rapid response and flexible switching capabilities of research and development design, production and manufacturing, raw material supply and other links.

Software and hardware upgrades open up a new ecosystem of 'smart textiles'

Seizing the new opportunities brought by the transformation and upgrading of intelligent manufacturing in the textile and clothing industry, Red Bean Group focuses on optimizing intelligent equipment and digital software in the textile and clothing industry, accelerating the innovation and upgrading of demand-oriented large-scale on-demand flexible production, and actively building a modern green and intelligent textile ecosystem.

The essence of large-scale on-demand flexible production is to use big data technology and thinking to achieve service, production informatization, and automation based on the specific needs of consumers. A stable and high-speed network environment is an essential foundation, and the flexible transformation of traditional production lines is the core key.

With the innovation and upgrading of the network of the cohesion factory, Red Bean took the lead in building a 5G private network suitable for the production of the park, focusing on solving the problems of large capacity, high load and weak signal coverage of the production workshop, so as to achieve full coverage of the 'office domain, production domain and Internet domain', so as to better meet the production application needs of Red Bean 5G intelligent flexible factory.

Juli traditional production line transformation and upgrading, Hongdou combines AI, 5G, AGV matrix production technology and flexible manufacturing intelligent algorithms. At the same time, through the 5G network, the AGV scheduling system and factory MES system are connected to obtain real-time status of the 5G AGV car. With the help of intelligent algorithms in the flexible production line scheduling system, efficient scheduling and real-time response of on-site production resources are effectively achieved.

Taking the Red Bean Men's Shirt Workshop and Suit Workshop as examples, after completing intelligent transformation and upgrading, the factory's unit consumption cost decreased by 10%, production efficiency increased by 20%, work in progress decreased by 30%, and production cycle shortened by 30%.

It is reported that in the future, Red Bean will further improve its upgrade plan and provide users with more personalized customization options such as fabric, style, color selection, etc; Establish a data analysis platform to strengthen data collection, analysis, and prediction of product supply chain, production line, quality control, etc., to help enterprises timely grasp production status and market changes.

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