Held on the morning of September 6th, 2026, the 23rd Lean Digital Innovation Conference commenced grandly at the Tianjin National Convention and Exhibition Center. Running concurrently as a key parallel session, the Binhai Smart Voice forum was successfully hosted by the Tianjin Binhai New Area SME Association, co-organized by Tianjin Airput Technology Development Co., Ltd. and Yinhe Intelligent Technology (Tianjin) Co., Ltd., with support from the Tianjin Binhai New Area Federation of Industry and Commerce.

Centered on the theme "Survival and Development Strategies for SMEs in the AI Era," the forum gathered over a hundred entrepreneurs, government representatives, and industry experts to explore pathways for growth and breakthrough strategies for small and medium-sized enterprises amidst the AI wave. As a registered brand meticulously developed by the Binhai New Area SME Association, Binhai Smart Voice has now been successfully held for five sessions. Its mission is to empower local SMEs and support innovative business development, aiming to create a high-end communication platform both domestically and internationally. The initiative builds bridges connecting regional enterprises with China's and the world's manufacturing sectors, fostering a new ecosystem of upstream-downstream collaboration and industry-academia-research integration. This edition represents an upgrade built on the foundation of the previous four, offering both macro perspectives and practical, actionable insights.

The forum began promptly at 9 a.m., hosted by Wang Deqiang, Vice President of the Tianjin Binhai New Area SME Association and Deputy Chairman of Tianjin Airput Technology Development Co., Ltd. In his opening remarks, Wang introduced that Binhai Smart Voice is not just a conference brand but a long-term commitment—one that provides SMEs with definitive methodologies and growth pathways in uncertain environments by connecting policy, technology, capital, and industrial practice. He then detailed the session's agenda and invited government leaders, association representatives, and entrepreneurs to deliver their addresses.

Fan Jianlin, Vice President of the China Enterprise Reform and Development Research Society and former Director of the Retired Cadres Administration Bureau under the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission, delivered the first address. He noted that the current period marks the beginning of the 15th Five-Year Plan and a critical starting point for China's journey toward achieving socialist modernization by 2035. The Tianjin Binhai New Area, serving as a key gateway for northern China's opening-up, a vital strategic fulcrum for Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei coordinated development, and the core zone for the national advanced manufacturing R&D base, boasts a trillion-yuan industrial output, more than 5,000 high-tech enterprises, and over 6,000 tech-based SMEs. In the era of AI-driven, lean-digital development, SMEs in Binhai face both significant opportunities and formidable challenges.

Addressing the forum's central theme, Fan shared three key insights. First, he emphasized maintaining steady progress and focusing on core products as the foundation. He advised that having stable, core products with continuous iteration is the norm for healthy development, urging enterprises to seize emerging industry opportunities such as humanoid robots, embodied intelligence, biomandufacturing, intelligent connected vehicles, new energy storage, and hydrogen energy. He counseled integrating into the broader AI industry chain while staying grounded in existing strengths, cautioning against reckless expansion detached from one's foundation. Second, he stressed pragmatic implementation and deep integration of AI with traditional industries. For AI deployment in traditional sectors, he recommended choosing areas with relatively lower technical thresholds, such as application and service layers, to avoid financial strain on enterprises. Traditional manufacturers should timely adopt core technologies to replace outdated methods and labor models, improving efficiency, reducing costs, and maximizing value. Third, he highlighted the importance of risk awareness and measured development. He advised against blindly following trends and making massive investments, noting that "crossing the river by feeling the stones" remains the most prudent approach for business growth, with SMEs especially needing to protect their core products and iterate from there.

Fan also praised the Tianjin Binhai New Area SME Association as a liaison point for industry associations and chambers of commerce under the Central Social Work Department and a national "Four Good" chamber of commerce. Since its establishment in 2013, it has contributed significantly to advancing SME development in the area. He expressed the China Enterprise Reform and Development Research Society's willingness to provide tangible support and services for Binhai's SMEs, leveraging its role as a bridge and think tank platform.

