Exploring this new field, the action will precede the concept and rely more on the perception of the “sinking market.”
Editor’s note: This article comes from the public number “Tencent Institute“, author Hu Jiaheng (Chief Operating Officer, Xingqun Power Group). Authorized to reprint.
“The first half of the mobile Internet is nearing completion, and the prelude to the second half is being opened.” This is the judgment of CEO Ma Huateng in an open letter on the eve of the 2018 Tencent Global Partner Conference. So what is the industry internet? Where is the entrance to the industry Internet? What is the future of the industrial Internet? In order to seek consensus, Tencent Research Institute held the second phase of “Training Researchers” in Shenzhen, and discussed with the industry and academics more than 30 people to discuss hot topics in the Internet industry.
In the topic sharing session, Hu Jiaheng, the chief operating officer of Xingqun Power Group, introduced the four “moats” that need to be crossed before landing on the other side of the industry Internet from the perspective of the market and users. 
Hu Jiaheng for theme sharing
[Article Highlights]
The three stories of user self-awareness
Entering the “four big rivers” of the industrial Internet
Artificial river island river expert river crossing river
The end of the industry Internet: production and elimination of one
Three stories and four great rivers
Columbus thought to death that he arrived in the East Indies. This is his original goal concept, so Columbus also called the Native Americans seen in the Indians (indias, Spanish Indians).
This story is repeated. From the industrial revolution to the Internet era, many great actions by pathfinders into the emerging fields have already reached the middle of the road, and suddenly found that they far exceeded the original concept.
Today, the New World that people have discovered is the “industry Internet.”
In order to awaken and deepen the confidence of the public, especially investors, the new related concepts, like building blocks, begin to squash the horizon. butTo be frank, sometimes even if the concept seems to be loud, it is actually not enough. The reason is also very simple: to explore this new field, the action will precede the concept and the reliance on the “sinking market”.
So next, let’s look at such a basic fact.
A decade ago, SMEs created end products and services worth 60% of GDP, completed 65% of invention patents and more than 80% of new product development, providing more than 80% of urban jobs. . Now, the consumer market has already completed the Internet with payment as an entry point. In the industrial and commercial industry, almost no real Internetization process has begun.
Fortunately, when the industrial and commercial industry has not yet begun to truly become Internet-based, some business owners have begun to “self-discover” – they acted on their own. Here I can talk about three sinking market users and spontaneously “weave” the story of the industry Internet.
The first story, “Why do business owners use energy management plugins as search engines?”
In a rubber factory in Qingdao, the business owner took the initiative to give a lot of calls to a sales company: the business owner wants to figure out the energy consumption data of a certain process in the factory, the mixing process, and then adjust the enterprise according to the data. Production operation plan. Meeting this requirement was not complicated, and it took a few days to develop a platform-based plug-in to display the data for this process.
But the business owner called almost every few days to ask, what does this data mean? So what does the data mean? In the past, energy management personnel looked at energy consumption data. Now, business owners themselves look at energy data, and the role of caring for energy has changed. In the past, energy managers may look at data once a month, and now business owners have to look at it several times a day because the business owner uses this data as a chain to understand their business operations. When a user needs to search for a single data several times a day, the search engine appears.
All management actions, the first step is measurement, and the measurement needs to rely on undifferentiated data. And energy data, more focused, electricity, almost every link in the operation of the company, where is it from where, where to go, can not lie. Then, are small enterprises located in third- and fourth-tier cities with management needs for business operations and the need for energy data management? This story has given the answer.
One of the important entrances to the industry Internet, the production line of industrial and commercial enterprises. The entrance to the entrance is in energy data management.
The second story, “Can you draw the radio waves?”
One of my friends came to me to find a bitter water one day. The original reason is this: he went to a university to talk about ppt, how the content helps college dormitory to do energy-saving management, ppt prepared more than 100 pages, and half of it was interrupted. It is. The other party said, how do we save energy?This is not very interesting. I have a need. Can you identify the electric kettle and hair dryer in the bedroom, and then power off?
The other party spent a lot of time to introduce the case of college dormitory because of the use of high-power appliances, which is related to the safety of students, and the safety accident is a veto to the head of the university.
Technically speaking, drawing the electrical waveform of a specific electrical appliance, and then performing the identification operation, this matter has been proposed by overseas researchers in the 1990s. Domestically, there is no manufacturer that has similar technology, but does not enter such a A specific closed scene. But this has not much to do with electricity, and the decisive factor is the algorithm and training data.
