Creating a fully connected intelligent factory: Tianwen Printing's practical experience in digital intelligence sharing!
On September 18-19, 2025, the Printing and Packaging Industry Economic Forum and the National Printing Managers Annual Conference were grandly held in Hangzhou, Zhejiang. At the meeting, numerous industry leaders delivered a series of wonderful presentations, inspiring new thoughts and directions for the participating colleagues. Next, we will gradually compile the highlights from the annual conference, and more exciting content is worth looking forward to!
This issue highlights the speech by Yuan Chengzhi, Deputy General Manager of Hunan Tianwen Xinhua Printing Co., Ltd., titled "Innovation-Driven Development, Technology Empowering the Future - Exploration of Collaborative Innovation in the Book Printing Industry Chain."
In the wave of the era where technological changes and industrial revolutions are deeply intertwined, the new quality of productive forces is reshaping the underlying logic of traditional manufacturing at a formidable pace. As a benchmark enterprise in the book and periodical printing sector, Hunan Tianwen Xinhua Printing Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as Tianwen Printing) is committed to achieving transformation and upgrading through systematic innovative technology practices. It aims to build a digitally intelligent, green, and collaborative new production system, providing a new model for the industry to tackle common issues such as unstable quality, excessive waste, and low efficiency, and to promote high-quality development in the book and periodical printing industry.Building a Digital Intelligence Foundation: Constructing a Full-Chain Intelligent FactoryTianwen Printing focuses on the two core objectives of quality improvement and efficiency enhancement, actively exploring the application of digital intelligence technologies such as artificial intelligence, cloud computing, big data, and the Internet of Things in the book and periodical printing industry, and has fully launched its digital intelligence construction project. Guided by the principles of standardized quality, intelligent production, scaled capacity, and integrated services, the project centers on building a highly integrated next-generation enterprise management information system that covers "intelligent operations, intelligent warehousing and logistics, intelligent marketing, intelligent manufacturing, and intelligent supply chain," supported by intelligent production and logistics equipment. This enables seamless production data flow, flexible manufacturing, and intelligent management, promoting the establishment of a modern book and periodical printing manufacturing service system.Next, here are some highlights of Tianwen Printing's digital intelligence construction.1. Fully integrate core business processes and establish closed-loop management.The full-chain processes of book and periodical business-typesetting, quotation estimation, order acceptance, prepress, process BOM, planning, procurement, warehousing, production, production data collection, finished products, and delivery-are all interconnected. Data process closure is achieved through three main platforms: accounting, data-driven, and financial management. Information flow is fully integrated across four levels: supply chain collaboration, enterprise operations management, on-site control, and equipment management.2. Application of a full-chain intelligent warehousing and logistics system.Tianwen Printing's warehousing and logistics face challenges such as a wide variety of products, rapid production pace, multiple processes, complex routes, peak load pressure, and multiple connections. The intelligent logistics equipment combines 3D laser obstacle avoidance with the Hawk Eye monitoring system, establishing a 'double safety' system for human-vehicle mixed traffic. On the system side, intelligent scheduling software in combination with digital twin technology enables optimal path planning and real-time control for dozens of AGV vehicles within the factory, spanning business, production, warehousing and logistics, equipment scheduling, and security monitoring. The deployment of these systems allows the old factory to achieve an intelligent upgrade of the entire plant's materials and logistics without halting production.3. Achieve data-driven, digitally integrated, and intelligence-enabled operations.Through data-driven practices, Tianwen Printing achieves transparency and automation in prepress business management, making file management efficient, accurate, and progress controllable. In raw material distribution, automatic generation of preparation documents is realized through linkage with production planning, and full automation is achieved with suppliers' software systems. This ensures consistency between materials and records, implements order-based material issuance, and provides real-time data visualization. For semi-finished product distribution, product structure and process route information are integrated to automatically determine transportation destinations and facilitate combined automated and manual handling.Furthermore, Tianwen Printing leverages digital intelligence construction to empower production management. By collecting equipment data and coordinating with the MES system, data is applied to work orders, production execution, and management processes. Production data is visualized, allowing workshop managers to monitor real-time machine conditions, quickly identify abnormalities, and respond promptly. By integrating data across all scenarios, comprehensive data analysis delivers real-time feedback on operational efficiency.
