"Don't make games". During his many years of entrepreneurship, Ji Yaohua, CEO of Chicheng Technology, has investigated more than ten industries, but he has never been involved in games except games. The reason he gave is that "games have no practical value."
has no practical value - this is also the evaluation of many people on the popular concept of the Metaverse. Born out of science fiction, popularized by game companies, with a grand and suspended narrative, and immature technology, the birth of the Metaverse can be said to be far from grounded, and it is naturally difficult to explore its value.
However, if you look beyond the game and look at the Metaverse, you will find that the Metaverse actually contains huge value: using metaverse technologies such as digital twins, VR/AR, and blockchain for industrial R&D and design, equipment operation and maintenance, skills training and other scenarios in order to achieve the goals of “reducing costs, improving quality, and increasing efficiency”. This is the "industrial metaverse" that is being considered in the country's "14th Five-Year Plan" and down to the factory floor. It is also considered to be the best value of the metaverse under China's "manufacturing transformation and upgrading" national conditions.
Against this background, Chicheng Technology, which carries the technology gene of the Metaverse, has avoided the game track and embarked on a path of exploring the value of the industrial Metaverse. It has attracted the attention of many parties at the moment when the concept of the Metaverse is exploding. Trying to explore what value Blazing Orange Technology brings to the industrial metaverse? And why?
Ji Yaohua, CEO of Chicheng Technology
concurrently serves as the secretary-general of the Zhejiang Virtual Reality Industry Alliance and the director of the Zhejiang Industrial Software Industry Technology Alliance
focuses on improving the collaborative efficiency of man-machine numbers
"Empowering the 3D industrial ecology and improving the 'human, machine and data' 'Synergy efficiency between companies' is the idea given by Chicheng Technology, and the reason for starting here stems from Gui Yaohua's deep insight into the pain points of the manufacturing industry due to his background in the real industry.
During his college years, Gui Yaohua majored in process equipment and control engineering for his undergraduate degree and Zhejiang University MBA. At the same time, he taught himself six computer programming languages. He said, "While studying, I planted the seeds of cutting-edge interdisciplinary subjects that are rooted in industry. I am very lucky. , everything is the best arrangement."
When Yaohua graduated in 2004, China's industry ushered in a decade of rapid development of automation and informatization. At that time, he chose to enter the physical manufacturing industry, starting as a front-line worker and working hard in grassroots positions in different workshops and departments. He has worked as a production worker, equipment engineer, project manager, and even a president-level executive. His good "engineer" qualities, solid front-line business foundation, and hard-working spirit allowed him to be promoted to a director-level management position in the group company at the age of 28.
More importantly, Gui Yaohua gained a profound insight into the pain points and difficulties of manufacturing production practices, and had a better grasp than the average person on how to help the manufacturing industry truly solve problems. He concluded that “in the next thirty years, the screen generation and increasingly complex equipment will The difficulty in efficient collaboration will become the key to restricting manufacturing productivity."
For example, the operation and maintenance of factory automated production lines is a key link that best reflects the collaboration between people and equipment. Although China's manufacturing industry has experienced years of automation and information transformation, batches of production have been replaced by machines. Workers, but equipment maintenance engineers have not only not been replaced, but have become more and more important and demanding. Once a production line failure occurs, every minute of delay in maintenance support will cost tens or millions of dollars.
This has led to some food companies such as dairy products, meat products, candy, etc., to ensure the normal operation and maintenance of production lines, paying tens of millions of additional fees to equipment manufacturers every year, because they can cultivate their own professional skills to cope with the "number of people and machines" efficiently. It is too difficult to coordinate a team of engineers, and in some places it is almost impossible.
"The training and management of this type of employees is always a difficult problem. On the one hand, the factory definitely does not want them to be too busy, otherwise it means there will be big problems in production, and keeping them idle means waste. To a certain extent, the enterprise You have to spend money to support 'idle' people," Ji Yaohua recalled.
“The root cause is that the way employees perceive and use equipment is outdated and does not adapt to the current rhythm. The visualization system and ease of operation of machinery and equipment have not changed much in the past two decades. A large number of enterprise digitization is concentrated on the management level. Data centers protected by layers of cards cannot be used by front-line employees - for this reason, new 3D visualization, interactive, scene-based, and cross-terminal synchronized human-machine collaboration systems are the calling of the productivity of the times."
If we use the same logic to analyze every node of factory production and management, it is not difficult to understand the importance of realizing efficient "human-machine + digital" collaboration to the manufacturing industry.
In order to verify his ideas and help more manufacturing companies solve pain point problems, Ji Yaohua led the team to conduct extensive research on the current status of human-machine digital collaboration in various sub-industries in the second year of his business, and continued to explore and practice, relying on Zhejiang University technical strength and the opinions of many artificial intelligence and physical network expert consultants have finally summarized and refined a relatively complete visual industrial cloud engine architecture and product system solutions, and introduced an alternative to "human ● machine" The new important dimension – data.
