Entering Pangcun Town, Yibin District, Luoyang, the factory buildings of the smart home industrial park are rapidly growing.
In the workshop of Henan Yan’en Furniture, fully automatic board cutting machines are operating at high speed, and the intelligent spraying assembly line is working precisely. Quality inspectors are carefully checking the smart storage cabinets that are about to be shipped nationwide. This company will be the first to start production in September 2024, completing an “accelerated run” from construction to mass production in just nine months. Today, the average daily express shipment exceeds a thousand orders, covering over 20 provinces, and the logistics area often experiences “overcapacity”—this is a microcosm of the industrial park’s intelligent transformation.
(Pangcun Town in Yibin District, Luoyang, is located in the eastern part of the demonstration area, covering an area of 32.9 square kilometers, with 14 communities and a population of about 46,000. It is famous for its steel furniture industry, holding a 70% market share in the country, and is known as the “Capital of Chinese Steel Furniture.” In recent years, it has focused on developing a smart home industrial park to promote industrial upgrading while also building community sports parks, elderly care service centers, and other livelihood facilities.)
The construction pace of the industrial park is astonishingly fast. On the first phase of 206 acres, three companies—He Feng, Hua Du, and Yan’en—have already established their foundations. Yan’en’s two workshops are fully operational; He Feng’s three workshops have completed equipment debugging and will fully commence operations in September; Hua Du’s C2 workshop is already running, and the exterior construction of the C1 workshop is nearing completion, with production expected to synchronize with the C3 workshop by the end of the year. The third phase, covering 502 acres, is also in full swing, with Guojian Company and Kefeiya Company successively acquiring land to settle in. He Feng’s H4 factory was topped off on August 12, and partial construction of the factory is expected to be completed by the end of the year. The blueprint for a smart zero-carbon production base, a cross-border e-commerce center, and a smart logistics park is rapidly taking shape on this land, which is planned to cover 4,700 acres in total.
Why is the traditional steel city transforming into smart home production?
The answer lies in the industrial structure of Pangcun Town. This “base for China’s steel furniture industry” has a 40-year industry accumulation, with 217 enterprises, nearly 20 billion yuan in output value, and a foundation in the markets of 120 countries worldwide. However, it faces challenges such as an aging workforce, product homogenization, and razor-thin profits. As young labor flows out and the proportion of workers over 50 rises, only through intelligent transformation can the curse of “famous but declining” be broken. The government is responding accordingly: investing 1.3 billion yuan to build the park, introducing intelligent material warehouses, welding robotic arms, and other equipment, which has led to a 25% reduction in the scrap rate and a 40% increase in per capita output value. For example, the flexible production line created by He Feng can schedule the entire process with programming instructions, allowing for 24-hour uninterrupted production—this is the key leap for traditional factories towards “smart manufacturing.”
(A flexible production line is an automated system that can quickly switch to produce different products, functioning like a “universal craftsman.” It achieves mixed-flow production of various types through CNC machine tools, intelligent logistics, and computer control, without the need for frequent equipment changes. The core advantages include:
1. Quick response: Adjusting production plans in real-time according to market changes to avoid inventory buildup;
2. Cost reduction: Minimizing manual intervention and waste, improving equipment utilization;
3. Strong customization: Meeting personalized needs, such as small-batch production of automotive parts or electronic products.
Typical applications are found in mechanical manufacturing, home appliances, and automotive fields, with annual production suitable for order scales of 1,000 to 100,000 pieces.)
The latest developments are backed by a collaborative effort between government and enterprises. The third phase of the industrial park has introduced intelligent technology companies like Kefeiya to strengthen industrial chain collaboration; new projects like Leren Furniture and Zhonghao De have been approved for construction, focusing on intelligent system research and environmentally friendly production. The government is simultaneously addressing land bottlenecks, releasing 502 acres of land in just the third phase, and promoting the “integration of four chains”—on the innovation chain, Longmen Laboratory is tackling technologies; on the financial chain, a 700 million yuan syndicated loan supports enterprises; on the talent chain, the “everyone holds a certificate” policy cultivates skilled workers. After the full production of the Luoyang Smart Home Industrial Park, the expected annual sales revenue is around 2 billion yuan, with a significant proportion of high-tech products, allowing the old industrial base to finally radiate “new power.”
(A syndicated loan is a loan provided by a group of banks or financial institutions that form a joint team to provide large amounts of funding to large enterprises or projects according to a unified agreement. Its core characteristics are risk diversification and multi-party cooperation, usually organized by a lead bank, with agent banks managing the funds and participating banks lending proportionally. It is mainly divided into direct syndicates (where each bank signs directly) and indirect syndicates (where the lead bank distributes shares), suitable for large financing scenarios such as corporate mergers and infrastructure projects. Compared to ordinary loans, syndicated loans are larger in amount, longer in duration (up to 20 years), and do not carry restrictive conditions.
Typical case: For example, in financing a multinational energy project, a certain syndicate provided a 5 billion yuan loan for an offshore wind power project, with the lead bank accounting for 30%, and the remaining shared by 10 participating banks. This model reduces the risk for a single bank while meeting the borrower’s long-term funding needs.)
Of course, challenges remain. The shortage of skilled professionals restricts the implementation of technology, and weak supporting services slow down the pace of innovation.
However, looking at the mountain of orders piled up beside the quality inspectors in Yan’en’s workshop, and hearing the workers discuss the joy of doubled efficiency brought by the intelligent production line, the mission of this industrial park becomes increasingly clear: to ensure that Luoyang’s steel furniture is no longer just iron cabinets in export containers, but intelligent life partners that can connect and think, entering thousands of households.
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