Requirements are becoming more specific and seem to be “reasonable”, but this is the real need from the energy management market.
The third story, “Don’t think that migrant workers are cheating on the face and making a show.”
In the past, the industry that is least likely to have Internet technology innovations, such as relying on heavy capital and high turnover in the real estate construction industry, the trend of Internet has also emerged.
Because of the work relationship, we have had a lot of dealings with a Shanghai-based employer. The real estate development construction company, which is owned by the employer, found that the real estate industry’s profit trend is irreversible, and they have many ways to reduce costs and expand the service chain, including Internet standardization software for the construction industry. Not only can you use it, but it can also be exported to other real estate developers.
They talked about introducing facial recognition into building management. Is this an action of “lighting out the hoe” when planting a land? At the beginning, we also had doubts. Later, after many visits, we found that the employer’s desk was cluttered with various machines. The host was sorry to say that, I am embarrassed that the developers are testing. Then the question that existed before appeared again: Are you really doing the development of this system?
The answer is yes. And why is the use of facial recognition technology, the reason is very grounded.
The construction contractor always encounters the risk that the subcontractor will disappear for various reasons. At this time, the workers who work can only find the total contractor to pay for the work. If the worker, like a punch card, recognizes the front part of the day, he can count which workers, as well as the working hours. The general contractor can directly pay the wages to the worker’s account and then deduct the corresponding salary from the subcontractor’s contract. Because the scene of real estate construction is notOften closed, facial recognition can work as long as the entrance and exit are placed.
Unlike the development path of the traditional Internet company “Discovering Demand – Business Plan – Financing – Product Prototype”, the company’s development path is: project acquisition – acquisition of funds – project incubation product prototype – project iteration Product prototype. To put it bluntly, it is not to rely on the “expected + free” model to cultivate user habits, but to rely on the “project + alternative” model to iterate user habits.
The three stories mentioned above, the first two are related to my industry background – the traditional power energy industry, and the last one has spread to the traditional industry. From these three stories, we can experience or feel different trends.
These products and services for the industrial Internet are inherently different in four ways:
The demand is mostly incubated from companies that actually need it, rather than flat buildings;
The companies that can hatch these needs are mostly in the positive direction, not the money of the investors;
Embed with profitable projects, incubating is profitable, profitability is incubation;
has strong replication in the industry.
This does not seem to be a moat – that is, the technical threshold, as if I am a traditional industry, I spontaneously use my own funds, technical strength, plus an externally empowered Internet platform. For some large companies, this idea is inevitable. But in fact, there are four moats in front of us – the industrial Internet of every industry may be different.
Energy Internet will be one of the most important application areas of the industry Internet. Focusing on the energy Internet industry, where are these four moats? How to cross these four moats?
[1] Artificial River: It is better to have expensive “human tactics”, not cheap “machine substitution”
The larger the company, the longer the market chain, the less Easy to start – even if you help him actually reduce the financial costs. The first moat to cross is a huge cost contradiction: I would rather have expensive “human tactics” than cheap “machine substitutions.” why?
After the Spring Festival in 2019, there was a news that many young people chose to take delivery and were unwilling to go to work in the factory. At least since 2000, basic every yearThere will be such reports. The current decline in factory attractiveness is indeed a fact.
In the film “Flower Season Rainy Season” which was released 22 years ago, the heroine can also go to the production line during the summer vacation, and generously discuss the meaning of “stretching” with the neighboring workers – “Large, probably English line” What do you mean?”. In the movie, the production line represents a vibrant Shenzhen.
Tokyo, Japan, 60 years ago, Toyota started the Toyota production line and the Toyota Lean Production Management Law, which are constantly being studied by future generations. The factory has become the engine of the rise of the country, and it has become the dojo of Japan’s “four saints” to teach the Southeast Asian entrepreneurs.
106 years ago on the Ford Motor Company in Michigan, USA, countless workers collaborated to create a record of producing a T-car in 90 minutes. At this time, the factory replaced the traditional workshop for the first time, replacing the traditional salary system, replacing the way workers are trained and promoted, and shaping the modern enterprise.
So you see, the factory has always been the main battlefield for corporate organizational change.
