A workshop of High Fashion Silk (Zhejiang) Co., Ltd. based in Xinchang county. (Photo provided by High Fashion Silk (Zhejiang) Co., Ltd. based in Xinchang county)

Thanks to the efforts to promote intelligent transformation, the manufacturing sector in Xinchang county, east China's Zhejiang province has soared with the wings of "digitalization."

Xinchang, located in the mountains and in a low position in Zhejiang province's GDP ranking, gradually made it into the top 100 most competitive counties in China.

"In the past, there were many workers in textile workshops, and the job was of high intensity. Now, only one worker is needed in each workshop during the daytime and the workshops can be left unattended at night. The machines stop automatically once the yarns break, and all that is needed is to check the machines the next day," said Zhang Changqiu, a worker of the High Fashion Silk (Zhejiang) Co., Ltd. based in Xinchang county.

Smart transformation has lowered labor input and intensity for the company, and also drives production efficiency and stability. The company's output value is expected to go up over 20 percent despite the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020.

Puyou, an engineered technology company and one of the first enterprises to go through digital transformation in Xinchang county is another one that benefits from digital operation. General manager Huang Yonglong of the company told the People's Daily that many indicators of the company were estimated in the past. For instance, once a malfunction happened to a machine, the production efficiency could only be calculated by counting the parts every ten or thirty minutes. Now, equipment utilization is presented on computer screens, and it only takes 2.5 seconds to manufacture a spare part.

The manufacturers' active demand for smart transformation in Xinchang county aroused the interest of many major tech firms. Some of them, including iFLYTEK, an intelligent speech and artificial intelligence company and global leader in AI products and solutions Megvii, have established branches in Xinchang.