In the period of the “14th Five-year Period”, China will continue focusing on smart manufacturing, and speeding up its efforts to make manufacturing digitalized, networked and smart. For the purpose of smart manufacturing, multi-degree-of-freedom industrial robots specific to industries will be continuously updated and iterated. They will be widely employed in more and more industries. Being efficient, continuous and accurate, the robots can complete difficult, dangerous and special work which cannot be done by people, so they can create considerable economic benefits for enterprises and even the whole society.
As a creative science and technology company based on soft robot technologies, Soft Robot Tech Co., Ltd. (SRT) is devoted to promoting and applying such technologies in automation of smart industrial manufacturing. It provides customers with complete, diverse and reliable flexible gripping solutions using complete series flexible pneumatic actuators. It has taken the lead in the segmented industries of flexible grippers in China and even in the world. With multiple domestic leading subsidiaries integrating machine vision with industrial intelligence and dedicated to offering smart manufacturing solutions to conventional manufacturing in the field of non-standard automation, SRT has multiple core technologies and independent intellectual property rights in visual location, measurement, detection and recognition as well as building of several types of automated production lines.
Having become closer and closer to people’s lives, robot technologies have played more and more important roles in certain fields, including production, transportation, interaction and recovery. They have directly and indirectly driven development of robots, growth of talents in related industries and thorough improvement of professional skills training. In particular, the advanced science and technology outcomes represented by soft robot technologies are new in the present field of smart manufacturing and reflect future development trend of smart manufacturing, namely “flexible manufacturing”. The robots have further remedied the weaknesses in multiple parts of smart manufacturing in different industries. They have solved the difficulties encountered in production, processing, sorting, industry anomalies, gripping and handling of fragile products. Thus, talent training will be reformed in terms of depth and breadth. The reform will directly impel rapid development and pragmatic evolution of course setting and practices in various vocational schools. Meanwhile, in areas such as Pearl River Delta and Yangtze River Delta with many manufacturers and advanced technology development, difficulties to employ, recruit and retain talents have become more and more serious. As bases for cultivating professional talents, higher applied and polytechnic schools have to catch up with social development in top level designs for talent training. Effectively utilizing its special funds with high efficiency under the guidance of national policies, SRT has increased its practical benefits and economic value by folds throughout development of industrial smart manufacturing in China.
The key of vocational education consists in cultivating students’ integrated abilities in “industrial design plus practices”. From shallow to deep practical learning, it helps students smoothly transit from practical classroom learning at schools to practices under realistic industrial environment through case study and course design. According to several continuous processes of production lines in certain industry, SRT designs and provides practical training equipment and supporting teaching materials for each process to assist teachers in cultivating and consolidating students’ skills in basic operations, advanced logical judgments and global top level design from the perspective of concepts, theories and practices. After students’ mastery of related skills, several practical training platforms can be connected in series to constitute production lines for more advanced training and learning. Meanwhile, graduates can be arranged to visit workshops of related enterprises for practice and internship, to further help students know about industries, participate in production, and make them more pragmatic in their careers to “seek jobs with skills and achieve growth with talent”.
Smart manufacturing is a multi-disciplinary product. With the rapid development of the society, sciences and technologies, the development of smart manufacturing has become a reflection of science and technology advancement. SRT will assist various schools in appropriately organizing advance construction from the perspective of practical training and teaching on smart manufacturing robots. It will offer them strong and powerful support in terms of equipment, technologies and supporting teaching aids. It will help students develop professional skills and practical abilities on advanced sciences and technologies in teaching and learning terminals. By integrating 5G with concepts of industry upgrades, SRT will provide all-round and multi-level services for applied vocational education. It will properly utilize “online plus offline” platforms to constantly help teachers and students conduct training under multiple modes in accordance with teaching progress. Shouldering the mission of “cultivating outstanding talents for smart manufacturing”, it will build a bridge between employers and vocational schools to link industries, teaching and research for courses, practices, certificates and employment, in order to provide powerful support for China to cultivate more elementary science and technology talents.
