JAC x Huawei: Making Manufacturing Smarter for a Future of CASE Vehicles
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The upgrade towards Connected, Autonomous, Shared, and Electric (CASE) vehicles is leading the automotive industry into a world of more intelligent, low-carbon, and eco-friendly development, marking a new chapter in the industry's future growth. Chinese automakers are playing a crucial role in this profound industrial transformation. They are not only participants, but also promoters and leaders of the change. Driven by such advancements, China, for the first time ever, dethroned Japan as the world's top auto exporter in 2023.
Anhui Jianghuai Automobile Group Co. (JAC) is one of the earliest automakers in China to expand globally. Established six decades ago, the company has spent over half of their history — 34 years — exploring globalized operations. From humble beginnings, JAC has grown into one of the major players in the global arena. Their growth is a true testament to their effort and the remarkable progress of China's automotive industry.
As new energy vehicles (NEVs) become increasingly popular, the automotive industry is undergoing a period of intensive transformation marked by multiple technological innovations. JAC is also stepping on the gas and revving up in the development of smart NEVs.
At the recent Huawei AI + Manufacturing Industry Summit 2024, Liu Feng, CIO and Information Management Department Director at JAC highlighted the digital and intelligent restructuring of the traditional automotive value chain. He explained that transformation for automotive companies takes place in two phases, where the initial phase concentrates on digitalization, while the latter phase emphasizes intelligence. Liu also mentioned that JAC has launched their own digital and intelligent transformation program as they envisage a digital future fueled by value-driven upgrades.
As the automotive industry proceeds into the second phase of transformation, the value chain is being restructured in three key ways:
• Software-defined vehicles are now mainstream: With the rise of connected cars, smart travel, and electrification trends, software has become pivotal in differentiating a modern vehicle from its competition. This, however, entails increased demands for agile software development in car companies to meet the expectation of launching new cars within 18 months.
• Autonomous driving and intelligent cockpits are becoming standard features: Consumers now consider these as important factors when deciding which cars to purchase. This makes computing power, algorithms, and data the crucial elements for automotive companies to innovate in autonomous driving R&D.
• AI and large models are empowering the entire business chain of automotive companies: Leading car makers are now using large AI models to increase efficiency while cutting costs in production and operations. By creating a full-stack solution of computing power, cloud, large models, and applications, they aim to gain a competitive edge over others.
JAC has formulated their own 14th Five-Year Plan to promote digital transformation within the company. In April 2023, they have also unveiled their new brand strategy described as "Guiding Intelligence with Intelligence", aiming to speed up intelligent transformation using core technologies in smart architecture, chassis, cockpits, and autonomous driving. JAC plans to increase their R&D investment in 2024 by over 50% compared to 2023 to boost innovation. In addition, the company has determined a development path for the intelligent automobile ecosystem featuring self-developed core technology and open collaboration in key and common technologies. To achieve this, JAC has initiated a comprehensive strategic partnership with Huawei.
Liu Feng sees their collaboration with Huawei as a synergistic journey and part of the automotive industry's transition from traditional machinery to advanced intelligence, driven by a common vision that JAC shares with Huawei. Both parties are dedicated to integrating their digital and intelligent capabilities and innovating together for a smarter world.
JAC's digital and intelligent transformation has been implemented systematically at various levels, including concepts, systems, methods, and tools, with the ambition to cover all business scenarios from R&D to production, supply, sales, and service. This required a partner who can support them with cutting-edge technology, creative products and solutions, and abundant transformation experience. This is where Huawei comes in. With its profound experience in digital and intelligent transformation, along with state-of-the-art smart solutions tailored to specific scenarios, Huawei has become a valuable companion on JAC's transformation journey.
The collaboration kicked off in 2022 with a focus on reforming Integrated Product Development (IPD) business processes. JAC fully adopted Huawei's IPD transformation process and completed the design of workflow for 21 business modules. This has greatly empowered JAC's R&D projects by driving the rapid conversion of research results into products. The once conventional state-owned enterprise is now bursting with vitality and innovation.
Further down the transformation path, JAC, with assistance from Huawei, established a group-level industrial Internet platform and smart factory. They then implemented phased pilot projects on top of this to consolidate their entire digital infrastructure, which supports the company's industrial system construction and propels digitally enabled, smarter business.
In terms of the industrial Internet platform, JAC has piloted a two-tier IoT architecture and successfully transformed a smart factory based on this, connecting over 80% of production equipment to the platform. They have also piloted Operation Technology (OT) data reporting, allowing for the convergence of IT and OT data, with a target OT data acquisition rate of at least 95%. This facilitates the accumulation and reuse of the company's internal data models and mechanism models. Moreover, JAC has made all functional capabilities a service, and integrated various services onto the industrial Internet platform. This makes all services and applications accessible through a single portal for internal and external users alike.
For smart factory construction, JAC and Huawei have collaborated over a "quick-win" project to create this benchmark factory for flexible manufacturing of high-end intelligent vehicles under the Consumer-to-Manufacturer (C2M) model. Built on top of the industrial Internet, this project has resulted in a comprehensive architecture and a unified digital foundation for the smart factory, allowing for agile delivery, collaborative manufacturing, and intelligent operations. By 2025, JAC aims to develop this project into an intelligent model factory.
JAC's pursuit of digital and intelligent transformation is much reflected in their exploration when it comes to applying AI and large models to scenarios like R&D, production, supply, sales, and service. They are investing heavily in autonomous driving, intelligent cockpits, and many more enterprise use cases to advance intelligent manufacturing.
To achieve this, JAC is building their data foundation with the aim of digitizing their business, and is piloting the smart factory and group-level industrial Internet platform to strengthen their digital infrastructure. They are striving to bring intelligence to all of their industrial production and business operations, envisioning a fully digital, smart JAC Group.
The partnership between JAC and Huawei has yielded remarkable results. They have developed quality inspection capabilities powered by machine vision and AI, and implemented AI-driven sales and operations planning. This has enabled the automaker to achieve smart production and improve efficiency as well as quality, all while cutting down on costs.
JAC is committed to becoming a leading international automotive enterprise group with an annual sales target of one million vehicles and revenue of CNY100 million (US$13.9 million). This is in response to the growing trend of developing CASE vehicles and showcases the company's resolution to embrace the new era of going "smart or stop" in car manufacturing. JAC and Huawei will continue to work together to advance intelligent manufacturing in the automotive industry.