Dou Wensheng, Deputy Director of the United Front Work Department of the Tianjin Binhai New Area Party Committee and Party Secretary of the District Federation of Industry and Commerce, delivered congratulatory remarks on behalf of the Federation. Opening with a poetic line about September's arrival and wisdom gathering at the Haihe River, he extended warm congratulations on the forum's success and sincere respect to entrepreneurs working on the front lines. Dou noted that Binhai Smart Voice, rooted in Binhai's real economy, has consistently listened to the voices of SMEs over five years and has become a vital platform connecting government and business interactions, industry-academia-research collaboration, and integrated industrial service coordination.

He pointed out that AI is rapidly penetrating the manufacturing sector, and the construction of new quality productive forces is accelerating. China's manufacturing industry stands at a critical juncture of transformation from large to strong. While industry leaders leverage their advantages in capital, technology, and talent to advance digital transformation, SMEs often remain cautious due to resource and talent constraints. Finding a lightweight digitalization and intelligence upgrade path that enables AI technology to land practical applications and allows lean management to take root on production floors has become an urgent issue. Dou observed that this forum's focus on the dual integration of "AI + Lean" comes at precisely the right time, providing valuable opportunities for SMEs to achieve incremental iteration and rapid growth through step-by-step progress.

Dou shared three perspectives for mutual encouragement. First, he emphasized that confidence is golden and steadiness leads to long-term success, noting that Binhai New Area is actively building itself into a national pilot zone for AI innovation applications while continuously releasing policy benefits such as computing power support and industry connectivity. The Federation of Industry and Commerce will continue to serve as a bridge, acting as a "direct express" for policy implementation and a "connecting bridge" for feedback. Second, he cited the wisdom that "travelers reach their destination, and doers accomplish their goals," encouraging entrepreneurs to learn from replicable transformation cases shared by industry experts and benchmark enterprises. Rather than passively waiting for opportunities, he urged proactively moving with the tide and accumulating progress step by step. Third, he stressed persistent cultivation, expressing hope that Binhai Smart Voice will continue to enhance the regional industry brand, leverage the national platform of the Lean Digital Innovation Conference to tell Binhai's manufacturing story, promote deeper integration of regional enterprises with national industry chain resources, and help Binhai's SMEs deeply embed themselves in the national manufacturing innovation cycle.

Li Kun, President of the Tianjin Binhai New Area SME Association and Chairman and General Manager of Tianjin Heavy Steel Machinery Equipment Co., Ltd., delivered a keynote address titled "Upholding Industrial Value, Embarking on a New Digital Journey—Operational Awakening and Pragmatic Transformation of Private Enterprises Amid Change." He directly addressed the "triple era propositions" facing enterprises today: the shift from scale expansion to high-quality connotative development, the intelligent revolution driven by AI as the fourth industrial revolution, and the policy opportunities stemming from the 15th Five-Year Plan's emphasis on developing productive services. He argued that the intersection of these three forces defines the transformation coordinate system for industrial enterprises.

Li believes Chinese private enterprises are undergoing an awakening from "profit supremacy" to "value supremacy," with companies becoming entities that create value, warm society, and bear responsibility. He presented a "composite value creation model" CV = (Cf × H × S × K) × (1 + A), explaining that customer happiness value, employee happiness value, social contribution value, and sustainable capital value should achieve four-dimensional multiplicative symbiosis, with intelligent systems acting as a multiplier that amplifies value. He proposed a six-dimensional benchmark for good enterprises: investment with returns, products with markets, companies with profits, employees with income, government with tax revenue, and environment with improvement—emphasizing that comprehensive value contribution matters more than mere revenue scale.

Addressing entrepreneurs, Li offered four points of counsel: return to business fundamentals, breaking free from short-term thinking about scale and profit; uphold composite value symbiosis by treating customers well, developing employees, and bearing social responsibility; rationally embrace AI as a new quality productive force, following the path of "lean first, then data, then intelligence" to let technology serve industry; and maintain an entrepreneurial spirit of hard work to forge new paths amid change. He concluded with the motto, "When industry prospers, the nation prospers; when value is right, the era is right," encouraging SMEs to navigate cycles through value creation.

