On July 30, in a park in Beijing, a plant protection robot weaved through the trees. It automatically drove up to a poplar, stopped steadily, and used its onboard LiDAR and camera to precisely lock onto the tree trunk, instantly identifying the species. Then, the robotic arm raised, aimed, drilled, inserted a probe, injected the solution, and retracted the probe. The entire sequence was smooth and precise, with an operational accuracy at the millimeter level, taking just over a minute.
This robot, nicknamed the "Tree Nurse," can not only drive autonomously and identify trees, but also automatically calculate the required dosage based on the tree's diameter. It can treat a 1,000-acre forest in just two or three days, replacing the work of seven or eight skilled workers, with a recognition accuracy of over 98%.
The robot embodies the collaborative intelligence of Beijing and Hebei, and its creation took only seven days. In March, Beijing Yisen Intelligent Equipment Co., Ltd. received an urgent order to develop a non-standard intelligent plant management and protection robot. At the time, they only had a rough concept and a product rendering, with a delivery deadline of just 20 days. Typically, customizing such a robot takes 15 to 20 days. The team frantically contacted multiple factories, but the responses were universally discouraging: small factories couldn't handle the design, large factories couldn't justify the cost; they didn't accept rush orders, small-volume orders, or projects requiring secondary R&D. After ten days of this, hope was fading. "Honestly, we had basically given up hope," said Bian Lijun, General Manager of Yisen Intelligent.
By the time they contacted Tangshan Baichuan, less than ten days remained until the delivery date.
Why could Baichuan take on a job that others couldn't? The answer lies in Baichuan's robot shared factory. The shared factory brings together over 1,000 technical personnel and 800 sets of intelligent equipment, enabling the rapid formation of temporary project teams. "Our production equipment is not a traditional assembly line, but rather multiple point-based production units, specializing in non-standard products. We can flexibly and dynamically match the customization needs of SMEs," said Wang Mengzhao, head of the Baichuan Robot Shared Factory. "Even if just one person comes, we have over 1,000 people serving them, allowing for the rapid transformation of scientific achievements into practical results."
By the afternoon of the same day they received the requirements, the technical team had started secondary design and R&D. From design optimization to assembly and debugging, Baichun used a week to turn the plant protection robot from a concept into a deliverable physical product. "Getting the final product in a week, delivering the project on time, was actually beyond our expectations," Bian Lijun said. The robot's performance fully met the requirements, product quality exceeded expectations, and the price was over 20% lower than similar products. On the day of pickup, both parties agreed on a second robot collaboration.
Such stories unfold daily. To date, the Baichuan shared factory has served over 300 innovation entities, including SMEs and university research institutes in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region, facilitating the realization of R&D results, with a cumulative output value of 300 million yuan. It has helped partner companies reduce product costs by over 8% and shorten development cycles by 15%. Baichuan has order-receiving windows in Beijing's Yizhuang area and Tianjin's Nankai District. Next, it plans to build an online shared engineer platform to connect Beijing's innovative talent with Hebei's industrial talent, promoting shared talent, shared equipment, and technological resonance.
Looking beyond Baichuan across the entire province, shared manufacturing is driving Hebei's specialized industrial clusters to embrace innovation and breakthrough. In Ningjin, cable companies use shared irradiation workshops, reducing the irradiation cycle from 7-10 days to just one day, with costs dropping by 43% and cumulative processing fee savings of 14 million yuan. In Qinghe, a digital shared factory offers full-process shared services, boosting industry production efficiency by 46% compared to traditional methods, and cutting costs by 15%.
Data shows that by the first half of this year, 107 key county-level specialized industrial clusters had established 285 shared factories (or carriers), with over 23,000 units of shared equipment, serving 57,000 enterprises. This has created nine shared scenarios, including bulk raw material procurement, production equipment, and R&D innovation, transforming "going it alone" into "collaborative development."
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