Take the 3D cloud manual of the "Super True Cloud" series of products launched by Chicheng Technology as an example. The core function is to integrate machine data and related information into a form that is easy for the human brain to understand (such as 3D models, digital twins), and Visual displays can be realized on mobile phones, computers, VR/AR and other terminals to help people quickly understand industrial products such as machinery and equipment.
Specific to the actual situation of the enterprise, in VR virtual training, super-real MR auxiliary operations and other scenarios, Chicheng Technology collects data on complex equipment, complex environments, etc., and uses 3D modeling, graphics rendering and other technologies to quickly create 3D visualization & process interactive The digital content effectively ensures that people can quickly acquire operating equipment knowledge, immersive simulation exercises, etc. in a simple and intuitive way.
"Save cognitive time, save training time, save operating time," Ji Yaohua summarized the practical results of Chicheng Technology, "time is the most critical factor in enterprise market competition."
And all of this is based on the relationship between people and equipment. Based on efficient cross-dimensional dialogue, the data composed of 0 and 1 is the key carrier to break the dimensional wall and build a communication bridge.
builds a domestic 3D interaction engine, originating from the ecology
"Without the understanding and self-positioning of the industrial ecology, any single-module innovation is a tree without roots. We must position ourselves to do API openness and heterogeneous data integration." , Ji Yaohua believes that after the introduction of the data dimension, all collaborations in the manufacturing industry (including humans and machines) can be regarded as data. In the ideal industrial metaverse, everything is data. However, we must be clearly aware that this is the need for "iterative upgrades" based on the previous decades of industrial automation, informatization, industrial Internet and other ecological developments.
Therefore, Chicheng Technology’s improvement of human-machine collaboration efficiency includes two key steps: the first step is to convert manufacturing process information obtained from industrial design software and industrial Internet into visual data, and the second step is to convert these data into 3D interactive content that can be synchronized across terminals and integrated with various workflows and .
3D interaction is different from 2D interaction. It is also one of the core changes of the industrial metaverse compared to the industrial Internet. The cognitive time of the structure, principles and steps can be saved by more than 50%, and VR immersion can realize repeated rehearsals of dangerous and irreversible scenarios. Efficient collaboration across space and time can be achieved with the help of AR.
The key underlying technology for creating 3D interactive content is computer graphics (hereinafter referred to as CG technology). The cool and lifelike images in large-scale 3A games and the superb and smooth special effects in movies are all inseparable from CG technology. The industry generally believes that CG technology is One of the important underlying technologies of the Metaverse.
Backed by Zhejiang University’s graphics scientific research advantages, Chicheng Technology has been able to embed CG technology into its own genes through more than three years of research and development, and has achieved many breakthroughs and achievements in WebGL, graphics rendering, human-computer interaction and industrial knowledge maps. Patent results, and self-developed "Supereal" 3D interaction engine - as a visualization tool for creating 3D interactive content and applications in the industrial metaverse.
In terms of broad categories, "Supereal" spans two categories: 3D modeling industrial software and WebXR cross-platform editing engine. It has now caught up with and partially surpassed the technical level of internationally renowned software such as Sketchfab and Shapr3d, and is adapted to domestic operations. The system can fully meet the requirements of manufacturing customers for lightweight tool software functions and data security.
It is worth noting that, like all industrial software, it is not enough to rely solely on programmers and coders. The essence of industrial software is to carry industrial knowledge in the form of software, or to integrate industrial knowledge into software. Therefore, if you do not understand industrial knowledge, Without process experience, it is basically impossible to write mature industrial software.
Benefiting from years of industry practice and research experience, Ji Yaohua led the core technical team to investigate and analyze various industrial ecological service systems, in-depth dismantling of process data of various industrial scenarios, and built a complete classification and content based on full-link digitalization. Rich 3D digital industrial knowledge base.
As a result, Chicheng Technology makes industrial knowledge such as industrial product characteristics, usage methods, equipment parameters, maintenance steps, and process data explicit, and then integrates it with graphics technology to successfully apply it to display, after-sales, training, and auxiliary operations. In a quasi-industrial scene, the value of the metaverse is truly realized.
truly achieves "providing 3D interactive transformation capabilities for industrial ecological partners and empowering industrial users with Metaverse applications."
This exploration process was very difficult. Ji Yaohua recalled: "Most of the graphics technicians are in the fields of international industrial software and games, and they basically don't understand the industrial industry, and few people engaged in industry understand graphics. It took the company three years Only then can we build a relatively complete interdisciplinary team and break through the research threshold of cross-technology integration."
Only through hard work can we achieve success. After Chicheng Technology achieved a technological research breakthrough, it successfully developed its business model. Ji Yaohua confidently said: "In terms of the industrial industry scenarios and cross-application research that the company focuses on, there are currently very few domestic companies that do better than Chicheng. Next, we will continue to delve deeper into subdivided vertical fields and continue to strengthen core barriers.”
