Alibaba’s retail management platform Tao and its Cloud’s IoT team are all set to partner up with 200 traditional garment factories in China. The tie-up will assist garment factories to monitor their production data through the use of ‘Artificial Intelligence’ (AI).
It is claimed that cameras will be installed in the factories for data collection and Tao Factory will synchronize the production process through computer vision algorithms. The participation of 20 factories has already been observed in this technology revamping process. “Their scheduling performance has increased 6 per cent and delivery cycles has now become 10 per cent shorter,” shows data from Alibaba.
Tao is working with 10 Alibaba Cloud technicians on this AI project and each implementation takes approximately two days since no personnel training is involved in the installing and commissioning.
The first company which got transformed with this AI approach is Hangzhou Dianshi Garment and the General Manager of the factory, Wang Cunshi, commented, “The plant has more than 100 staff members and the process of digital transformation includes the installation and repeated debugging of 20 cameras, hardware, fiber-optic networks and other equipment, while the total cost is less than CNY 50,000 (US $ 7,400).”
Tao also introduced Alibaba’s instant messaging platform DingTalk to synchronize real-time information to all the factories involved in the project. DingTalk will notify the progress of an order to everyone and a robot will text the responsible person if something goes wrong.
It’s worth mentioning here that a few weeks ago, while launching ‘New Manufacturing’ model at The Cloud Computing Conference held in Hangzhou (China), Alibaba Founder Jack Ma reiterated that the trade war is a perfectly normal consequence of technology development. “Proposing the New Manufacturing model is not because Alibaba plans to enter the manufacturing industry, but rather to help manufacturing companies to innovate and upgrade. During this shift, the current manufacturer-oriented industry will transition to a new era led by customers, where small- and medium-sized enterprises can benefit the most,” quoted Jack Ma.
