Ningbo Iron & Steel Named Zhejiang Province's 2025 “Pioneering” Future Factory

Recently, the Zhejiang Provincial Department of Economy and Information Technology officially released the 2025 list of certified Future Factories, Smart Factories, and Digital Workshops in Zhejiang Province. Ningbo Iron & Steel Co., Ltd. was selected as a “Pioneering” Future Factory for its outstanding achievements in intelligent transformation, establishing itself as a benchmark enterprise in the intelligent manufacturing sector of Zhejiang's steel industry.

Since launching the “Ningbo Iron & Steel High-End New Materials Future Factory” initiative in 2021, the company has consistently pursued a three-pronged approach: intelligent operations, collaborative management, and smart decision-making. This has enabled the systematic development of a comprehensive digital ecosystem spanning the entire production lifecycle. A dedicated task force led by senior management and involving cross-departmental collaboration was established, creating an efficient coordination mechanism that ensured the project's successful implementation.

In practical implementation, Ningbo Iron & Steel has deeply integrated platform-based, mobile, data-driven, and customized technologies to develop over 20 high-value application scenarios. These include the embodied intelligent inspection robot “Ning Xiaotie,” “Integrated R&D-production platform”, “intelligent scrap steel grading system”, and “advanced intelligent scheduling system”. These innovations comprehensively drive the transformation of production models toward data-driven and intelligent collaboration.

Notably, Ningbo Iron & Steel pioneered a “scientist + AI” R&D model. Leveraging industrial big data and material mechanism models, the company achieved a closed-loop system integrating forward product design and reverse simulation, significantly boosting R&D efficiency and reducing development cycles by approximately 30%. Simultaneously, the company has established a “mass customization + flexible agile manufacturing” system, driving integrated production-sales management. This has reduced delivery cycles to under 10 days and increased per-capita production efficiency by over 10%, effectively achieving cost reduction, quality improvement, and efficiency gains.

This recognition as a Zhejiang Province “Leading-Type” Future Factory signifies Ningbo Iron & Steel's breakthrough progress in the digital transformation of traditional manufacturing. The company has pioneered an intelligent development path tailored to the steel industry, providing valuable practical experience for the sector's high-quality development.