Following the opening and address segments, guests moved to the exhibition area for approximately 35 minutes of networking and exhibition viewing. Notably, the Lean Digital Transformation Innovation Ecology Expo ran concurrently with the conference at Hall S16. The expo featured state-owned enterprise benchmarks including China National Nuclear Corporation, CRRC Group, China Railway Signal & Communication Corporation, Changan Automobile, and China Southern Power Grid, alongside major AI technology companies such as Unitree Robotics, Kingdee Group, Yuantu Technology, Kylin Software, and Phytium Technology. These exhibitors showcased lean digital innovation achievements, practical cases, lean digital solutions, and AI technology applications across various industries. A dedicated presentation zone offered continuous technical talks and innovation roadshows throughout the day, providing attendees with a high-end platform for learning benchmarks, exploring solutions, and connecting resources.

The forum also featured a dedicated exhibition area for the Tianjin Binhai New Area SME Association, which became one of the most visited zones at the event. It showcased innovative achievements and transformation practices from Binhai's SMEs. As a national "Four Good" chamber of commerce and a liaison point under the Central Social Work Department since 2024, the association has served 165,000 private SME entities since its founding in 2013, with the mission of "building an empowering symbiotic platform, guiding healthy enterprise growth, and supporting high-quality regional development." Eight exhibiting units participated in the association's zone, spanning collaborative robotics, modern agriculture, green lubrication materials, enterprise overseas expansion services, new lithium battery materials, and safety technology services. The lineup included national "Little Giant" specialized and innovative enterprises representing hard technology, traditional industry players transitioning to digitalization, and service platforms providing overseas expansion, compliance, and safety support—forming a complete "industry + technology + service" exhibitor matrix.

The thematic sharing session began with Zhou Hongtao, Deputy General Manager of Xidian Hengchi (Jiangsu) Electric Co., Ltd., presenting "Displaying Lean Charm in Small Spaces—The Value Practice Path of Lean Philosophy at Xidian Hengchi." Zhou shared practical experience in advancing lean transformation across enterprises of different scales, noting that many SMEs focus on equipment and technology during digitalization but often overlook weaknesses in their operational management systems. He asserted that "the biggest challenge facing Chinese enterprises is not whether equipment is advanced or capital is sufficient, but how to maximize existing resources including people, machines, materials, methods, and environment." He emphasized that "liberating employee thinking matters far more than liberating equipment" and that "standardization and lean practices are the mother of all disciplines."

In practice, Zhou highlighted the importance of "cultural foundation building," using methods such as concept penetration, on-site 6S management, quality-first principles, performance transparency, excellence competitions, employee mood boards, collective birthday celebrations, and employee photo walls to achieve ideological alignment between enterprises and individuals. He shared results across different companies: at NARI Powerwell, lean transformation achieved a 100% production efficiency increase over three years; at Xidian Hengchi's low and medium voltage factory, a facility once at breakeven began generating annual profits of 20 million yuan within three years; and at Hengchi Zhongxing's high voltage workshop, production efficiency improved by over 50% in just one year. He summarized that "Industry 4.0, the internet, and AI are all techniques, but cultural philosophy is the Tao that gives birth to all things"—suggesting that SME transformation should first cultivate internal strength before leveraging external tools.

Zheng Jianfeng, General Manager of Huayan Robotics (Tianjin) Co., Ltd., then presented "AI Lean Empowerment Creating Value on the Ground—Deployable Robots Driving Manufacturing Upgrades." Beginning with how physical AI and embodied intelligence are reshaping the industrial technology foundation, he noted that intelligent robotics has risen to become one of the six emerging industries in the national 15th Five-Year Plan, with the industry landscape undergoing profound restructuring. Zheng explained that Huayan Robotics, with over 20 years of technical expertise, has achieved full-chain independent controllability from core motion components and robot bodies to embodied intelligence, developing product lines including the Elfin, Elfin-Pro, S, Elfin-Ex, and Smart-Ex collaborative robots, as well as Echo and HY series seven-axis humanoid arms and the HRC embodied intelligence control platform. These products have achieved large-scale deployment across welding, screw fastening, CNC loading and unloading, palletizing, industrial inspection, and commercial kitchen services. He emphasized that robot value ultimately lies in "deployability"—only by going deep into workshop operations and solving real process pain points can AI be transformed from concept into productive force. He called on SMEs to identify genuine needs through lean thinking so that robot technology truly serves quality improvement and efficiency gains.