It is reported that the products and services of Chicheng Technology have been introduced to the well-known Bosch China, Zhejiang University Zhongkong , CSSC , . Sany Group , Huadi Computer Group , CNNC Maintenance Company, China Machinery Industry Press, Chinese Academy of Mechanical Sciences, etc. are used in more than 100 units, and have been used in cooperation with Transfar Group , China Telecom Zhejiang Company, Zhejiang Telecom Zhejiang Company, etc. Kunxing Industrial Supermarket, Lanzhuo supOS, and the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security Publishing Group established strategic cooperation, won the strategic investment cooperation of Hangzhou Iron and Steel Group, a large state-owned enterprise in Zhejiang Province, and won the China Industry-Academic-Research Cooperation Innovation Award.
Since 2022, the company has been going all out to enter the core application areas of digitalization in China's mainstream industrial industries.
Helps Everyone Become an "Engineer" in the Metaverse Era
When it comes to business models, it must be mentioned that the "Supereal" system is not only a single software engine, but also an open platform that supports content and application-cloud synchronization.
For example, Chicheng Technology’s 3D interactive content can be adapted across all terminals. The “end” here refers to mobile phones, computers, large screens and other terminal devices of various personnel in the manufacturing industry (managers, producers, employees, users) , In actual scenarios, people can directly obtain content and real-time data by operating terminal devices.
On the "Supereal" platform, terminal hardware manufacturers access through API, obtain content support from Chicheng Technology, and reach cooperation. Under the trend of the metaverse, Chicheng Technology is also actively cooperating with Rokid, Oculus, Pico, Shadow Creator, and Microsoft Hololens 2 Waiting for mainstream XR terminals at home and abroad to be adapted.
The reason why it needs to be adapted across all terminals is because Gui Yaohua deeply understands the importance of "inclusive benefit" of data to the manufacturing industry.
He said: "Currently, 90% of the data in the manufacturing industry is only in the hands of less than 10% of people, , and it is mainly managers and IT departments. This is very detrimental to releasing the value of data, and front-line production employees have few opportunities. The reason for access to data is that most industrial data storage, analysis, and feedback are in the cloud, which is extremely complicated and difficult for ordinary employees to call. "
If the data is directly packaged and transmitted to the terminal device that everyone is familiar with, and in 3D. Presented to users in the form of interactive content, it allows everyone in the enterprise to grasp the data more easily and quickly, realize scientific decision-making, perform reasonable operations and even collaborate remotely, thereby maximizing the release of data value.
In this way, the data is equivalent to returning to the matrix, and what employees see is what they get.
For example, in the equipment operation and maintenance scenario, in the past, operation and maintenance engineers who wanted to know the operating status of the equipment might go to the backend database to call data, and then conduct troubleshooting one by one against the mechanical structure of the on-site equipment. With the help of Chicheng Technology, operation and maintenance engineers can directly view the 3D model of the equipment remotely through mobile phones, computers or even AR headsets, and click on key components to understand the real-time status. While the operation threshold is reduced, work efficiency is also improved. Has been greatly improved.
In addition to terminal hardware companies, there are also some companies that want to develop their own 3D interactive application systems, but suffer from the lack of professional technical team capabilities. Chicheng Technology provides tool-based SaaS for such companies by realizing zero-code development and multi-format compatibility. services to help them produce and publish content directly on the platform and realize content co-creation and sharing.
Thanks to the platform-based business model, Chicheng Technology continues to accumulate industrial data from industrial scenarios, technical data from interactive software and hardware companies, and content data from content creators, timely capturing the latest trends and changes from all parties, and continuously iterating Innovate and move forward together with ecological partners.
And the end point of this journey is " everyone can become a new era 'engineer' ".
In the corporate culture of Chicheng Technology, the "engineer" in the new era means being oriented by actual needs and taking "solving problems and creating value" as the first mission of technical people. In the era of the industrial metaverse, no matter what Regardless of professional background, ability level, everyone can quickly and intuitively obtain on-demand knowledge information, 3D content, interactive scene experience, and remote virtual and real collaboration. Especially when employees master the visual lightweight Super Real Tool Engine, they are expected to become 3D interactive content developers and a new generation of engineers who create value from data.
Ji Yaohua said that Chicheng Technology will continue to focus on the systematic application of visual interaction technology in the pan-industrial field, and cross-integrate it with mainstream industrial software, industrial Internet, AI technology, blockchain, big data technology, etc., to empower digitalization to All front-line workers and the general public realize "the last mile of digitalization to liberate productivity." - "The industrial metaverse is an innovative development on the shoulders of giants in the early industrial-related ecology. Only by understanding and integrating the ecology can we serve the industry well. There will be no 'unicorn' and it must be a 'new community'" .
as concept words, Meta, and the metaverse themselves have little value. The key lies in what people use it to do and how to create actual value.
Based on graphics technology and industrial digital knowledge base, Chicheng Technology creates virtual and real interactive content and application ecology that everyone can access and develop, serving manufacturing companies to improve the efficiency of human-computer interaction, creates "free time" "The value puts the meaning of the metaverse into reality. In the future, the concept may change, but a simple and easy-to-use efficiency-improving cloud tool will always be popular.
