As extreme heatwaves sweep across Europe, portable split air conditioners made in Guangdong are in desperately short supply. At Midea's residential air conditioning (RAC) factory in Guangzhou's Nansha district, a finished unit rolls off the line every six seconds. "The peak season starts in March, and our monthly output can now reach 1.1 to 1.2 million units, equivalent to nearly 40,000 units per day," said Hu Luo, the factory's engineering manager. "We've doubled production capacity without any physical expansion of the factory." The secret is an unseen digital control system, known as the "factory brain," which coordinates the entire production process.

By the end of last year, this manufacturing base, once recognized as a world-class "lighthouse factory," had deployed AI agents across every step of production, officially evolving from a "lighthouse" to an "agentic factory." In the automated logistics warehouse, an AI system that proactively predicts and balances workloads has reduced monthly line downtime caused by peak demand swings from around 700 hours to between 100 and 180 hours. During product changeovers, tasks that once required workers to spend half an hour on manual pre-inspections are now handled by five or six AI sub-agents that coordinate and schedule tasks autonomously. Operators only need five minutes for confirmation, and coordination-related delays have been reduced by 90%.

On June 9th, Midea officially launched its "Agentic Factory Overseas Expansion Solution." The approach was validated in a real-world deployment at Midea's RAC factory in Thailand, where 72 AI applications and 13 core AI agents were rolled out. The results included a 43% reduction in end-to-end order lead time, a 32% drop in customer complaints, and a 62% shorter employee training cycle.

全工序AI智能体进厂！“广东造”智数生态加速出海

极端热浪席卷欧洲大陆，“广东造”的便携式分体空调在欧洲市场“一机难求”。而位于广州南沙的美的家用空调广州工厂里，每6秒，就有一台空调整装下线。“3月起进入旺季，目前月产能可达110万到120万套，相当于每天近4万套。”工厂工程负责人胡洛说，“产能翻倍，厂房却未扩建一寸。”秘密藏在那个看不见的“总指挥”里——工厂大脑。

去年年底，这家曾获评世界“灯塔工厂”的制造基地，完成了全工序AI智能体的入驻，正式从“灯塔”进化为“智能体工厂”。在物流立库，这台会“提前算账”的智能体，把因峰值波动造成的产线损失时间，从每月约700小时压缩至100小时到180小时。在转产线上，过去靠人工提前半小时点检的环节，如今五六个子智能体“互相商量”、自主安排，员工只需5分钟确认，协同损失直降90%。

6月9日，美的正式发布“智能体工厂出海解决方案”。这一方案的有效性在美的泰国家用空调工厂得到了实战验证。该工厂落地了72个AI应用及13大智能体，实现端到端订单前置时间减少43%，客户投诉率下降32%，员工培训周期缩短62%。

文丨记者 王丹阳
翻译丨黄健新
审校丨盛嘉