Zhenhai Refining & Chemical Selected into the First Batch of National Leading-Level Smart Factory Cultivation List, Setting a Benchmark for Smart Manufacturing in the Refining and Chemical Industry
On November 27, 2025, at the site of the 2025 World Intelligent Manufacturing Conference, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology officially released the first batch of national leading-level smart factory cultivation list, including 15 enterprises. Zhenhai Refining & Chemical under China Petroleum & Chemical Corporation (Sinopec) was successfully selected, becoming the only refining and chemical enterprise on the list. This marks a major breakthrough in the digital transformation and intelligent upgrading of China's refining and chemical industry, and sets a world-leading benchmark for smart manufacturing.
I. The Honor of Leading Level: The Top Certification of the National Gradient Cultivation System
The "leading-level" smart factory is the highest-level title explored and cultivated in the smart factory gradient cultivation initiative jointly launched by six ministries and commissions including the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and the National Development and Reform Commission in 2025, standing at the top of the four-level cultivation system consisting of basic, advanced, outstanding and leading levels. Focusing on the in-depth implementation of digital transformation and innovation in intelligent upgrading, this level aims to build world-leading smart manufacturing benchmark enterprises that are replicable and promotable, providing demonstration and guidance for the high-quality development of the manufacturing industry.
As the largest integrated refining and chemical enterprise of Sinopec, Zhenhai Refining & Chemical has been driving the full-chain transformation of its business with digital technology for years. Starting from the Smart Factory Version 1.0, it has iteratively upgraded to Version 3.0 through continuous efforts, fully realizing the whole-process lean management from engineering construction to production and operation. Prior to this selection, the enterprise has successively won a number of national honors such as "Digital Leading Enterprise", "5G Factory" and "Outstanding Smart Factory", laying a solid foundation for competing for the leading-level certification.
II. Core Practices: Four Major Intelligent Scenarios Shaping the Full-Chain Transformation
(1) Intelligent Inspection Robots: The "24/7 Steward" for Tank Farm Safety
To address the industry pain points of the tank farm such as complex pipelines, numerous blind spots in manual inspection and high operational risks in hazardous environments, Zhenhai Refining & Chemical officially launched the cable-driven intelligent inspection robot system in March 2025, weaving a "24/7, all-round" safety monitoring network for the tank farm. Different from traditional wheeled inspection equipment, the robot can walk independently along aerial cables, easily bypass ground obstacles, reach inspection dead corners inaccessible to humans, and achieve full coverage.
Equipped with advanced devices such as panoramic cameras, infrared thermal imagers and high-precision gas sensors, the robot has strong multi-dimensional perception capabilities: it can accurately identify gas leaks within a 50-meter range in 2 seconds, monitor the concentration of harmful gases such as flammable gas and hydrogen sulfide in real time synchronously, and capture subtle abnormal sounds during equipment operation, forming a triple protection of "vision + smell + hearing". Once an abnormal situation is detected, the data will be immediately transmitted back to the central control command center, and quickly analyzed and disposed of through AI algorithms, realizing a fully automated closed loop of "detection - reporting - decision-making - response".
In actual operation, the robot can independently complete 12 inspection tasks every day, and can automatically start, stop and patrol back and forth according to the preset route regardless of harsh weather such as low temperature at night and heavy rain, effectively making up for the double blind spots of manual inspection in time and space. Through the functions of real-time image transmission and historical data playback, the central control room operators can conduct "point-to-point" accurate confirmation of key parts such as important valves and flanges, greatly reducing the frequency of on-site trips and the safety risks of personnel entering high-risk areas, and building a solid safety barrier for the stable operation of the equipment.
(2) Equipment Health Management Platform: The "Smart Brain" for Full-Process Fault Early Warning
The Equipment Health Management Center built by Zhenhai Refining & Chemical intuitively presents the operation status of all devices in the plant with a dynamically updated electronic "health map": the old area, Phase I and Phase II of the base are clearly divided, and the color depth of the square corresponding to each device directly reflects the current health index, realizing the visual management of equipment status. Clicking on the icon of any device, one can view the core information such as real-time operation data and historical maintenance records of all equipment in the device in detail, providing accurate support for operation and maintenance decision-making.
Integrating nine categories of key data such as process parameters, maintenance records and equipment ledgers, the platform calculates a "health score" for nearly 10,000 pieces of equipment in the plant one by one by building an expert diagnosis model, and generates the overall health index at the device and company level based on this. Previously, nearly 10,000 pumps relied on manual regular inspection to record data, which was inefficient and prone to missing hidden dangers; now, more than 4,000 key pumps have been equipped with intelligent sensors, and the operation data such as vibration and temperature are uploaded to the platform in real time and automatically diagnosed and evaluated by AI algorithms. Technical personnel can accurately locate the equipment that needs key attention, completely bidding farewell to the hidden danger investigation mode like "looking for a needle in a haystack".
"For equipment, preventive maintenance is far better than emergency repair after failure," said Zhang Cheng, an engineer from the Mechanical and Power Department of Zhenhai Refining & Chemical. With the help of the equipment health management platform, the team can capture the abnormal signs of equipment operation in advance and eliminate small problems in the bud. At present, the platform can automatically push 2,800 equipment operation alarms every month, generate about 600 reminders for defect confirmation and preventive maintenance, and send "weekly and monthly health reports" automatically on a regular basis. It not only ensures the stable adjustment of process operation, but also guarantees the timely disposal of equipment abnormalities, significantly improves the level of professional management, and effectively prevents potential production safety accidents.
