The domestic mobile robot (AGV/AMR) industry is currently undergoing a deep reshuffle. On the one hand, it is the long-term dividend of industries such as new energy, and on the other hand, it is the price war, supply chain competition, and capital market cooling caused by technological homogenization. The industry has reached a crossroads: should we rely on scale to roll in the general material handling track, or deepen our cultivation in high barrier areas to create core advantages?

Founded in Zhuhai and deeply rooted in the industry for more than ten years, Chuangzhi Technology has not taken the old path of standardized vehicle mass production, but focuses on customized solutions and lean production implementation.We not only do material handling, but also deeply integrate AGVs into customer processes. ”The words of Xu Bo, Executive Vice President of Chuangzhi Technology, express the confidence of the enterprise to grow against the trend.

Amidst the volatile demand in the photovoltaic industry and the overall pressure on the industry chain, Chuangzhi has achieved a growth of approximately 30% this year compared to the same period last year, thanks to its customized processes in the production of new energy battery cells and energy storage sectors. Based on the excellent reputation of zero unfinished projects, this mobile robot enterprise founded by manufacturing practitioners continuously expands the value boundary of intelligent logistics with the core logic of customized reuse and lean planning.

From the perspective of the revenue structure of Chuangzhi Technology, new energy has become the absolute largest application industry of the company, contributing 60% to 70% of the revenue. Among them, the production of new energy battery cells is the core business sector of the company. According to Xu Bo, relying on the continuous expansion of the customer base in the energy storage field, the company's revenue has achieved a steady growth of about 30% year-on-year this year.

Chuangzhi Technology's deep cultivation of the new energy track is not a short-term move to follow the trend, but a deep analysis based on industry development trends.Automated production has become a standard in the new energy industry, and the production process of energy storage batteries is complex and the standards are strict. The entire process, from raw material production, static storage to capacity conversion, cannot be separated from high-precision and high stability automation equipment. This also makes the value of mobile robots increasingly prominent in the production line.

With the mature development of the industry, the production line planning logic of new energy enterprises has also undergone a transformation. Xu Bo observed that nowadays, in the early design stage of the production line, customers will incorporate AGV moving lines into the overall planning, making automation equipment a core component of standardized design for the production line. This industry change has also upgraded the cooperation model between Chuangzhi Technology and customers, no longer limited to equipment sales, but deeply involved in customers' early process planning and forming close cooperative relationships with them.

The seemingly vast new energy automation track actually has extremely high industry barriers.In the early stages of industry demand explosion, a large amount of capital and enterprises entered the market, and a large number of mobile robot products developed for lithium power plants also emerged in the market. But after the waves washed away the sand, Xu Bo admitted that there were only a few companies that could take root in this field.

The outside world generally regards high precision equipment as the core threshold of the industry, but ignores that this is only the surface parameters presented by hardware. The real competitive barrier in the field lies in the comprehensive and systematic capabilities of enterprises in all aspects. Xu Bo stated that the core of "high-precision docking" is stable and repetitive positioning capability, which requires the deep coordination and collaborative operation of extremely reliable mechanical structures and high-frequency linked software systems. Moreover, after AGV is deeply embedded in the new energy mass production line, the stability of equipment operation is crucial. Once the stability of the equipment is insufficient, it will directly drag down the production capacity of the entire production line and become a production bottleneck. In addition, the ability to integrate software and hardware is even more crucial. The equipment needs to achieve millisecond level data exchange and signal docking with the enterprise MES management system and various production equipment. This integrated supporting capability is the fundamental basis for establishing a foothold in the industry.

The extremely high industry technology threshold also endows enterprises with strong risk resistance capabilities. Although the revenue mainly comes from the new energy sector, the company has not fallen into a single track dependence. Xu Bo stated that Chuangzhi Technology's AGV products have strong adaptability and can meet the needs of the vast majority of manufacturing enterprises for warehousing, transportation, and process conveying. New energy is only the core growth pole of the company at the current stage. With solid technological accumulation and strong technological flexibility, enterprises can quickly transform and effectively hedge the cyclical risks of a single industry when the next industry trend arrives.

