Small and medium-sized manufacturing enterprises: should they be digitalized or transformed?

　　In the mobile Internet era, digital transformation has already become a problem that enterprises must face and solve. Facing the digital transformation, we should not only consider what problems digital technology can solve, but also consider how the organizational culture can adapt to the future digital transformation, but also consider the construction of talent gradients and the introduction of cross-border talents.

　　Top level planning for digital transformation

　　The digital transformation of enterprises is the decision of entrepreneurs. This is not a simple investment decision, but a decision for the development of a company in 5-10 years. Therefore, the planning of the digital factory for this enterprise is the first thing entrepreneurs should think about.

　　The planning of the enterprise's digital factory involves the design of the digital factory. The products go through manufacturing, marketing, logistics at the design end, sorting out the whole life cycle of the client, software matching and design, supporting automatic production lines, building industrial networks and many other aspects.

　　Therefore, early digital planning requires experts in various fields, preferably cross-border experts, to give advice. Entrepreneurs and leaders need to actively communicate with experts to clarify the needs, weaknesses and positive intentions of the enterprise.

　　Problems and directions in transformation

　　Digital transformation also involves many links, including product design, digitalization in production and manufacturing, as well as industrial network and collaboration, industrial big data, marketing, organizational change and other segments.

　　Product design, as the first link of the whole product life cycle, is not only a link of innovation, but also a link of knowledge accumulation and precipitation. At present, the country has entered the deep-water area of reform, and the science and technology development of many domestic enterprises has entered the no man's land and technology leading area. The original innovation will become the driving force for the development of these enterprises, and the foundation of innovation is knowledge accumulation. How to effectively retain and inherit the past experience and design, and how to use it for innovation, are exactly the issues to be considered in the digital transformation.

　　After the design, the data drawings will continue to be transformed into products through the manufacturing process. At present, the technology from CAD (Computer Aided Design) to cam (Computer Aided Manufacturing) has been mature and used. Now many enterprises' production and processing equipment have reached the advanced level locally or individually. However, from the perspective of digital chemical plants or workshops, the overall optimization or system optimization is the highest embodiment of efficiency. Therefore, we should consider how to connect the equipment in parallel and series through the network, and connect with the production management software, so as to optimize the whole system. This is a problem worthy of serious consideration by enterprise managers. One of them is that when purchasing equipment, we must consider the network interface and protocol, so as to ensure the interconnection of equipment and form a system.

　　In the industrial Internet architecture, the industrial Internet is divided into industrial network infrastructure and new industrial network formats. For the construction of digital factory network for small and medium-sized enterprises, the industrial network infrastructure is an important cornerstone. How to build a highway for internal data of the factory is the core goal of the digital factory. The core requirements of factory level industrial network are reliability, low delay and high bandwidth, among which reliability is the most important. How to do a good job in data conversion between protocols and how to ensure synchronization are all issues to be considered in future construction.

　　Industrial big data is a problem that enterprises need to face after the construction of industrial networks and data collection. There is a large amount of data generated during manufacturing. When we face these massive data, whether to store them first after collection or to invest and collect and analyze now is a problem that enterprise managers need to make decisions, which is also a key link in planning.

　　The markets facing customers for the same manufacturing enterprise can also be divided into two categories: B to C (directly facing consumers) and B to B (facing enterprise customers). The ways of digital marketing are both common and different. This requires the marketing team of the enterprise to understand not only the digital system of the customer, but also the digital system of the enterprise, so as to adapt to the requirements of the new digital era. Marketing for consumers is also increasingly relying on digital means. We should learn to use the Internet and big data to find and analyze consumers, and quickly define customers through Internet channels.

　　Transformation is inseparable from people and organizations. Organizational change is the top priority of digital transformation. The organizational change facing digital transformation is not only digital, but also dynamic and continuous. So the transformation is about leadership and organizational culture. In the process of organization building, the leadership of middle and senior management should also adapt to the new requirements of the digital age, such as leading change, driving innovation, deepening collaboration, bold authorization, empowering employees, stimulating enthusiasm, digital sensitivity and awareness, etc. The organization generated in the process of change is dynamic, so as long as the organization construction grasps the direction, there is no need to pursue specific structure and form, because the characteristic of the digital age is change, and the core is efficiency, agility, openness and platformization.

　　The core of digital transformation is real and reliable data. The purpose is to promote the flow of data in the value chain of the whole life cycle. Different companies have different ways and means, but we must establish the thinking to adapt to digital changes in the digital age. Sometimes thinking is more important than change. Only with the idea of digital transformation can we consider top-level planning, organizational change, exploration and practice.