MediaMonks Shanghai Explore How AI Is the Future of Manufacturing

At this year’s Midea RAC (which is known as Residential Air Conditioning) Online Canton Fair, MediaMonks was named innovation partner to deliver richer, smarter and more interactive experiences to consumers, while giving greater clarity and understanding about the brand, its vision and its products.

 

To kick off the partnership, MediaMonks and Midea started work on two very important projects.  In the first project, MediaMonks utilised a seamless WebGL experience to provide customers with all aspects of the construction of a state-of-the-art virtual factory – the Midea Thailand Smart Factory. The second project is Midea Vision, which uses AI technology to solve business challenges. Both demonstrate Midea’s strong future vision and the ways they are leading the path to the future.

 

With the ambition to realize higher-quality products, greater safety and sustainability through cutting-edge technology, intelligent systems and product lines, Midea RAC’s industry-leading Thailand Smart Factory is slated to open in October 2021.

 

To reveal the innovative construction process to the audience, MediaMonks came up with a creative idea to create a virtual tour to this “future factory”. By delivering a seamless WebGL experience, customers can freely explore all aspects of the factory online and get a comprehensive understanding of its key features and highlights.

“On the fly through experience, we enabled our digital visitors to navigate across a 3D modeled factory represented in the clean, modern aesthetic of minimalism. This virtual factory environment was achieved with the combination of aerial and ground photography footage built upon a 3D modelling technique called photogrammetry. Visitors can now explore interactive hotspots and discover the factory's features in an immersive web experience. Alongside the archived time lapse videos, customers can choose to watch a live camera feed for a real-time look at the factory’s construction. Finally, a dedicated news tab keeps customers up to date, enabling convenience and time in allowing our consumers to make a more grounded decision.” said Ron Lee, technical director Shanghai, MediaMonks.

From a strategic point of view, “The factory of the future is characterised by the integration of digital technologies into manufacturing processes. The ‘smart factory’ – or Factory 4.0 – aims to achieve further competitiveness and will rely on the convergence between the industrial and digital worlds. This is hinged on existing tools and creativity – sensors, automation, big data, IOT, cloud computing – being propelled, and the arrival of new activities in energy, green products, robotics, molecular biology, genetics adding value and innovation to marketing. This thinking will empower Midea and its partners and help future-proof and create lasting business impact,” said Ramzi Chaabane, head of strategy Shanghai, MediaMonks.

 

Alongside the virtual factory, MediaMonks and Midea RAC have also started work on Midea Vision (also called M-Vision project). It includes our Digital Interactive Platform, which will be the integrated home to all the latest Residential Air-Conditioner (RAC) and Light Commercial Air-Conditioner (LCAC) products, as well as core technologies, branding, manufacturing and company information. It also includes the RAC Canton Fair virtual center, enabling Midea RAC to connect all global business customers closely by utilizing a cutting-edge AR product launch event, interactive live streaming and immersive product experiences. As part of this effort, we will also build Mia – Midea’s holistic AI solution – which will help solve a host of business challenges and to achieve Midea’s 2025 goal.

In near future, our great vision for Mia, the AI assistant, will be to achieve a variety of things not seen before, including:

Mia 1.0 has already launched this month and provides comprehensive support to assist with sales and more at every step. What's more, this in-depth and interactive way of communicating creates a completely immersive experience for clients and consumers to better understand the Midea brand and its products.

“Midea is a category leader when it comes to R&D, manufacturing, and shipping to name a few. The ambition is to build a solution to solve ongoing business challenges and pave the path for the future. The core of what we try to deliver is to allow users to have more discovery moments and information touchpoints to create a seamless experience,” said January Zhang, head of marketing department, Midea RAC OSC.