But don’t forget, Ford’s production line employees earn $5 a day. This level of wages can buy a T-car that they produce in five and a half months. On the other hand, many Chinese factories are not fundamentally different from Ford’s production lines 106 years ago, and even less than 106 years ago. Some factory managers are also reluctant to “substitute machines” and are more willing to use human tactics to support orders. In the huge factory, 2,000 employees repeated mechanical labor from morning to night, and the wage level grew slowly, and the future could not be seen.
Why is the factory not willing to “substitute for a machine” and still employ a large number of people to carry out mechanical labor? From the perspective of wage costs, machines are more economical. It is only from the safety of the survival of the enterprise that the employment is the safest. why?
Because people are the best flexible producers. Most production lines of Chinese companies face disorderly status, disorder of supply chain, disorder of orders, disorder of cash flow… When you can’t judge what products to produce in the next three months, you will also choose Give up using the machine, but use people. Because people can do any action, work according to the time and rhythm you need.
But now young people are not willing to go to the factory, this is a problem. So it is difficult to predict, difficult to manage, and difficult to order. This formed a Mobius ring. If these problems are not resolved, the young people will further “abandon” the factory and force the factory to abandon the past. This technology or industrial Internet must be solved, but it is not a problem that companies in a field can solve alone.It is a systems engineering.
The factory needs a huge change, which is also the opportunity of the industry Internet. Let every factory and every piece of raw energy data management be able to promote all living beings – help each company to improve operational efficiency. But not every company can enter this method – to manage energy data. Get data, links, and use technology to solve problems of forecasting, management, and disorder. Then, young people use their actions to vote and bury factories that are unwilling to change.
Young people “abandoning” factories is an inconspicuous aspect of the industrial Internet, but the background is extremely important. When more and more young people “abandon” factories, it is the moment when the factory begins to iterate.
[2] Gudao River: huge user selection bias, easy to appear in the new era of going to the countryside
Innovation in almost all business models is based on technological change. At the same time, an important reason why a technological change can support the establishment of a business model is not the advancement of the technology, but only its great improvement in efficiency.
Zhang Sanfeng, Associate Professor, School of Business, Nanjing University of Information Science and Technology, Wei Xihai, Professor of the Institute of Economic Development and Reform of Huaqiao University, wrote “Is Information and Communication Technology Reduces Energy Consumption of Enterprises: Evidence from Survey Data of Chinese Manufacturing Enterprises” Using the survey data of Chinese manufacturing companies provided by the World Bank, the following facts were found:
Information and communication technology (ICT) can help them improve energy efficiency, whether they are capital-intensive, labor-intensive, or involved in intermediate types of businesses. ;
Whether it is a mature company or a start-up, ICT can help them improve energy efficiency, and the more mature the company, the higher the efficiency;
ICT can help them improve energy efficiency, both for large and small businesses.
Energy data management can improve the operational efficiency of enterprises, because its essence is to fully data the key nodes, milestones, control points and checkpoints in the operation process of the enterprise, and then continuously plan, execute, correct and iterate. . If you question this law, it is equivalent to questioning Dai Minghuan (PDCA) and shaking the foundation of modern enterprise management.
For example, energy data management will come back to affect financial planning, budgeting, and accounting. In Chongmei Meishan Vehicle Co., Ltd., they are using financial means to enter the field of energy management.. Energy management is called management content that is as important as quality management and safety management. Then, the management quota is clearly defined, the measurement accuracy is clarified, and the classification and closed loop are performed after receiving the clear measurement results.
The most intuitive result is that the cost of bicycles has dropped by 78.28 yuan. The financial cost for the whole year is reduced at the level of 10 million yuan. The more detailed changes are: 1. The production schedule has therefore been adjusted. Increase electricity production in the middle of the night to reduce electricity costs in peaks and valleys. The cost of electricity for this one-tonne steel piece decreased by 188.16 yuan over the same period, and the annual electricity-saving cost was 3,407,900 yuan. 2. The electricity source was adjusted accordingly. Through the purchase of retained electricity with the park agreement, the annual electricity cost savings of 12.79 million yuan; 3. The use of gas mode has been adjusted. The six-month operating data shows that the cost of flat-cars has dropped by 78.28 yuan. At the same time, the industrial gas station house was revoked, the number of personnel was reduced by 6 people, and the annual cost savings was about 800,000 yuan.
This is just a typical three data adjustments. All of these changes, the explosion point comes from the concept of financial access to all access to energy management, in the financial start of the train, the company has a cross-sectoral, objective data link – energy data chain.
