How Can Suining Kuanzhai Printing Promote Smart Transformation And Digital Transformation With An Annual Production Capacity Of 1.5 Million Boxes Of Cigarette Packs?

Suining Kuanzhai Printing Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Suining Kuanzhai Printing") was established in December 2019. It is a major strategic deployment of the strategic cooperation between Sichuan Tobacco and Suining Municipal Government, and is a wholly-owned diversified enterprise under Sichuan Tobacco Investment Co., Ltd. The company aims to build a green and smart benchmark factory in the packaging industry, with cigarette trademarks, composite paper, frame paper, liner paper, and connecting paper as its main production and operation businesses. It prints brand cigarette trademarks such as "Kuanzhai", "Jiaozi", "Huanghe Tower", and "Liqun", providing tobacco material supporting services for tobacco industry enterprises such as Sichuan Tobacco, Hubei Tobacco, Zhejiang Tobacco, and Shaanxi Tobacco. It is also the only designated production point for duty-free cigarette labels in the industry.

At the entrance of the company
The annual production capacity of the company's cigarette packs is 1.5 million boxes, and it has successfully passed the national high-tech enterprise certification, CNAS laboratory accreditation, and municipal technical center certification. It has been selected as one of the top 100 printing and packaging enterprises in China, one of the first innovative small and medium-sized enterprises in Sichuan Province, and a "specialized, refined, unique, and new" small and medium-sized enterprise in Sichuan Province.
Background of the construction of smart factories
The report of the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China emphasized that manufacturing enterprises should accelerate the development of high-end, intelligent, and green industries, and regard it as an important focus of building a modern industrial system. The Third Plenum of the 20th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China once again emphasized the need to promote the deep integration of the real economy and the digital economy, and accelerate the digital, networked, and intelligent development of the manufacturing industry. Recently, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and three other departments issued the latest "Implementation Guidelines for Digital Transformation of Manufacturing Enterprises", which pointed out the need to systematically improve the level of enterprise transformation, promote the deep integration of the real economy and the digital economy, and accelerate the promotion of new industrialization.
At the beginning of its construction in 2020, Suining Kuanzhai Printing fully recognized through research and learning exchanges that digitization and intelligence are key supports for the high-quality development of enterprises. The company actively responds to policies, targets the direction of digitization, promotes the integration and mutual promotion of innovation chain and industrial chain, explores the integration of intelligent operation, production, and management, promotes the construction of digital infrastructure, intelligent scene innovation, and innovative application development, actively explores new models for the transformation from traditional printing manufacturing to intelligent manufacturing, and opens up new paths for intelligent manufacturing in the printing industry.
Progress of Intelligent Factory Construction
Suining Kuanzhai Printing has always adhered to the core digital transformation strategy of "digitalization, automation, and intelligence", combined with the characteristics of discrete manufacturing, multi process combination, and long process route in the packaging and printing industry. Through the operation mode of equipment IoT, system integration, and intelligent scene construction, it continuously deepens the integration of data and reality, extracts the core digital requirements of business, constructs an agile business demand response mechanism, simplifies business processes, improves efficiency, and achieves business innovation and management upgrading. Closely connect production, operation, and management upstream and downstream, achieve seamless and collaborative business processes, use data-driven decision-making, continuously improve production efficiency and product quality, reduce operating costs, minimize environmental impact and resource consumption, and enhance the core competitiveness of the enterprise.Inside the Kuanzhai Printing Workshop
01/Improve new digital infrastructure and solidify the foundation of digital transformation technology
By strengthening the construction of new digital infrastructure, improving the technological system framework, and building a practical, forward-looking, and operable digital transformation technology base. It mainly includes two aspects: first, establishing a secure and reliable network foundation. Deploy hyper converged clusters, establish core data center facilities that meet the requirements of network security level protection, and form a basic storage and computing resource guarantee system. Establish a network security protection framework that covers major business scenarios, and achieve network partition management in areas such as office, production, and data centers. The second is to automatically collect information on key elements of the production process. Install intelligent data collection devices on a total of 56 production equipment for 9 key processes, connect the production information management chain of the entire workshop, achieve centralized management and sharing of data online for various departments and links, reduce the transmission of a large amount of paper data information, and achieve intelligent interconnection of key production factors within the enterprise.
02/The system promotes the construction of business applications and accelerates the realization of business digitization and digital business
Focusing on the development needs of informationization, digitization, and intelligence in the company's business, we aim to build practical, lightweight, and convenient applications, forming a comprehensive application system that supports management, business operations, and security. One is to build a digital system for core business. Sort out the core business processes, clarify the influencing factors of each link, continue to carry out information system construction, and continuously enhance new competitive advantages in manufacturing. Deploy business systems such as ERP, MES, TMS, and WMS to achieve online management of core business processes including financial management, production management, procurement management, production execution, warehousing and logistics. Through system integration, a digital closed loop of "planning layer → execution layer → control layer" is formed in the enterprise to improve overall operational and production efficiency. The second is to rely on low code platforms to quickly respond to digital business needs. Deploy office automation systems (OA), promote paperless office and low code applications, effectively standardize approval processes, and improve business demand response speed. Fully leverage the role of low code applications as "agile innovation engines", quickly respond to business scenario requirements, promote the development of business applications from fragmentation to integration, from key node coverage to full business process coverage, and from basic business management to intelligent management decision-making.
03/Deepen the layout of intelligent manufacturing applications and promote innovation in core business scenarios