Wang Haibo, Deputy Dean of the Talent Development Institute and Chief Talent Development Expert at Tianjin Airput Technology Development Co., Ltd., delivered a session on "Talent Development in the AI Era." He pointed out that global manufacturing competition has shifted from singular efficiency competition to systematic capability competition across "strategy, operations, and technology." The basic unit of AI transformation is end-to-end business processes, and organizational analysis units have expanded from static positions to dynamic combinations of "tasks, capabilities, intelligent agents, and responsibility boundaries." Wang argued that AI fundamentally changes not positions but task allocation, capability requirements, judgment logic, and human-machine division of labor. Enterprises should not ask "how many employees AI can replace" but rather "what combination of human capabilities, intelligent agent capabilities, and organizational mechanisms is needed to achieve strategic goals."

In terms of talent positioning, he evolved from the "I-type to T-type to π-type" framework to propose an "industry-data-technology E-type" composite talent standard, emphasizing that "technology itself does not create value—value emerges from deep integration of technology with business scenarios." For talent system development, he proposed a tiered approach: "AI business architects set direction, lean AI application specialists identify scenarios, AI technical designers build frameworks, and AI engineers implement solutions," complemented by FDE frontier deployment engineers bridging the "last mile." He introduced a "measure-learn-train-practice-evaluate" five-in-one training paradigm and an "organization development three-engine drive" system. Using the "lean AI application specialist" example, he explained a four-party joint training mechanism involving national authoritative certification, industry ecosystem co-building, top expert intelligence, and benchmark client co-creation, which has already deployed over 30 AI agents covering production, supply chain, marketing, and customer service core business areas. This session directly addressed the biggest pain point in SME AI transformation: the shortage is not algorithms but people who can translate business scenarios into AI requirements.

Bao Mianbin, Chairman of Shugen Digital Technology (Shandong) Co., Ltd. and General Manager of the Information Center at Stanley Agricultural Group Co., Ltd., presented "From Workshop to Cloud: Stanley's Lean Digital Management System Building Practice." He chronicled Stanley's journey from its founding in 1992 through over 30 years of development, during which it established 12 major production bases nationwide while continuously cultivating lean and digital practices. Bao analyzed that the compound fertilizer industry combines chemical manufacturing with agricultural supply chain characteristics, featuring significant raw material price fluctuations, long production cycles, and substantial capital occupation, necessitating headquarters centralized control and full industry chain coordination. Around the three main lines of supply chain operations, intelligent management, and smart manufacturing, Stanley has systematically advanced digital transformation through eight priorities: product development, supply chain operations, channel operations, intelligent manufacturing, talent building, institutional development, data governance, and IT subsidiary incorporation.

He shared data governance and AI application practices, using a "five management lessons" framework to build three platforms for dashboards, mobile analytics, and dispatch, achieving full online presence for business, data, exceptions, and management. Simultaneously addressing "all-employee AI" requirements, Stanley built its own computing center and private large language models, implementing core scenarios including AI plus marketing, AI plus production, and AI plus finance. Bao quoted the group chairman's observation that "over 90% of profits come from incremental improvements." He candidly acknowledged that digital transformation is "easier said than done, and doing is harder than knowing," citing three major challenges: modeling difficulties, promotion barriers, and application hurdles. He emphasized that success depends on enterprise leaders personally leading the charge, selecting appropriate products and mature methodologies, focusing on core needs, and establishing long-term training and maintenance mechanisms. Today, Stanley Group has incubated Shugen Digital Technology Co., Ltd., leveraging service experience with over 200 supply chain clients to export this workshop-to-cloud practical system externally, providing replicable reference models for more manufacturing enterprises.

The Binhai Smart Voice forum concluded successfully at 11:25 a.m. amid warm applause. From opening addresses to thematic presentations, exhibition exchanges, and case reviews, the entire event centered on one core proposition: in the AI era, SMEs must both "look up at the stars" and "keep their feet on the ground"—anchored by industrial value, built on lean foundations, and propelled by digital intelligence to find their definitive growth path amid change. Attendees universally agreed that this forum avoided empty concepts and pursued real solutions, offering both macro perspectives and practical tools, providing a valuable intellectual collision for SMEs in Binhai and beyond. Going forward, Binhai Smart Voice will continue deepening the SME service ecosystem, connecting more policy, technology, capital, and industrial resources, ensuring the "smart voice" continues to resonate and helping more SMEs navigate steadily and far in the wave of new industrialization.