Speech by Yuan Chengzhi, Deputy General Manager of Tianwen Printing, at the Annual MeetingInnovation Breakthrough: Overcoming Key Core TechnologiesBook and print enterprises face numerous challenges, such as low labor rates, short deadlines, rising labor costs, and increasing prices of raw and auxiliary materials. Tianwen Printing adopts a dual-driven strategy of independent research and collaborative problem-solving, establishing deep cooperation with multiple service providers, accelerating the cultivation of high-tech, high-quality, and highly efficient productivity. The company has achieved outstanding results in technology innovation fields such as new technologies, new processes, new materials, and informatization of management systems, obtaining 39 independent intellectual property rights so far. Below are some of the original achievements in prepress, printing, and postpress stages.1. Prepress StageThe file comparison application software can compare and verify printing files against imposition files to detect quality issues that are difficult to identify or often overlooked during manual proofreading. It is highly efficient and accurate. The compared large format files can be simultaneously sent to the printing workshop to serve as a basis for online printing quality inspection systems and the first proof comparison.2. Printing StageThe online printing quality inspection system is centered on the printing proof software, which uses algorithms to obtain real-time printed samples, achieving an online detection speed of 55,000 sheets per hour. It automatically compares printed samples with prepress files, inspecting each print and marking defective ones. This system is synchronized with the automatic rejection system to ensure that every print with quality defects is accurately identified.The automatic rejection system performs intelligent analysis according to preset standards, accurately identifying defective products on the production line and removing them to ensure a 100% pass rate for stacks entering the rotary book collection, bundling, and board-strapping line. It is highly automated, with high accuracy, stability, and continuity, adaptable to various sizes and materials of printed products, improving the overall efficiency and product quality of the production line.
Tianwen Printing Automatic Waste Removal SystemThe paper roll automatic feeding system conveys paper rolls to the machine's paper roll storage position via AGV, automatically separates the outer packaging of the paper rolls, and then automatically delivers them to the paper rack feeding position, completing automatic paper feeding and realizing automatic paper splicing. It can seamlessly integrate with WMS, ERP, and MES systems, recording and tracking information for each feeding batch, uploading real-time equipment operating status, consumable inventory, fault codes, and other data, and supporting AI predictive maintenance.The rotary book collecting, bundling, and palletizing linkage line uses a human-machine interface and a servo system. Through automatic bundling and intelligent gantry robots, it achieves an intelligent bundling and stacking process. Entire bundles of books with pallets can be automatically stacked in and out, while also laying the foundation for the automatic sheet feeding system of subsequent binding linkage lines, providing a reliable solution.
Tianwen printing rotation book post collection and bundling board linkage line
3. Post-press link
In the post-press link, Tianwen Printing has introduced intelligent devices such as automatic bookmark conveying, self-stacking, strapping, palletizing, labeling and automatic packaging, and cooperated with the binding equipment graphic and text error detection system, micro-character inkjet system, online high-speed dynamic weighing system, cover automatic calibration device and automatic post-processing equipment to achieve the same improvement in quality and efficiency.
Collaborative innovation: build an industrial symbiotic ecology
The cultivation of new quality productivity is inseparable from the ecological environment of collaborative innovation in the industrial chain. Tianwen Printing actively cooperates with upstream and downstream enterprises such as equipment manufacturers, material suppliers, and software service providers to form an innovation consortium, integrate the advantageous resources of all links in the industrial chain, form a cross-enterprise and cross-field R&D cooperation platform, focus on core areas, and carry out systematic research and development in intelligent equipment, process technology, cutting-edge applications, etc., leading the book and periodical printing industry from relying on a single technology or link to the "system innovation" stage covering the whole chain of design, production, management, service, etc. Realize the independence of intellectual property rights, the localization of equipment, the technology reaches or surpasses the international leading level, and provides replicable technical solutions for the industry.
In the future, Tianwen Printing will further expand the depth and breadth of collaborative innovation, continue to promote the industry at a higher level, realize the systematic and integrated innovation of the whole process and all elements, build a stronger and more efficient industrial chain, and continue to lead the industrial upgrading.
Standing at the critical point of industry change, Tianwen Printing calls on partners from all walks of life in the industry to jointly devote themselves to the research and exploration of future technologies in book and periodical printing. When the fire of innovation forms a prairie fire, traditional book printing will truly realize the ecological leap from manufacturing to intelligent manufacturing, and radiate new vitality and vitality in the new era of development.