(3) Full-Process Digital Loading: The "Efficiency Revolution" in Customer Service
"Now loading goods at Zhenhai Refining & Chemical, you don't need to get off the car for the whole process, it's so convenient!" The experience of Wang Yishun, a chemical truck driver from Hangzhou, is a vivid portrayal of how the digital transformation of Zhenhai Refining & Chemical benefits customers. Aiming at the problems in the traditional loading process such as drivers having to get off the car many times to submit documents, weigh goods and check lists, cumbersome processes and long detention time, the enterprise has built a full-process digital loading system, realizing the closed-loop management of "reservation - access - weighing - loading - release".
After the driver completes the online reservation and safety training in advance, when driving the vehicle into the plant area, the license plate automatic recognition system quickly verifies the information and lifts the gate to release; then the vehicle drives to the unmanned weighbridge to complete the weight detection automatically; after entering the loading island, the system accurately docks and completes the loading operation; finally, the weight is rechecked through the exit weighbridge, an electronic weighbridge ticket is generated, and the driver can drive away directly after confirming the pick-up information on the mobile phone. No need for the driver to open the car door once in the whole process, the average detention time is reduced from the previous 24 hours to less than 1 hour, and the comprehensive logistics cost of customers is reduced by about 15%.
At the same time, the intelligent system monitors the driver's on-site operation throughout the whole process, effectively avoiding safety risks such as illegal hot work and illegal use of communication equipment. At present, information such as pick-up reservation, driver training and vehicle access has been shared on a unified platform. Carriers can check the transportation plan online and arrange transportation capacity reasonably, while the enterprise organizes loading in staggered peaks according to the system scheduling. Each cargo forms a clear digital track from order receiving to factory delivery, which not only provides data support for service optimization, but also builds a solid guarantee for risk traceability.
£¨4) Advanced Intelligent Process Control: The "Precise Empowerment" for Production and Operation
"Smart factory used to feel a bit distant, but now I deal with it every day at work," said Gan Jianfu, Deputy Manager of the Information and Digitalization Center of Zhenhai Refining & Chemical. His emotion reveals the profound changes of intelligent technology to production and operation. In the central control room of Phase II of the Zhenhai Base, the display screen presents the real-time curves of key parameters such as temperature, pressure and load, and the operation status of 271 PID control loops is clear at a glance, all supported by the advanced intelligent process control technology.
After the application of this technology in the No.3 Fluid Catalytic Cracking Unit, it has realized second-level loop adjustment and minute-level regional collaborative optimization. The automatic control rate of the unit is stably above 99%, and the stability rate has exceeded 98.5% just two months after commissioning, greatly shortening the commissioning run-in period. The unit needs to go through multiple units such as reaction-regeneration, fractionation and absorption-stabilization from feeding to product output. In the past, in the face of raw material fluctuations and load adjustments, the team had to adjust the loops one by one based on experience; after the introduction of intelligent control technology, second-level intelligent control loops and algorithms are deployed on the distributed control system side to achieve rapid response and adjustment, and minute-level regional coordination controllers are deployed on the upper computer to achieve collaborative and intelligent optimization between independent control loops. It can flexibly adapt to complex scenarios such as working condition fluctuations in the initial stage of commissioning and large-scale daily raw material adjustments, ensuring that the unit always operates in the optimal range.
The project team also used the self-tuning algorithm to model and evaluate the 271 control loops one by one to form exclusive "physical examination reports". At present, some loops have realized online automatic tuning, solidifying the operational experience accumulated by senior technicians over the years into standardized algorithms, and realizing the digital inheritance and large-scale application of operational experience.
III. Transformation Achievements: Leading the High-Quality Development of the Refining and Chemical Industry with Digital and Intelligent Technology
As the only refining and chemical enterprise selected into the first batch of national leading-level smart factory cultivation list, Zhenhai Refining & Chemical's intelligent exploration has not only achieved an all-round improvement in its own operational efficiency, safety level and customer experience, but also built a full-chain smart manufacturing model featuring efficient resource conversion through "molecular refining", collaborative operation through standardized scheduling, and benefit improvement through real-time optimization.
In terms of safety guarantee, the application of intelligent inspection, equipment early warning and other systems has greatly reduced the probability of human operation risks and equipment failures, building a solid line of defense for safe production; in terms of efficiency improvement, the implementation of digital loading, advanced intelligent process control and other technologies has achieved double efficiency improvement in production and operation as well as customer service; in terms of industry value, based on the characteristics of the refining and chemical industry, Zhenhai Refining & Chemical has solved the difficult problems of intelligent transformation in the fields of complex processes, hazardous environments and large-scale equipment management, providing replicable and promotable practical experience for similar enterprises.
In the future, taking this selection into the leading-level smart factory cultivation list as an opportunity, Zhenhai Refining & Chemical will continue to deepen the in-depth integration of digital technology and the real economy, further improve the intelligent transformation system, strive to build a world-leading smart manufacturing benchmark, and contribute more "petrochemical strength" to the high-quality development of China's manufacturing industry.
