Leading the future with "intelligent manufacturing": A practical case of the steel bar centralized processing plant of the Wuyang Wangmei Road Interchange Project of China Construction Eighth Engineering Bureau

I. Project Background: The Times Call for Innovative Construction 

The Wangmei Road Interchange Project is a key project aimed at improving the road network in the Yuhang area, alleviating traffic pressure, and promoting economic development. Its structure is complex, involving numerous bridges and ramps. It places extremely high demands on the usage, specifications, processing accuracy, and supply efficiency of the core building material - steel bars. The traditional decentralized on-site processing mode often suffers from problems such as large land occupation, high energy consumption, significant quality fluctuations, numerous safety hazards, and difficult management. 

To overcome these challenges, the 8th Engineering Bureau of China Construction decided to abandon the traditional approach and introduce advanced concepts from industrial manufacturing. They established a centralized processing and distribution center for reinforcing bars that integrates "automated production, intensive management, and information-based control", aiming to achieve a leap from "construction" to "intelligent manufacturing". 

II. Key Highlights: The Four Pillars of Modern Factories 

Automated production, achieving dual improvements in efficiency and accuracy

The core area of this processing plant is equipped with advanced automated steel bar processing lines, including CNC steel bar bending machines, CNC steel bar bending centers, and CNC steel bar sawing and threading production lines. These devices, through preset programs, can automatically straighten, cut to length, bend, and thread the steel bars. 

Efficiency doubled: The automated equipment operates non-stop for 24 hours, increasing production efficiency by several times compared to traditional manual operations, ensuring the timely supply of the huge demand for steel bars in the project.

Millimeter-level accuracy: The numerical control technology fundamentally eliminates human errors, ensuring that the size and shape of each steel bar fully comply with the design specifications, providing a solid foundation for building a high-quality project.

2. Intensive management, optimization of resources and space

The centralized processing mode achieves "four concentrations":

Material centralized procurement and storage: Reduces material secondary handling, lowers losses, and optimizes inventory through large-scale storage.

Production centralized: Concentrates scattered processing operations at one location, significantly reducing on-site land use and temporary facilities.

Personnel centralized allocation: Professional and fixed industrial worker teams facilitate skill improvement and unified management.

Waste material centralized processing: The generated steel bar waste is convenient for unified recycling and processing, improving resource reuse rate and meeting green construction requirements.

3. Information-based control, transparent and traceable throughout the process

The factory has introduced an intelligent management system for steel bars, generating a unique "identity card" (QR code) for each batch and even each steel bar component. 

Production traceability: All information from raw material entry, processing instructions issuance, production completion to delivery to specific work sites is recorded in real time in the system.

Quality monitoring: Processing parameters and quality inspection results of key processes are all recorded, enabling precise traceability of quality issues and determination of responsibilities.

Progress visualization: Project management personnel can view the progress of steel bar processing and inventory status through computers or mobile devices at any time, providing data support for scientific decision-making and precise scheduling.

4. Green and safe construction, setting a new industry standard 

Environmentally friendly: The centralized processing effectively controlled the noise, dust and welding light pollution that affected the surrounding environment and residents. The factory was clearly divided, and the materials were neatly stacked, meeting the tidy standards of "factory-like construction site".

Intrinsic safety: By transferring the high-risk operation of steel bar processing from the open and complex construction site to the enclosed and standardized workshop, the safety risks such as falling objects from heights and mechanical injuries were fundamentally reduced. At the same time, the automated equipment was equipped with complete safety protection devices, providing a safer working environment for the operators.

Practical achievements: A vivid manifestation of value creation 

The operation of the centralized steel bar processing plant of the Womei Road Interchange Project by China Construction Eighth Engineering Bureau has yielded remarkable comprehensive benefits: 

Economic benefits: Through optimizing the cutting process and centralized pattern cutting, the yield rate of steel bars has significantly increased, effectively reducing material costs; automation has reduced the reliance on a large number of skilled workers, thereby lowering labor costs.

Management benefits: The factory has achieved standardized and process-oriented management of core building materials, enhancing the overall performance and risk-resistance capabilities of the project.

Social benefits: This factory has become a "window" showcasing the advanced construction level and project management capabilities of China Construction Eighth Engineering Division, attracting industry peers for observation, and contributing the "Eight Bureau Solution" to promoting industry progress. 

The modern steel bar centralized processing plant built by China Construction Eighth Engineering Bureau in the Wuyangmei Road Interchange Project is not only an efficient production unit but also a practical platform for innovative concepts. It successfully transformed the "lax" operation of traditional construction sites into the "refined" manufacturing of modern industry, perfectly embodying the profound connotations of "smart construction sites" and "green construction". This successful case provides a highly valuable reference model for China Construction Eighth Engineering Bureau and the entire construction industry on how to achieve cost reduction, efficiency increase, quality improvement and safety through innovation in management models and technical means in future large-scale infrastructure construction.