Introduction
In the heart of Southwest China, a leading automaker has taken a monumental step towards the future of manufacturing by creating Asia's largest "Lights-out Factory"—a fully automated, intelligent facility in Chongqing’s Yubei district. This factory integrates cutting-edge technologies such as 5G, AI, digital twins, and flexible manufacturing to drive a new era of automotive production.
But such a groundbreaking transformation wasn’t achieved alone. In partnership with one of China’s top automotive systems integrators and powered by EMQ’s Industrial IoT solutions, this automaker has redefined what’s possible in smart manufacturing. Together, they developed an Industrial IoT platform to automate and optimize the entire production process.
Challenges: Driving Innovation in a Complex Industrial Environment
Massive Data, Minimum Latency
The sheer scale of this facility presented one of the greatest challenges—managing a vast array of automated equipment that continuously generated and transmitted large volumes of data. Ensuring that data moved swiftly and without delay was essential to maintaining efficient production. Even slight lags in communication between devices and sensors could lead to costly inefficiencies.
Seamless Integration Across Diverse Systems
The automaker’s existing MOM, ERP, and SCADA systems each had unique architectures, data formats, and communication protocols. The challenge was to unify these systems into a single, cohesive digital platform while maintaining smooth, uninterrupted operations.
Scaling for the Future
As the factory expanded with new production lines and devices, the platform needed to grow with it. It wasn’t just about handling current operations; the solution had to support long-term scalability to ensure the automaker could continue innovating and increasing production capacity.
Uncompromising Reliability
In automotive manufacturing, downtime isn’t just an inconvenience—it directly impacts the bottom line. The automaker needed a platform that could guarantee stability and reliability, ensuring that any system faults or slowdowns wouldn’t disrupt production.
EMQ Powers an Intelligent, Future-Ready Manufacturing Platform
To address these challenges, EMQ’s Industrial IoT solutions were central to building a future-proof platform. Working alongside the integrator, EMQ created a solution that integrated real-time data collection, advanced analytics, and intelligent decision-making into every layer of the factory’s operations.
Low Latency, High-Performance Connectivity
At the edge, NeuronEX provided a critical solution by enabling high-speed, low-latency data access. This industrial software gateway from EMQ seamlessly connected a wide array of machines and sensors, delivering data with minimal delays. NeuronEX erased hardware differences across devices, ensuring smooth communication between equipment and upper-layer applications.
Unified, Real-Time Data Collection
At the core of the solution was EMQX, a powerful MQTT platform that bridged the automaker’s OT and IT systems. EMQX enabled real-time data collection, standardized modeling of device signals, and efficient communication across the factory’s complex ecosystem of machines, sensors, and business systems.
Digital Twin and Data-Driven Insights
The platform also featured advanced digital twin modeling, built on device data, that offered real-time insights into production performance. This gave the automaker unprecedented visibility and control over operations, helping them to optimize efficiency and proactively address potential issues.
Flexible Data Processing with IoT Rule Engine
The EMQX’s rule engine enabled the platform to handle data routing and transformation across different systems and applications. This flexibility allowed for the real-time execution of complex logic, ensuring that data was processed and acted upon quickly and efficiently in various manufacturing scenarios.
Comprehensive Device Management
The solution offered extensive device management capabilities, allowing the automaker to monitor, control, and update thousands of connected devices from a single platform. Devices were managed across their entire lifecycle, from initial deployment to ongoing operation, ensuring continuous, reliable performance.
Unleashing Operational Excellence: Scalability, Security, and Reliability
Seamless Cross-System Integration
The platform simplified the integration of diverse systems such as MES, ERP, and SCADA by unifying data formats and communication protocols. This streamlined data exchange between the factory's various systems, offering the automaker a single, cohesive view of their entire production process and supply chain.
High Scalability for Future Growth
Designed with scalability in mind, the platform easily accommodated the automaker’s growing number of devices and production lines. Whether adding new equipment or expanding existing operations, the solution supported continuous growth without performance degradation.
Reliability and Fault Tolerance
EMQ’s solution incorporated a distributed, high-availability architecture, ensuring that the platform could handle failures without disrupting production. Redundant systems and automatic failover mechanisms guaranteed that operations remained stable and reliable, even in the face of hardware or software failures.
Rock-Solid Security for Critical Operations
With industry-grade encryption, authentication mechanisms, and strict access control policies, the platform provided robust protection for sensitive production data. The automaker could confidently expand its digital operations, knowing that its critical systems were fully secured.
Accelerated Time-to-Market for Applications
The platform’s open API capabilities allowed for rapid development of new applications, enabling the automaker to quickly roll out innovative solutions, such as predictive maintenance and advanced analytics tools. This flexibility enhanced the automaker’s ability to adapt to changing business needs and improve operational efficiency.
Real-World Impact: Measurable Gains in Efficiency
Within two years, the EMQ-powered Industrial IoT platform transformed the automaker’s factory into one of the most advanced production facilities in the world. The results speak for themselves:
- End-to-End Latency of Under 200ms: Critical production processes experienced minimal delays, ensuring that the factory met stringent performance benchmarks for high-speed automotive manufacturing.
- Rapid Scaling: Supporting over 7,900 devices, 87 production lines, and seven workshops, the platform demonstrated its ability to grow alongside the automaker’s expanding operations, simplifying the process of adding new equipment.
- Reshaping Automotive Manufacturing: By adopting a microservices-based architecture, the automaker laid the foundation for a flexible, scalable, and open ecosystem—paving the way for continued innovation and future growth.
Looking Ahead: A Vision for the Future of Smart Manufacturing
This collaboration between EMQ, the integrator, and the automaker has not only set new benchmarks for smart manufacturing but also paved the way for the future of the industry. With a fully integrated digital foundation and the ability to rapidly adapt to new technologies, this factory is now a global model for innovation in automotive production.