Looking at a Smart Company's 'Digital Ledger' Through a Glass Bottle

Liu Yongqian, the manager of the Bottle and Jar Production Department at Foshan Huaxing Glass Co., Ltd., who has been deeply involved in the glass industry for over 20 years, has witnessed firsthand the huge digital transformation in the company's production workshop. In the past two years, Huaxing Glass's FS5 furnace workshop has said goodbye to traditional manual production methods. By relying on AI visual inspection and digital management systems to build a 'digital ledger,' it has achieved a shift from 'manpower-heavy tactics' to 'data-driven' operations. This transformation is also a vivid example of Gaoming District using the 'Hundreds, Thousands, Tens of Thousands Project' to drive industrial renewal.

Production Area of Foshan Huaxing Glass Co., Ltd.

Colleague in front of the AI visual inspection system data platform

As a key backbone enterprise in Gaoming District, Huaxing Glass produces 550,000 tons of glass bottles and jars annually, with an average output value of over 700 million yuan in the past three years. The company has established long-term strategic partnerships with well-known brands like Budweiser, Haitian Seasoning, Zhujiang Beer, and Tiandi No.1. In 2021, it was recognized as a 'Digital Intelligent Workshop of Foshan,' becoming a pioneering model for the digital transformation of traditional manufacturing in Gaoming District.

Huaxing Digital Factory Display Screen

Furnace FS5 is the core hub where this leading company implements digital and intelligent upgrades and builds a green, smart, lightweight bottle production line. The company has brought in smart equipment like fully automated palletizers and new servo integrated machines, completely revamping the quality inspection process. AI visual inspection devices can detect defects with over 99.9% accuracy, identifying faulty products in just half a second. At the same time, they’ve boosted production efficiency through multi-dimensional process optimization, and by 2023, they integrated fully digital management systems like MES and SCADA, achieving a fully visible and controllable closed-loop production process.

AI visual inspection equipment can identify defective products in just half a second

The 'efficiency account' keeps track of labor and production capacity changes, while Huaxing Glass’s other 'green account' records carbon emissions and energy flows. The company invested 90 million yuan to build a distributed photovoltaic power station, with a solar panel area equivalent to 20 standard football fields, generating 18.16 million kWh annually, covering 30% of the factory's electricity needs, and cutting carbon emissions by 14,000 tons a year, successfully making it onto the list of national green factories.

The rooftop solar panels of Huaxing Glass Factory

A deeper exploration of carbon reduction is turning waste heat from the kiln into something valuable. By recovering it to make steam, it can supply 61,000 tons annually—not just for its own use, but also for nearby companies. A single kiln becomes an 'energy hub' for the whole park. From 'consumption' to 'supply,' Huaxing Glass's green transformation isn't just about cutting carbon; it's about redefining its role in energy.

Huaxing Glass's 'digital ledger' records an enterprise's efficiency and green initiatives. Placed within Gaoming District's big-picture push for the 'Hundreds, Thousands, and Tens of Thousands Project' to achieve significant changes over five years, an even bigger 'industrial ledger' is unfolding.

So far, the local industry’s digital transformation has yielded impressive results, cultivating world-class 'lighthouse factories,' multi-level smart factories, digital workshops, and numerous industrial internet benchmark projects. At the same time, Gaoming has rolled out policies to subsidize technical upgrades and set up an AI industry service alliance to provide companies with full-chain transformation services.

From a workshop's efficiency boost to a company's green transformation, and to an entire region's industrial upgrade, the dynamic production data and brightly lit workshops keep writing a new chapter in the high-quality development of Gaoming's manufacturing industry.