Haorui Rare Earth Co is achieving the automatic control of its production process through digital transformation. [Photo/Baotou news network]

The Baotou Rare Earth High-tech Industrial Development Zone – located in Baotou, in North China's Inner Mongolia autonomous region –is proactively guiding its resident businesses to apply industrial internet technology, in line with the strategic layout of the city's industrial transformation.

Over the past year, the zone has seen 31 of its enterprises complete the installation of the industrial internet. As a result, the businesses have connected to more than 1,000 devices and applied 45 industrial software programs and apps, realizing the collection and aggregation of enterprise data.

This is expected to lay a solid foundation for getting more companies to boost the level of intelligent manufacturing and accelerate their digital transformation.

One of them is Baotou Inst Magnetics New Material Co. It uses intelligent technologies such as 5G network to save labor costs by 10 percent and increase production efficiency and equipment service life by 10 percent. This has also boosted the traceability of finished product quality by 100 percent.

Another – Baotou Haorui Rare Earth Co – recently transitioned to the automatic control of its production process. This is said to have reduced labor costs by 30 percent and equipment maintenance costs by 20 percent, improving product stability by 10 percent and reducing materials losses by an estimated 10 percent.

"We plan to take a year to get more rare earth new material enterprises to complete their move to the industrial internet and another two years to apply the industrial internet to the two leading industries of non-ferrous metals and high-end equipment manufacturing,” said a senior official with the bureau of science and technology in the zone.

After that, plans are for the zone to extend its coverage of the industrial internet system to manufacturers above a designated size – those with annual revenue of 20 million yuan ($3.1 million) or more.