Based on his own judgment of technological flexibility and industry cycles, Xu Bo introduced that the company has always adhered to a steady R&D rhythm of "developing one generation, selling one generation, and pre researching one generation", and has laid out multiple tracks in advance to build a diversified business system. For the photovoltaic industry with obvious fluctuations, he judged that the industry has gone through four rounds of ups and downs, and the dawn of the fifth round of recovery is approaching. Therefore, the company has targeted its layout and will soon launch a new mobile robot product that is suitable for special scenarios such as high temperature, high dust, and high odor in photovoltaics.

In Xu Bo's plan, the company will continue to focus on the new energy industry, continuously explore high-quality industrial tracks such as 3C, PCB, and semiconductor, and rely on long-term accumulated technological strength to continuously broaden the development boundaries of the enterprise.

This confidence of not blindly chasing trends and always using technological flexibility to hedge cyclical risks has ultimately been projected onto the most hardcore report card of Chuangzhi Technology - in the context of many projects in the mobile robot industry being stalled due to detachment from reality, all the projects delivered by Chuangzhi Technology so far have not been abandoned.

Speaking of this rare record in the industry, Xu Bo's tone revealed a calm sense of pride: "We have achieved perfect delivery for every project and ultimately won deep recognition from customers." It is precisely because of the trust brought by this high-quality delivery that Chuangzhi Technology has formed a unique reputation effect in market development. Xu Bo said that when customers personally feel the value of the equipment in actual production, they often proactively recommend it to upstream and downstream enterprises in the industry chain. At present, a large part of the company's customer acquisition resources are derived from this benign brand referral.

The core support for building a "zero unfinished" delivery defense line lies in Chuangzhi Technology's customized capability system rooted in the genes of the manufacturing industry.

Xu Bo introduced that the core founding team of Chuangzhi Technology has been deeply involved in the manufacturing industry for many years, and is better able to accurately grasp the real pain points of manufacturing enterprises. The team takes lean production as the starting point to connect projects, not only can complete the overall scheme design, but also has the ability to implement the entire process, and can provide customers with one-stop closed-loop services. With solid industry experience, communication between both parties is no longer limited to equipment parameters, but directly targets the underlying operational logic of material flow and information flow.

In specific business practices, this customization capability has helped Chuangzhi Technology successfully build differentiation barriers. Different from peers who focus on basic material handling, Chuangzhi Technology focuses on complex production processes, overcomes difficulties such as high-precision docking and automatic equipment interaction, and achieves efficient communication between robots and production systems.

This customized deep problem-solving ability has become the strongest shield during the most intense price war in the industry.

In the face of intense price competition in the industry, Xu Bo believes that cost reduction cannot simply rely on compressing hardware prices, but should integrate the concept of lean production into the design of the product itself. Xu Bo gave an example, saying that for example, AGV can only transport one basket of materials at a time, while Chuangzhi Technology has increased the single load capacity to three baskets by optimizing the structure of the equipment itself. This means that in specific scenarios, the equipment of Chuangzhi Technology can replace the three trips of its peers with one trip, thereby achieving essential efficiency improvement and design cost reduction at the source of product structure.

A more systematic cost reduction comes from pre intervention in factory planning. Xu Bo pointed out that for new factories, Chuangzhi Technology will assist customers in evaluating details such as channel reservation, ground treatment, machine docking ports and heights, as well as network AP deployment, and provide a complete set of work planning solutions. For old factories that are already in operation, Chuangzhi Technology adopts a path of "whole process planning, step-by-step implementation" to conduct systematic diagnosis and regional iteration, assisting customers in achieving the best balance between efficiency and cost.

As for the tension between customization and scale that the market is generally concerned about, Xu Bo believes that this contradiction is not so sharp in the face of industry practitioners. Firstly, customized solutions have "horizontal reusability". Taking the new energy field as an example, customized solutions developed for a specific process have evolved into standardized production processes in the same type of customers; Secondly, Chuangzhi Technology adopts a modular design of "standard chassis+customized upper assembly", which adapts to different machines by flexibly adjusting the height, length, and width of the upper assembly. This approach has a very limited impact on the underlying costs.

Through the organic combination of "local standardization" and "rapid customization", Chuangzhi Technology not only perfectly meets customers' requirements for high cost-effectiveness, but also makes customization truly the core engine driving the company's steady progress.

Deeply cultivating the fields of new energy and customization has stabilized the domestic market foundation for Chuangzhi Technology. In the face of increasingly fierce competition in the local environment, expanding the global market outward and landing cutting-edge technologies inward have become the key for enterprises to explore new increments. Globalization and the landing of cutting-edge technologies are the two core layouts of Chuangzhi Technology for the future.