So you will find that you can build a bridge between finance and business with energy management. It is actually a way of communicating the coordinated operations of different departments. In other words, it increases the efficiency of the entire business operation, not just energy savings. Therefore, in fact, energy data management also picks up enterprises.
This is like a tongue twister: energy data management can be used to improve the efficiency of every business. But not every company can enter this method – to manage energy data. So, what kind of enterprise is suitable for energy data management?
Critically sensitive – companies with higher energy costs as a percentage of product/service costs need energy data management. This is a simple user portrait;
Sensitive to competition – The more transparent and open the market competition, the more energy data management is needed. This is a simple industry survival (can’t be called growth) needs;
Sensitive to management – companies that need revenue and profit from organizational management need energy data management. The reason is also very simple: management is not sitting and talking, it is practice science. It needs to measure and grab hands.
Electricity gives companies the ability to manage this dimension. What’s interesting about this thing is that electricity is actually an indiscriminate product, you can’t say which one.Power is more temperament, or more eye-catching, the only judgment is the unit price. The magic is that when electricity begins to flow in enterprises and production lines, it becomes the most aware of the existence of this company.
If these three kinds of sensitivities are lacking and energy data management is started unselected in the production lines of large and medium-sized enterprises, there will be a scenario where programmers don’t know what data to collect on the production line because they are both strange to the production line. It is also unfamiliar to the operation of the enterprise; although the machines purchased in different years have their own good communication, but they are different from each other, the data cannot be exchanged, forming a “data island”.
A production process transformation can take more than 140 days, becoming a new era of code farmers “going to the countryside.” This is not the most terrible. The most terrible thing is that for the same company, the data is immediately meaningless, because the combination of production line machines is completely different, everything starts from the beginning.
[3] Expert River: Linking Decentralized Expert Networks to Form a Fixed Enterprise User Model
Energy Data Drives Enterprise Operations is Not a Hypothesis but a Facts. After the industrial Internet began to detonate, regardless of whether or not to make active choices, each manufacturing company will enter the track where energy data drives the operation of the enterprise, just as Zhang Ruimin proposed in 1999 that the enterprise “will die without touching the net.” The reason is simple:
The need to reduce product costs. Energy accounts for varying degrees of proportion in product manufacturing. The more companies with higher proportions, the more sensitive they are to energy data;
Reducing the need for business errors. Enterprise operations are upgraded by management. The first step in management is measurement. The first step in measurement is data. Energy data is the most loyal ambassador of an enterprise’s entire value chain. It is as if some people only look at three indicators to judge macroeconomic trends: cement, steel, and electricity consumption.
If you want to find an industry scenario that fully reflects the energy data-driven business operations, then the paper industry is more typical. Because it is an energy-intensive industry with a relatively long production line, these lines use different energy sources. More critically, it is easier to use energy data to drive the energy data of the process into the operation management of the enterprise, so that the energy data becomes the basis of enterprise management. In one sentenceTo illustrate, if you understand how energy management in a paper mill is achieved, it is clear about the logic behind how energy data drives business operations.
To figure this out, 160 pages are not enough. This is the answer of Dr. Zhang Yanzhong of South China University of Technology. In his doctoral thesis “Data-driven papermaking process energy system energy consumption abnormal diagnosis research”, 160 pages are used, which only explains how energy data judges energy consumption. This is a malfunction.
The fault is “the deviation of the observed variable or the object parameter within the acceptable range”. It is understood from another angle. It is the basis for knowing where the fault is and can make a judgment. It is a complete grasp of the energy data of the whole enterprise, which reduces The risk cost of enterprise operation, indirectly, provides a basis for decision-making to force enterprises to reduce financial costs. This is how energy data drives business operations. NASA set up a mechanical fault diagnosis and prevention team in 1967.
The prerequisite for the establishment of an energy data management model for companies such as paper mills is to form a network of experts across all aspects of the solution – experts from institutions and research institutes that can solve a certain problem. Link up and then open this whole set of models to be effective.
Similarly, wood processing plants are another type of energy data management model for enterprises. The same is true for cold storage. But the technologies and disciplines involved are different.
So, this is the fourth moat we have to cross: a huge cross-disciplinary collaboration, which in the past was rarely achieved on a large scale except in the military and aerospace fields. Many people know “Industry Internet +”, but it is not sure how big the “+” is.
[4] Cross-border rivers: cross-disciplinary cross-disciplinary cooperation, and meet with basic disciplines
Let’s take a closer look at the energy data management of a single scene, and what basic sciences will meet at the crossroads.