Continuously exploring the deep integration of new generation information technology and printing manufacturing technology, deploying industrial robots, intelligent logistics and warehousing equipment integration related system software and hardware, and successfully building various intelligent manufacturing application scenarios. Realize automated loading and unloading of offset printing processes, fully automated transportation of materials in main production workshops, efficient logistics and large capacity storage in finished and comprehensive warehouses, and highlight the advantages of intelligent manufacturing. There are mainly four aspects to consider.
(1) Build an information-based logistics transportation system for cigarette packaging production workshops. Optimize production processes through digital management methods to improve the efficiency and accuracy of material flow. Introducing more than 10 AGV logistics transfer vehicles, which are centrally scheduled by TMS, covering three routes from offset printing process to die-cutting process, composite process to gravure printing process, and inspection workshop to finished product warehouse.

AGV logistics operation car
(2) Promote the intelligent transformation of production process equipment. Install 4 sets of offset printing automatic loading and unloading equipment, install automatic conveyor lines at the inlet and outlet of the equipment, connect with AGV for automatic transportation, reduce heavy physical labor intensity, effectively improve equipment operation efficiency, enhance production site safety management and standardization level, and double the loading and unloading efficiency. Completed the transformation of 8 sets of automatic packaging production lines in the inspection workshop, realizing the integrated operation of packaging, bagging, palletizing, labeling and other processes, and promoting the automation of post inspection processes.
(3) Build an intelligent warehousing platform. Build two intelligent three-dimensional warehouses with high-rise shelving storage, and use WMS system to achieve automatic inventory management and batch material tracking, as well as complete automatic inbound and outbound operations of goods. Build an intelligent gravure printing plate roller library, using a frame structure and reciprocating roller chain design to build a three-dimensional library. Through the integration of the plate roller library with the MES system and relying on automation technology, achieve one click precise access and full lifecycle management of plate roller usage, effectively improving the utilization rate of factory space and printing security capabilities.

Intelligent three-dimensional warehouse
(4) Promote the deep integration of business development and digital construction. We will focus on establishing a quality management system, relying on machine vision and flat graphic detection technology to collect quality data, and build an information-based support platform for process quality control. At present, the system has been piloted and applied in key processes such as offset printing, coding, and slitting, and has achieved good results. At the same time, a tobacco label QR code management system will be constructed, and multiple automated verification mechanisms will be deployed at key nodes to achieve online management of the entire lifecycle of QR code storage, retrieval, use, and inspection, effectively preventing errors and reprints.
04/Improve the overall data control capability, promote data circulation and analysis applications
Accelerate the exploration of data potential, actively build data application scenarios, fully unleash the value of data elements, empower ecological collaboration with wisdom, explore innovative production management models, and promote the acceleration and upgrading of smart printing factories. One is to customize a data analysis dashboard based on the advantages of the core system. Realize automatic statistics of production reports through MES system, provide basis for production decisions, and present the production progress, quality, and equipment operation status of the workshop in real-time in the form of kanban. The second is to integrate discrete data to achieve autonomous visualization analysis. Integrate multiple data sources through a reporting platform, independently build a data platform, and integrate all company data into unified management. Realize data visualization analysis in key departments such as operations, quality, and equipment, promote business optimization, and stimulate data innovation vitality.
Progress of Green Construction
The company has always adhered to the development concept of innovation driven, economical and intensive, green and low-carbon, deeply promoted clean production and green manufacturing, actively explored and practiced process and energy consumption reduction, and has achieved good results so far. Entering the production area, different recycling pipelines are distinguished by color: red pipelines are used for exhaust gas recovery, green pipelines are responsible for wastewater circulation, and yellow pipelines undertake the task of waste heat recovery. Together, they build a green development engine for energy conservation and emission reduction.
01/In terms of exhaust gas treatment
Suining Kuanzhai Printing has built a comprehensive exhaust gas collection system covering the entire factory. Five sets of exhaust gas treatment devices have been installed in four processes, including gravure printing, offset printing, composite printing, and paper loading. RTO exhaust gas treatment is carried out through centralized pipeline collection, combustion thermal decomposition, activated carbon+UV light oxidation, and concentrated rotary wheels. This not only effectively improves the overall ability to reduce atmospheric pollutants, but also reduces the cost of environmental damage caused by atmospheric pollution. At present, the efficiency of waste gas recovery in the factory is as high as 90%, and the concentration of VOCs emissions has been reduced to 10mg/m ³, which is being continuously optimized.
02/Water Resource Recycling Utilization
The company has innovatively built a plate making wastewater circulation system, and the treated wastewater can be recycled in equipment such as grinding machines and mesh roller cleaning machines, saving 300 tons of clean water annually. At the same time, the company has carried out waste heat recovery renovation on 12 equipment such as air compressors, blowers, and vacuum pumps, using the recovered heat energy for hot water supply for employees' daily lives, effectively reducing electricity consumption and carbon emissions.

