Rubber Industry Becomes Vanguard for Manufacturing Industry Transformation in Qingdao

Qingdao city of Shandong province took the lead in publishing China’s first action plan for the development of Internet industry, expecting to reform 500 automatic production lines or digital workshops, and to build up 50 smart factories or Internet factories.

In the list of the first group of pilot companies, there are several leading tire companies, namely Doublestar Tire, Sailun Jinyu Group, and Sentury Tire.

They have made an early move in smart reform and Internet factory construction.

MESNAC has been working on tire smart factory solutions; Sentury has become an early bird in automatic tire production; and Doublestar initiated an automatic tire production line project in Dongjiakou, Qingdao, and promoted the application of robots.

Ma Chaoqun, head of the Raw Material Industry Office, Economy and Information Commission of Qingdao, attributed the smooth transformation of the city’s rubber industry to technical and platform advantages.

With regard to technology advantage, Qingdao University of Science and Technology is the only university in Asia has rubber major. The city also has China’s only national research center for tire technique and controlling engineering technology and three key national labs.

More than half of professionals in the rubber and tire industry gather in Qingdao.

In terms of platform building, Qingdao is one of China’s largest hubs for rubber products.Large amount of natural rubber, tire, and rubber products are transshipped or exported via Qingdao port, and the rubber transaction here is actively.

The Demonstration Base of Industry-College-Academy Cooperation for Chemical Rubber has been involved in the Blue Economy Development Plan for Shandong Peninsula. The Spot Exchange for Natural Rubber has filled the blank of China’s rubber industry.

Driven by innovation strategy, Qingdao’s rubber industry is building itself into an R&D highland in China.

The overall value of Qingdao’s rubber industry chain is expected to reach 110 billion yuan by 2020.