Productivity tech developed in Shanghai applied worldwide

Products from Agilent Technologies (Shanghai) Co Ltd, the Shanghai manufacturing center of Agilent Technologies Inc — a United States-based company engaged in life sciences, diagnostics and applied chemicals — have reached laboratories in 110 countries and regions worldwide, executives of the company said on Friday.

ATS focuses on Agilent's gas chromatography manufacturing and global shipment and is one of the strategic manufacturing centers among the company's nine manufacturing bases, said Zhu Bin, general manager of ATS.

The production and manufacturing capacity of ATS, which was established in the bonded area of Pudong district in 2001, has developed rapidly. ATS factory productivity increased by more than 30 percent over the past five years as a result of automation, digitalization and process optimization.

"Many autonomous and digital equipment and approaches researched and developed by the Shanghai team to facilitate the manufacturing process have been duplicated overseas to empower our production lines worldwide," he said.

Zhu said the company's facility in Germany was interested in a set of digital material quality tracking system for supplies recently developed by the Shanghai team. Robotic arm and visual inspection technology developed in Shanghai has also been put into use in the factory in the US, he said.

Cameras empowered by machine learning are installed along autonomous production lines in Shanghai to identify whether certain components and parts are assembled correctly. They are able to check whether there are gaps, color differences or screws missing.

These AI technologies developed from the Shanghai production lines have also been shared overseas, and ATS will continue to invest and develop them to further enhance productivity, Zhu said.

Yang Ting, vice-president of Agilent and general manager of the company's Greater China commercial organization, said the enterprise will make investments in the China market with full confidence.

"China strategy has actually been one of the three key strategies for our company's global development. Both existing and new clients are important for us," Yang said.

With total investment of 140 million yuan ($20 million) last year, the company expanded production lines for high-end analytical instruments to upgrade manufacturing capacity in Shanghai, including liquid chromatography, mass spectrometry and atomic spectroscopy to better satisfy the needs of clients at home and abroad.