03/In terms of process innovation
The company actively explores new paths for green printing. The first one is to switch the application of water-based ink. By replacing water-based ink, the overall VOCs emissions of the enterprise have been reduced by 50%. Secondly, promote the aluminum free use of cigarette liner paper. By developing breathable and environmentally friendly aluminum free liner paper, the use of aluminum foil raw materials is reduced, pollution is minimized, and green low-carbon is promoted. By applying this coating onto the packaging paper of cigarette packs, the water vapor transmission rate can be reduced by 83.23% compared to the original sample. By promoting the aluminum free use of cigarette liner paper, the annual use of aluminum foil can be reduced by 500 tons. This series of innovative measures not only reduces production costs, but also achieves a win-win situation between environmental and economic benefits, effectively promoting the sustainable development of the company.
Future Development Direction and Reflection
The digitization of manufacturing industry is essentially the deep integration of new generation information technology represented by artificial intelligence with the manufacturing industry, and is a key part of new quality productivity. 2025 is the final year of the 14th Five Year Plan and also the year of planning and layout for the 15th Five Year Plan. In the future, for the printing industry, promoting digital transformation and upgrading will be the development trend within the industry, and promoting the integration of green and intelligent development is the necessary path to promote high-quality development of enterprises. We must resolutely implement the requirements for the construction of new industrialization and the development of new quality productive forces, drive transformation with greenness, and empower growth with intelligence. Our task includes the following four aspects.
01/Moving towards "intelligence" and promoting the deep transformation of intelligent manufacturing
Accelerate the construction of a mechanism for the development of the digital economy, strengthen data management and analysis capabilities, promote the deep integration of new generation information technology and the entire process and elements of printing manufacturing, and facilitate the shift of printing manufacturing from "experience driven" to "data-driven". Deploy autonomous and controllable artificial intelligence models, strengthen the deep integration of business scenarios with digital technologies such as artificial intelligence and big data, build an intelligent application matrix around core businesses, and form an industry replicable and easy to promote transformation path.
02/Moving towards "green" and promoting the green transformation of production and manufacturing
In the final year of the 14th Five Year Plan, we will further deepen and strengthen the requirements for greening in the printing industry, and empower high-quality growth with green technology. Intensify the research and application of new technologies, processes, equipment, and materials, deepen the promotion of clean production and green manufacturing, increase the proportion of clean energy use in enterprises, optimize energy structure, reduce overall carbon emissions, establish environmentally friendly packaging and printing enterprises, promote sustainable development of the printing industry, and achieve win-win economic, environmental, and social benefits.

03/Strengthen towards the "chain" and create a new highland for collaborative development of industry, academia, research and application
Focusing on the forefront, focusing on high-end, green as the foundation, improving quality with intelligence, empowering with new ideas, and supporting the creation of green and smart benchmark factories with technological innovation. Accelerate the extension of the industrial chain through technological innovation, deepen cooperation with universities and research institutes, promote the implementation and transformation of achievements, create an innovative ecosystem for the printing industry that integrates schools and enterprises, and achieve the reconstruction of the industrial chain and upgrading of the value chain.
04/Using "new" to achieve long-term goals, building a new pattern of dual wheel drive of talent and technology
Based on the positioning of a "talent training base", we will build a "direct" talent innovation platform for the packaging and printing industry, strengthen the use of digital technology to cultivate talents, accelerate the cultivation of professional skilled talents through the implementation of digital innovation projects in the industry, and promote "learning" through "competitions". We will also establish a talent circulation and learning exchange mechanism for the entire industry.