According to executives of Agilent Technologies Inc, a US-based company engaged in life sciences, diagnostics, and applied chemicals, products from Agilent Technologies (Shanghai) Co Ltd have reached laboratories in 110 countries and regions worldwide. Agilent’s gas chromatography manufacturing and global shipment are handled by ATS, one of the strategic manufacturing centers among the company’s nine bases. Zhu Bin, general manager of ATS, stated that the production and manufacturing capacity of ATS has rapidly developed since its establishment in the bonded area of Pudong district in 2001. ATS factory productivity increased by more than 30 percent over the past five years due to automation, digitalization, and process optimization.
Zhu explained that the Shanghai team has researched and developed many autonomous and digital equipment and approaches to facilitate the manufacturing process, which have been duplicated overseas to empower production lines worldwide. The company’s facility in Germany was interested in a set of digital material quality tracking systems for supplies recently developed by the Shanghai team, and robotic arm and visual inspection technology developed in Shanghai has also been put into use in the factory in the US.
Cameras empowered by machine learning are installed along autonomous production lines in Shanghai to identify whether certain components and parts are assembled correctly. 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, expressed full confidence in making investments in the China market. The company expanded production lines for high-end analytical instruments in Shanghai, including liquid chromatography, mass spectrometry, and atomic spectroscopy, with a total investment of 140 million yuan ($20 million) last year to better satisfy the needs of clients at home and abroad, as China is one of the three key strategies for the company’s global development.