A first-class intelligent manufacturing base for steel structures has been launched in Nantong, Jiangsu province, with the aim of automating and making greener the production of steel structures and perfecting the domestic footprint of such bases.

State builder China Railway No 4 Engineering Group Co Ltd (CREC4) put into operation its intelligent manufacturing industry base on Saturday, which can provide a low-cost but high-quality alternative to domestic as well as overseas clients in buying large-scale steel structures.

The base, with an investment of 2 billion yuan ($281 million) and covering 33 hectares, is located in the Tongzhou district of Nantong, which is adjacent to the Yellow Sea in the east and close to the Yangtze River in the south, with a river frontage of 10.77 kilometers.

Earlier, as a way to bolster its development of new quality productive forces, the Hefei, Anhui province-based CREC4 invested 5 billion yuan to start building the CREC4 High-end Intelligent Construction Headquarters project in the prefecture-level city of Nantong on March 19, 2023.

The project included a high-end building intelligent manufacturing headquarters and the intelligent manufacturing industry base.

Situated in Nantong's high-end equipment harbor-side industrial park on Tongzhou Bay, the industry base has a workshop area of about 110,000 square meters, and is able to produce 200,000 metric tons of steel structures each year, said Zheng Haitang, chief of the base.

As a modern heavy steel-structure industrial base integrating design, research and development, processing and manufacturing, it mainly engages in the R&D of bridge steel structures, offshore steel structures, shipbuilding and high-rise building steel structures, Zheng said.

As it is close to the Yangtze River and the Yellow Sea, Zheng said the base has also built an independent 10,000-ton inner-excavated harbor dock, which can berth 10,000-ton ships and load large steel components, as well as transport large steel components from the river to the sea, providing convenience for the future export of such products.

He said the factory is equipped with more than 200 sets of advanced equipment ranging from lifting, cutting, welding and spraying to transport facilities, with an automation rate of over 96 percent.

He said the workshop in the factory has set up an adaptive welding cluster composed of intelligent robots, which has been able to raise the overall efficiency by some 30 percent compared to traditional teaching programming robots.

Zheng said the factory is also equipped with a photovoltaic roof of 100,000 square meters, a green energy source for the daily hot water needs of employees, car charging and roadside lighting.

On the opening day, the base received its first order — manufacturing the widest steel box girders for the Xihoumen highway and railway bridge on the Ningbo-Zhoushan Railway being built in East China's Zhejiang province, said Jiang Longyu, deputy Party secretary of the CREC4 project command for building the railway.

With a total length of 3,118 meters, a main span of 1,488 meters and a cable-stayed suspension cooperation system, the bridge is a super sea-crossing bridge across the Xihoumen waterway on the double-track of Ningbo-Zhoushan Railway and the second Ningbo-Zhoushan expressway, Jiang said.

He added that with a bridge deck of 68 meters, the Xihoumen Highway and Railway Bridge is the world's largest span highway and railway bridge under construction and also the world's widest sea-crossing bridge.