Global Fastener News

China is a major producer of fasteners – known locally as “the rice of industry.”

“Given the transformation and upgrading of the manufacturing sector, downstream industries have developed a higher demand for high-strength, high-performance, high-precision and high-added value fasteners over the recent years,” writes Xu Leipeng for the People’s Daily.

In response, some fastener manufacturers in China have digitized and adopted intelligent manufacturing.

A self-drilling screw manufacturer in Yongnian district, Handan, north China’s Hebei province, has lowered production costs and increased quality through digital and green workshops.

Another fastener manufacturer in Ningbo, Zhejiang province, has established a 43,000 sq ft warehouse where shipping and stock inquiry are automated. It now takes only 25 minutes to load a twenty-foot container, which is 30% faster than before, the Daily reports.

Intelligent manufacturing also improves efficiency.

In a workshop of a new energy technology company in central China’s Hunan province, manual labor is replaced by robotic arms, which shortens the time for processing embedded screw sleeves by 70% and improves production capacity by 72%.

The company has made improvements assisted by a whole-process smart manufacturing system, which covers designing, purchasing, planning, production, quality control, enterprise management and warehousing and logistics.

The application of the industrial internet of things (IIoT) makes it easier for upstream and downstream enterprises along the supply chain to find each other. An industrial internet platform has been set up in Ningbo to offer digital factory solutions for fastener manufacturers, strengthen information sharing and improve R&D efficiency.