The bottleneck in the development of the textile industry is expected to be broken through.

In the first half of this year, the industrial added value of large-scale textile enterprises in Fujian Province increased by 11.4% year-on-year, 4.6 percentage points higher than the national average in the same industry. Large-scale enterprises achieved a total main business income of 103.662 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 7.7%, which is 2.3 percentage points higher than the national average in the same industry; the total profit reached 11.3 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 12.9%, which is 3.5 percentage points higher than the national average in the same industry.

Faced with global textile overcapacity, reduced domestic and foreign market demand, and increasingly rising labor costs and recruitment difficulties, the textile industry, as a representative of labor-intensive industries, has encountered development bottlenecks. In response, Fujian Province has actively followed the strategies of 'Industry 4.0' and 'Made in China 2025', introducing preferential policies to encourage enterprises to invest in new automation equipment. By implementing 'machine substitution' technological transformation projects, the production process has become more intelligent, becoming an important weapon for the transformation and upgrading of textile enterprises.

Intelligent production process

Recently, Fujian Shenyuan New Materials Co., Ltd. signed a technical licensing agreement for the second phase of the caprolactam project with the world's top Dutch company DSM, accelerating the construction of the world's largest caprolactam production base; this month, the most advanced fully automated high-speed production line in the domestic nylon industry will officially be put into use at Fujian Jingfeng Technology Co., Ltd., sounding a new horn for 'machine substitution'...

With the disappearance of the demographic dividend, recruitment difficulties and high labor costs have increasingly become problems troubling textile enterprises. Against this backdrop, many textile enterprises are actively implementing 'machine substitution' to transform and upgrade, improving quality and efficiency.

Changle, Jinjiang, and other counties (cities) are the main gathering places for the textile industry in Fujian Province. Changle Liheng Nylon Technology Co., Ltd. is striving to build the world's largest nylon polymerization and spinning production enterprise. According to the company's deputy general manager Chen Lijun, due to the application of semi-automatic new equipment, the number of workers in the workshop has been reduced by more than 50% compared to before.

Similarly, at Jinjiang Longfeng Company, automation reform is also being carried out vigorously. In the first phase of the Longfeng New Industrial Park, the Tsuda loom imported from Japan is running at high speed, with one person monitoring 100 machines, greatly simplifying the workforce in the workshop. It is reported that a traditional factory with more than 1,000 water jet looms would require about 700 people to maintain normal operations, but now only 200 are needed.

There are many such enterprises. Fujian Jinxing Group actually began planning for 'machine substitution' as early as 2011 when expanding its factory. The fully automated packaging line is just the first step the company has taken in this regard, and the research and introduction of automated equipment for packaging and previous processes of other product specifications are also on the agenda.

Industry insiders say that 'machine substitution' not only solves the problem of labor shortages and alleviates the pressure brought by rising labor costs, but also improves production efficiency with intelligent equipment, reducing costs per unit time, thereby increasing profit margins.

Breaking through the industry against the trend

Since the beginning of this year, more than 30 new products have been launched. Among them, specialty products such as nylon cool yarn, flat yarn, and split filament mother yarn have been well received in the market, with product added value increased by more than 10% compared to conventional products, according to a person in charge of a textile enterprise in Changle.

It is understood that through 'machine substitution', many textile enterprises have tasted the benefits. In the first two quarters of this year, Fujian Xingan Textile Machinery Co., Ltd. saw a 10% increase in sales compared to the same period last year, achieving counter-cyclical growth. The 'predecessor' of Xingan Textile Machinery Company was Changle Hanggang Knitting Co., Ltd. Under government guidance and support, the enterprise extended its industrial chain upstream to equipment manufacturing, creating Xingan Textile Machinery Company and successfully developing domestically produced warp knitting machines, breaking the reliance on imports. Currently, the warp knitting machines produced by Xingan occupy 60% of the national market.

As a leading enterprise in the textile and chemical fiber industry in Jinjiang, Zhengqi High Fiber, a subsidiary of Fujian Jinxing Group, introduced the first fully automated packaging equipment in the chemical fiber industry in Fujian Province from Taiwan in 2014, saving nearly 120 employees in the packaging process with a capacity of nearly 400 tons per day, and improving the quality of product packaging.

In Shishi, the application of industrial robots has become an important highlight of enterprise transformation and upgrading, with results exceeding expectations. The application of industrial robots in the clothing industry began last year. It is understood that the cutting work in clothing production previously required 2 to 3 workers to lay the fabric, stacking it into 50 to 200 layers, with each layer needing to be smoothed by workers using their hands or sticks, which was time-consuming and labor-intensive. Using robots to replace manual fabric laying not only greatly reduces the labor intensity of workers but also improves production efficiency.

'Machine substitution' brings new momentum. Data shows that in Changle, over 85% of cotton spinning enterprises have equipment that meets domestic leading levels. 'Machine substitution' has reduced the labor level from 58 workers per 10,000 spindles before technological transformation to 36 workers per 10,000 spindles now, a decrease of nearly 40%. 'Under the same conditions, the new automated production line will reduce labor by about 50%, lower energy consumption by about 30%, and save 800 yuan in costs per ton of nylon filament, significantly improving production efficiency,' said a person in charge of a textile enterprise in Changle.

Enhancing the internal driving force of the industry

Industry insiders point out that the textile industry is a labor-intensive industry, and with the gradual disappearance of China's demographic dividend, transformation and upgrading are urgent. Mechanization, automation, and intelligence have become effective ways to transform traditional industries, promote industrial transformation and upgrading, reduce workforce, and alleviate recruitment difficulties, thus opening the curtain on China's 'machine substitution'. Especially currently, in the textile and clothing production process, there is insufficient optimization of production and processes. Improving the integrated application level of industrial management through 'machine substitution' and enhancing the information technology level of the industry as soon as possible is crucial for industrial upgrading.

'The traditional development model that relies on resource consumption and continuous labor input is no longer sustainable. As the national economy enters a new normal, the internal driving force of the textile industry must be continuously strengthened,' said a relevant person in charge of the Fujian Textile Industry Association.

It is understood that the governments of Fujian Province, Quanzhou City, and Jinjiang City have successively introduced multiple measures to encourage enterprises to purchase automation equipment. The Jinjiang Municipal People's Government proposed in the 'Several Opinions on Promoting the Healthy Development of Textile and Footwear Enterprises' that textile and footwear enterprises investing more than 500,000 yuan in intelligent transformation will receive a financial subsidy of 10% of their actual transformation costs, with a maximum subsidy limit of 1 million yuan. Last year, Jinjiang started related work to promote the application of intelligent technology transformation in traditional enterprises' production lines.

Regarding the enthusiasm for 'machine substitution' among textile enterprises, it is also necessary to view the issue from two perspectives. For some enterprises, machine substitution may be an opportunity, but the improvement of equipment digitization and intelligence is more challenging, requiring comprehensive integration from process flow to the overall production process, thus posing greater challenges.

In this regard, experts point out that textile enterprises should adapt to local conditions and do not necessarily need to achieve everything at once. It is particularly important to continuously optimize the differentiation of their products through technological innovation.