The World's Leading Cryogenic Cold Chain Production Facility

Recently, Haier Biomedical’s new IoT Factory has been well documented on many fronts and multiple social media platforms. Located in the Qingdao High-tech Zone, covering an area of 50,000 square meters over two floors, having flashing lights and roaring machines, the newest IoT factory in the industry can produce 200,000 units of biomedical refrigeration equipment annually. As the world's leading low-temperature cold chain and biosafety industrial base, Haier Biomedical is a pioneer in the application of the industrial IoT model and is empowering Qingdao to build the "world industrial Internet capital" backed with the power of "high-tech".

Interconnected Information: Breaking the Traditional Data Structure

The AGV transport vehicle travels tens of meters along the established track to transport the pre-installed low-temperature freezer into the heating aisle automatically, then scans the exclusive QR code to validate the matching of the worker and the position of the unit, and enters the specific parameters, the sound of the orange foaming machine several meters high nearby sounded a few minutes later. This is the work flow of Li Peng, the young man operating the body foaming machine every morning. "The operation is very simple. I only need to input the material temperature and the amount of black and white materials into the IoT system. The system will judge whether the existing materials are qualified." Li Peng said.

Intelligent manufacturing scenarios full of industrial interconnected elements like this are found everywhere in the Haier Biomedical IoT Factory.

Take the production process of this low-temperature freezer as an example: after the foaming is completed, it will be transported by the AGV transport vehicle to the next process for final assembly. The huge mechanical arm automatically changes the low-temperature freezer from "horizontal" to "upright", and then through the cutting-edge automation technology for evacuation and pressure maintenance, perfusion, performance testing, packaging, a finished product comes off the assembly line. Every ten minutes, dozens of workers in key positions need to go in front of face recognition system of key process to confirm their presence by recognizing their faces, which effectively ensures the personnel reliability, security and safety of the team and products.

"The time required for a machine from pre-installation to off-line is 30% shorter than that of ordinary factories." Duan Jianlei, head of operations at Haier Biomedical said “that there are currently four production lines in the Haier Biomedical IoT factory, which are cryogenic production line, blood refrigerator production line, vaccine refrigerator production line and biological safety production line, covering refrigeration equipment from -196℃ to 8℃ which can produce 600 sets of various equipment off the assembly line every day, with an annual production capacity of 200,000 units. The entire factory facility now has 500 employees, which is a 20% reduction in manpower compared to traditional factories.

Powered by Technology, Ensuring Precise Processing and Accurate Traceability of the Production Lines

Haier Biomedical’s IoT Factory is a typical epitome of the application of the Haier Group Industrial Interconnection in the field of healthcare. It took less than half a year from the startup in September 2019 to commissioning at the facility.

In another office in the production facility, Duan Jianlei can monitor various information of each unit of medical equipment on the computer. Not only the production process, from the customer's requirements, to the production process, to the terminal sales and usage, Haier Biomedical’s IoT Factory will automatically collect data and analyze the data collected to generate various types of visual charts, from customer's requested quantity to product production progress and delivery status, all information are clear at a glance, which allows every biomedical device manufactured by Haier Biomedical can be traced accurately.

"These biomedical devices serve the healthcare industry. Through IoT technology, Haier Biomedical has established an IoT security management and information sharing platform to achieve real-time monitoring of whole-process temperature, logistics, and usage." said Duan Jianlei.

For example, the use of blood has always been one of the strictest procedures in health care. From blood collection vehicles to central blood stations to clinical blood in major hospitals, Haier Biomedical's innovative cold chain products ensure real-time monitoring and sharing of transportation, storage, and usage data through IoT technology, which can help clinical blood institutions to achieve zero waiting for first aid, zero waste of blood, and zero distance of information to ensure the speed, accuracy and the economical use of clinical blood.

This can also be said with vaccines, Haier Biomedical has established an IoT smart vaccination platform to achieve accurate error-free vaccine retrieval and immediate notification of problem vaccines in seconds, ensuring the safety of the “last mile” of vaccination. “As for vaccine manufacturers, storage temperature, vaccination units and personnel, this information are monitored in real time." said Duan Jianlei, the vaccine network model has been established in 28 provinces and cities in China.

Government Support Empowers Industrial Interconnectivity

At the beginning of 2020, due to the impact of COVID-19 epidemic, the resumption of production had become a pain point for manufacturers and other like production facilities around the world. Even if the epidemic situation has already turned stable, the shifting momentum from traditional manufacturing industry to the latest in industrial Interconnection mode is now irreversible. The busy environment at of the Haier Biomedical IoT factory is the epitome of this momentum. Being the leader and staying in front of the industrial Internet surge, Qingdao actively planned and took the initiative. At the beginning of this year, it proposed the goal of creating the "world industrial Internet capital" to strive to seize the commanding heights of development of this industry sector and to showcase to the world Qingdao’s technological leadership.

Standing at the turning point of time, the Qingdao High-tech Zone Government has also proposed an "advance amount" to support the development of the Industrial Internet zone. During the fierce stage of "epidemic", Qingdao High-tech Zone Government awarded Haier Biomedical the "Outstanding Scientific and Technological Contribution Award for Epidemic Prevention and Anti-epidemic". The equity investment fund of Qingdao High-tech Zone's directly-owned enterprise “Gaochuang” completed the equity investment in Haier COSMOPlat project efficiently, empowering enterprise development with powerful fund.

Qingdao's high-tech zone's achievements are more than just the aggregation of advantageous resources around the "industrial Internet". At present, 23 industrial Internet storage and cultivation projects are up and running in the industrial park, involving new-generation information technology, intelligent manufacturing equipment, new materials, biomedicines and other like-minded industrial fields. With the continuous development of a number of high-quality projects, Qingdao Hi-tech Zone will continue to encourage and support new development opportunities and will invest and back the industrial Internet to provide intelligence, technology and talent services for Qingdao to build "the world industrial Internet capital" and promote the industrial economy to Improve quality and efficiency of existing and new technologies.