Or from the energy point of view, the refrigeration energy consumption of the cold storage generally accounts for 70% of the cold storage operation, and the reduction of the cold storage cost will directly bring about the possibility of lowering the fresh food price. This is an exciting proportion, which means that business managers are highly sensitive to energy costs.
For a more specific case, in a new food cold chain logistics cold storage project in Baoshan District, Shanghai (covering an area of 8434 square meters), the main technical requirements of the project are: temperature -18 degrees; total volume 18790 cubic meters; design purchase The temperature is -8 degrees; the designed shipping temperature is -18 degrees; the daily purchase amount is calculated as 5% of the storage amount…
How can I reduce the cost of this cold storage and make fresh food cheaper?
The first step is modeling, which involves the automation of architectural design. The BIM (Building Information Modeling) model of the project to be built. We need to display and evaluate the five major indicators of the project: “cold storage design, cold storage envelope structure, refrigeration and system energy efficiency, energy recovery and renewable resource utilization, cold storage operation management”. Simply put, this is a computational process. It involves calculating the external surface area of the cold storage, the volume of the cold storage, the area ratio of the window and the wall (related to the light transmission and heat dissipation), the heat transfer coefficient of the outer wall, the heat transfer coefficient of the outer window, the heat transfer coefficient of the roof, and the like.
The second step is analysis. For example, analyzing natural daylighting, Shanghai longitude 121.47, latitude 31.23, using full cloudy simulation, to obtain an analysis result; then, for example, analyzing the data obtained by the direct sunlight of the building, and obtaining an analysis result; analyzing the ability of rooftop photovoltaic power generation Then, compared with the design power consumption, the energy saving level data is obtained… Other analysis indicators include: air tightness and anti-seepage, electrical and lighting system energy efficiency, defrost drainage system energy efficiency and so on.
The third step is evaluation, which involves setting the baseline for energy management. Bring all the data together for evaluation. Set a baseline for energy management and rate the current state of energy management for the project, such as excellent, good, balanced, and promising.
The fourth step is to start energy management. After knowing the existing data of the project and simulating the missing data through self-development, the energy management potential of the project is exhaustive, and we can improve it by going to the corresponding link.
So, this is a series of assumptions, calculations, and practices. In this process, the entry of interdisciplinary and research is not an embellishment, but a necessity.
Production and Elimination: The End of the Industrial Internet
The frontier of energy data management is the energy Internet, and the energy Internet will be one of the most important application areas of the industry Internet. So what is the nature of the energy Internet? There are many explanations for this answer in China. But I think, at least you need to ask the proponent of this concept, Rifkin.
This is the concept that Rifkin put forward in the Third Industrial Revolution. At the same time, this concept is much hotter in China than in the United States. I believe that Rifkin himself did not realize that this concept will be singled out and evolved into a hot word in the industry. At least in the fall of 2015, in the speech of the Xinhua News Agency, I sat down on the stage and did not feel the special attention of Rifkin on the word energy Internet. In fact, this vocabulary is more generationThe table is a philosophical attitude that belongs to the future.
It means: production and marketing, consumers are also producers, “millions of consumers will produce green energy at the same time in the next 25 years”; it means: the price of electricity disappears because the marginal cost of electricity acquisition is unlimited Approaching zero, that is, “zero marginal cost”; it means that the power company’s sales model no longer exists, that is, no longer rely on the collection of electricity charges to survive.
On this basis, the production efficiency and production mode of human society have undergone major changes, which in turn has created a new industrial revolution.
Let almost everyone participate in economic activities and use the market to reduce transactions to zero marginal costs. If there is a so-called fundamentalist energy Internet, then this is the original intention of the energy Internet. Just as uber appears, everyone can be a consumer, everyone can be a producer, and you don’t have to own a car.
So what is the use of this fundamentalist concept?
My answer is: When Musk knows “first principles,” Dalio knows “principles,” and when Kas knows “limited and infinite games,” see what they have created. I think the future of the industrial Internet should be like this.
More SMEs that have been neglected in the past can use the artificial intelligence service at a cheap price, and then start the process of digitization, and begin to have measurements to start the real operation management;
More basic scientists who have not been linked in the past are linked to different enterprise user scenarios/models to continuously create digital value for different business users;
more traditional industries because The process of digitization accelerated, and it began to abandon the “concepts” of the past and began to grow into the “industry Internet.”