The West Base of Kangshuo Group, located in High-tech Zone, Jingyang, is the world’s largest industrial 3D printing project and will be put into operation at the end of this month. This is one of the five distributed intelligent manufacturing bases of Kangshuo Group in China, and the other four are in Beijing, Ningbo, Dengzhou and Foshan.
The technology of 3D printing is still a bit strange to the public. Therefore, Liu Bin, Chairman of Kangshuo Group, gave a popular explanation to the reporter: “It may take one month to process a very complicated and high-precision workpiece with traditional machine tools, or even impossible to complete, but with 3D printing technology, one week or even shorter time is enough to finish it with high quality. Therefore, it greatly saves the processing cost.” Liu Bin introduced that the 3D printing technology has been widely applied to the casting of high-end jewelry currently, and is gradually moving into industries closely related to people’s livelihood, such as medical care, aerospace, archaeology, and automobile.
Why is the project finally located in Deyang? Liu Bin revealed four reasons. First, in the 7th Plenary Session of the 8th Deyang Municipal Committee of the CPC, it is proposed that an internationally competitive equipment-manufacturing capital will be built to transform Deyang’s “Manufacturing” to “Intelligent Manufacturing”. Thus, Kangshuo Group feels the city’s sincerity in sophisticated technology like 3D printing. Second, Deyang is strong in manufacturing. Kangshuo Group, a corporation of cutting-edge technology, can better integrate into its environment and obtain upstream and downstream facilities more easily. Third, more than half of China’s heavy industry concentrates in the western region. As a result, it can help to go to the market to settle here. Fourth, it is due to a love knot. Liu Bin said, “My hometown is Shanghai while my father went to Chongqing to join the Third-Line Construction. Now, as his son, I think it may be a return of ‘the love knot of the Third-Line Construction’ to put such a good project in Deyang.”
The West Base project was contracted in late September last year based on initial contact, of which the construction began in early October. Now, it will be put into production. What happened during the past half year has amazed Liu Bin. “This is ‘Deyang speed’. I just feel it’s more efficient than that in the coastal area.” The project enjoys “attentive” services for factory and even power and water supply from Deyang’s government departments at all levels. Zhang Shuo, director of R&D department of the West Base, thinks alike. “When the project started, I came to Deyang to instruct it with several other technicians. Accommodation might have been a problem for us because we were unfamiliar with this city. However, the government of Jingyang District arranged apartments and vehicles for us within one day, and thus there was no need to worry about logistics for our work.”
“With the beautiful environment and high-quality and efficient government services, we believe it is a right choice to settle here.” Liu Bin said so.
The reporter has learned that the Base was stationed in the High-tech Zone, Jingyang in 2018 with a 3-year construction period. Upon completion, it will become a key intelligent manufacturing service base for the defense industry, energy power and military projects in Southwest China. It will also create a comprehensive project that integrates R&D, production, application and service as well as military and civilian integration, industrial chain support, industrial design, industrial cloud services and education and training.
With 3D printing industry cluster as the core, the project incorporates intelligent manufacturing and the R&D, manufacturing, design, training and financial resources of high-tech industries like the “Internet +” as a way to develop industrial park economy. With a good environment for both work and life, the park develops a technology industrial park of intelligent manufacturing from the perspective of urban development. Park-Industrialization-Urbanization is the keynote for the future park development in a new context, where industrial development, ecological protection, living environment and people’s livelihood are taken into account as a whole and and integrated into the overall spatial planning of the park/city. Upon completion, it will become the center of service, manufacturing, demonstration, exhibition, application, training, market and R&D of 3D printing in Sichuan and the western region, which will greatly stimulate the 3D technology industry development in our city and even in Sichuan Province.
It is reported that the Base will import 48 sets of the world’s top industrial-grade 3D printing production lines, mainly for the cooperation with China National Erzhong Group Co., Dongfang Turbine Co. Ltd., Dongfang Electric Machinery Co., Ltd and other key industrial enterprises in Southwest China. In this way, it can promote the combination of advanced technology such as additive manufacturing with traditional industries, and then lead to the transformation and upgrading of Deyang’s industries. Through the combination of 3D printing and Deyang’s advantageous traditional industries, Deyang’s industry can achieve the “Industry 4.0” standards. On this basis, its industrial revitalization will be accelerated and economy will develop with high quality.