In 2024, Chuangzhi Technology took the first step of its internationalization strategy, and the starting point of this step is Southeast Asia. Xu Bo recalled, "Our first step in going global was to follow the customers. When the customers went to Southeast Asia to build factories, we also took advantage of the opportunity to enter the local market." With mature customized solutions verified in the domestic market and long-term established cooperation trust, this "following the global market" model effectively reduced the implicit costs of re establishing awareness in unfamiliar markets, making the overseas layout very solid.

In just two years, Chuangzhi Technology's overseas territory has continued to expand, with projects landing in multiple countries such as Japan, South Korea, Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia, and Vietnam; Simultaneously establishing a subsidiary in Singapore and building a localized sales and service team in Malaysia.

Since the beginning of this year, the proportion of overseas business in the company's overall revenue has approached 20%, and this number continues to rise. When it comes to the annual overseas revenue target, Xu Bo appears confident: "We expect that by the end of this year, the proportion of overseas business can increase to 30%, and we have absolute confidence in achieving this goal

However, cross-border delivery is not a smooth path, and the many challenges of overseas projects have resulted in paying not a single penny of tuition fees for going abroad. Firstly, there are significant differences in the supply chain, with overseas component procurement not only costing several times more than domestically, but also having very limited procurement channels. It is very convenient to purchase a screw domestically, with abundant upstream and downstream supply chain resources, but it is completely different when placed overseas, "Xu Bo admitted. The same type of screw not only skyrockets in price by five to ten times in Southeast Asia, but also requires staff to spend a lot of time searching around.

Secondly, there are shortcomings in the local infrastructure. The landing and post operation of mobile robots overseas cannot be separated from domestic technical support throughout the entire process, which also forces overseas business to face obvious technological gaps. Xu Bo explained using data transmission as an example that China's 5G network coverage is complete, and large capacity data packets can be quickly sent and received; Once cross-border transmission is carried out, the time consumption will significantly increase. Faced with various challenges in going global, Xu Bo candidly stated that once these "pitfalls" are overcome, they will inevitably be stepped upon. However, the team is implementing response plans step by step through technological optimization and management adjustments.

After establishing a foothold in the Southeast Asian market, the development of the European and American markets has also been put on the agenda. In Xu Bo's view, going out to sea is a battle that requires careful planning, and we must "step by step exert force", gradually advance from near to far, and achieve a deep layout of globalization.

At the same time as globalization expands geographical boundaries, Chuangzhi Technology is also keenly capturing the dividends of technological intergenerational changes, especially the recently discussed embodied intelligence and AI applications in the industry.

In this wave, many domestic mobile robot companies have launched new concept products such as wheeled humanoid robots. However, Xu Bo has a pragmatic and forward-looking judgment on this. He believes that the core of empowering mobile robots with embodied intelligence is to enable devices to "understand" the work environment and "understand" human-machine instructions, so as to flexibly complete work tasks in complex paths. Embodied intelligence does not necessarily have to be in the form of a humanoid robot. With a different appearance, as long as the underlying logic is the same, the work done is actually similar

Xu Bo revealed that Chuangzhi Technology had already applied products with embodied intelligent underlying logic on the front line of the industry two years ago. In the photovoltaic slicing scenario, the company's mobile robots have been able to accurately transport and machine over one meter long silicon rods; In addition, the system used relies on self-developed algorithms to achieve intelligent operations such as equipment linkage, optimal path planning, and real-time loading and distribution. From the actual feedback from customers, this product has shown significant effects in terms of manpower substitution and cost reduction and efficiency improvement.

Based on this profound understanding of the essence of technology, Chuangzhi Technology has not blindly followed the trend in technological evolution, but has adopted a pragmatic strategy of "technological flexibility looking at the long run". Xu Bo revealed that the company has organically integrated cutting-edge technologies such as AI into the existing AGV operation system. At the same time, Chuangzhi Technology is actively promoting the planning and research and development of diversified products, relying on the universal chassis to carry various humanoid structures, and realizing the automation replacement of traditional manual positions.

Focusing on, going global, and embracing the forefront - Chuangzhi Technology uses the most down-to-earth determination and solidity of manufacturing industry to expand and dig deeper the moat in the global wave. There are no shortcuts, only deep cultivation.