In Zhengding Modern Smart Home Industrial Park in Shijiazhuang, automated production lines run at high speed, with QR code traceability, intelligent sorting, and AI quality inspection fully integrated throughout the process.
Mechanical arms flip flexibly, handling cutting, edge banding, and drilling in one seamless flow. A single panel travels through the automated assembly line and transforms into a finely crafted furniture component in under ten minutes.
The furniture manufacturing scene, once reliant on manual labor and extensive production methods, has been completely revitalized, witnessing the remarkable transformation of Zhengding's panel furniture industry after more than forty years of development.
Zhengding's panel furniture industry dates back to the 1970s and 1980s. As a key county-level characteristic industrial cluster in Hebei Province, it supports the livelihood of 100,000 workers.
How can the industry break free from low-end competition and address pain points such as scattered production capacity, outdated processes, and high costs to achieve high-end, intelligent, and green transformation? Zhengding has made the industrial park its core platform, providing new answers for industrial upgrading through supply chain strengthening, shared smart manufacturing, and ecological restructuring.
"Previously, we had to carry these panels one by one. Now, with just a finger tap, loading and cutting are all handled with one click," said Jin Kun, who has been engaged in panel furniture processing for many years.
Walking into the digital production workshop of Yongque Smart Home Furnishing (Hebei) Technology Co., Ltd. in the park, the changes brought by intelligent transformation are immediately visible. Relying on the MES intelligent manufacturing execution system, a one-item-one-code traceability system, and an AI visual quality inspection system, the company has achieved fully automated production with processing precision of up to ±0.5mm, flexibly adapting to various customization needs.
"In the past, one production line required more than 20 workers for handling and operation. Now, two technicians can manage the entire process," introduced Fan Yongming, Chairman of Yongque Smart Home Furnishing (Hebei) Technology Co., Ltd. He noted that intelligent upgrading has increased production efficiency by 30% and shortened order delivery cycles by 40%, bidding farewell to the old "monthly delivery" rhythm and achieving a new "daily delivery" speed.
Workers are packaging panel furniture components. Photo by Zhang Chao and Ma Jing, Great Wall Network · Jiyun Client.
Behind the efficiency revolution lies the deep restructuring of the entire industry chain ecosystem. Zhengding Smart Home Industrial Park serves as the supporting platform for the transformation and upgrading of Zhengding's panel furniture industry. With an overall planned area of 2,043 mu and a total investment of 7.43 billion yuan, the park has already constructed 160,000 square meters of high-standard factory buildings.
"We innovatively implement the model of 'investment promotion first, customized solutions,' precisely connecting key links in the industry chain. We have now introduced 13 upstream and downstream enterprises covering panels, hardware, wooden doors, and whole-house customization. An interlinked and efficiently coordinated industry chain has begun to take shape," introduced Rong Wang, Assistant to the Chairman of Zhengding Modern Smart Home Industrial Park.
It is precisely this complete, interlinked industry chain that has resolved the long-standing development challenges faced by traditional home furnishing enterprises. The home furnishing industry deals with a wide variety of hardware accessories. Insufficient stock delays construction schedules, while excessive stock ties up capital and space — these are common problems. Now, upstream and downstream enterprises in the park are neighbors, with materials delivered on demand in real time, significantly reducing inventory and logistics costs.
"After moving into the park, our business volume and quality have both improved, and we have established cooperation with multiple listed companies," Fan Yongming said with emotion, noting that this was once beyond reach.
At the same time, the park has built eight major public service centers including intelligent manufacturing, centralized procurement, e-commerce, and smart logistics, promoting intensive sharing of production resources. This allows small and micro enterprises to undertake bulk orders without high equipment investment, focusing on production and market development.
Zhengding Modern Smart Home Industrial Park. Photo by Zhang Chao, Great Wall Network · Jiyun Client.
From single-point technical upgrades to cluster-wide upgrading, from scattered development to ecological aggregation, Zhengding's panel furniture industry has a clear transformation path. Zhengding County will rely on the Smart Home Industrial Park to accelerate the construction of an industrial digital platform, striving to build the largest decorative panel new material production cluster in northern China and a benchmark for whole-house customized smart manufacturing.
At the same time, it will continue to improve supporting facilities such as road networks and municipal infrastructure in the park, release industrial development space, and continuously extend, supplement, and strengthen the industry chain. Currently, the shared coating center and intelligent manufacturing center are under accelerated construction. With the planning and advancement of projects such as the international panel centralized procurement and smart logistics center, the completeness and supporting facilities of Zhengding's panel furniture industry chain will continue to improve.
Leveraging the advantages of the park platform, Zhengding's panel furniture industry is breaking free from traditional development constraints and entering a new track of high-quality development for county-level characteristic industries with a new posture of intelligence, greenness, and efficiency.