In the past, workshops were bustling with workers who were constantly busy. The toilet spray gun operations were entirely manual, and the process of inputting programs for the furniture punch holes and adjusting the equipment was extremely complex and cumbersome, leading to high labor costs and low efficiency. Today, robotic arms precisely control the painting process; once the cabinet parameters are set, the spraying is both efficient and accurate. For the punch holes, a simple scan of a QR code automates the entire process, seamlessly integrating it into subsequent stages, drastically reducing the need for human labor before assembly. During the packing phase, fully automated packaging machines quickly position the top and bottom packaging, with screws tightly wrapped without a gap. One person can now easily manage multiple processes, achieving a qualitative leap in production efficiency and quality.
The Arrow Home User Experience Area
In today's home furnishings industry, the focus has shifted from growth through incremental expansion to a phase of refined operations within existing markets. This shift has intensified competition, leading to continuous reshuffling and transformation within the industry. Xu Jiapan, Brand Center Manager of Arrow Home Group, introduced that since its establishment in 1994, the group has been advancing towards its vision of becoming a world-class "provider of comprehensive smart home solutions." The group has undergone three major brand strategy phases: "multi-brand - multi-category - full-scenario premium smart bathroom," all while upholding the concept of "humanistic bathroom design." Focusing on intelligence, environmental protection, and health, Arrow Home continues to harness the momentum of digital transformation.
Arrow Home Central Laboratory
From Traditional to Intelligent: AI-Driven Transformation in Production and R&D
"Currently, the group has established a fairly comprehensive research and development system, encompassing nine R&D centers dedicated to various product categories, innovation, and user experience. Additionally, we boast a CNAS-certified center laboratory that meets national standards and a national-level industrial design center among other critical facilities," explained Lin Huaqiao, the Group's R&D Manager. In recent years, Arrow Home has been fully committed to upgrading smart manufacturing by adopting a dual-track strategy that combines independent design and R&D with the introduction of cutting-edge equipment. This approach aims to facilitate technological transformation and innovation within the company.
At 2023's China Home Appliance and Consumer Electronics Expo, Arrow Home launched a significant new initiative titled "A New Proposal for Smart Living," which encompasses four key elements: technology, scenarios, experience, and lifestyle. At its core is a user-centric approach that integrates advanced technologies such as sensors, big data, and smart chips to promote a comprehensive upgrade in home living intelligence. Unlike traditional single-product supply models, Arrow Home aims to create a smart ecosystem that covers the entire home. Take the "Fully Automatic Urine Testing Toilet" as an example; this product has opened up a new frontier in health-focused home solutions, allowing users to conduct medical-related tests from the comfort of their homes. This innovation lays the foundation for building a complete smart home system and achieving synergistic cooperation among diverse product matrices. Industry experts have pointed out that Arrow Home's move could broaden and deepen collaborations between home companies in both product and service domains, accelerating the industry's systemic development and further stimulating intelligent transformations in home products and services. For consumers, as this proposal advances and is implemented, it promises to significantly enhance and elevate the quality of home living experiences across the board.
Behind Arrow Home's series of innovative achievements lies the profound technical expertise and robust support of the Smart Home Research Institute. In the past, the company relied on external contract manufacturing, which posed several challenges such as significant cost fluctuations, unstable product quality, and the risk of key technology leaks. Since the establishment of the Smart Home Research Institute, this situation has been reversed. Core technologies are now developed in-house with internal quality control, overcoming once-troublesome bottlenecks like chip technology that hampered industry development. These self-developed achievements have been widely applied to core systems such as the BC platform and V8 platform, ensuring that the entire production chain remains under autonomous control. Lin Huaqiao admitted, "The path of transformation has been fraught with challenges, such as the integration of new equipment with existing production lines and data interoperability issues during the transition between old and new technologies. However, through the team's perseverance and resilience, we have overcome each obstacle one by one. Today, the average product production cycle has been shortened by approximately 30%, and the defect rate has significantly decreased by over 20%. The effectiveness of our transformation is evident."
The Power of AI Behind Bestsellers: Redefining the Landscape of Home Manufacturing
In the business world, significant new opportunities often emerge alongside technological innovations, either by pioneering entirely new market sectors or by disrupting existing market dynamics. In today's product development processes, AI has become an indispensable force for innovation. "Initially, our R&D team broke away from conventional thinking and keenly identified the inconvenience women face when storing beauty products at home—often having to shuttle between different rooms," explained Lin Huaqiao, R&D Manager of Arrow Home. This insight led to a bold and novel idea: integrating a refrigerator into the bathroom space. From the very beginning, AI technology played a deep and integral role in the beauty fridge project.
Staff at work in the laboratory
Previously, companies would spend hundreds of thousands on hiring third-party research firms to understand user needs, incurring significant costs. Today, leveraging AI's intelligent search capabilities allows for precise identification of user pain points and requirements, ensuring that R&D directions closely align with market trends. Building on this foundation, the team successfully developed a compact yet highly efficient cooling module. By ingeniously utilizing the heat-generating characteristics of semiconductors, they innovatively designed an industry-first dual-temperature zone system. The upper layer provides precise temperature control for storing serum, while the lower layer is suitable for lipstick storage, effectively resolving condensation issues. This innovation has dramatically boosted product competitiveness and significantly reduced R&D expenses. Similarly, in the design drafting phase, the transition from traditional ProE and CAD software to cloud-based software has been transformative. Designers now use AI tools to sketch lines and stretch shapes; complex models are quickly formed with minimal effort. Work that once took hours can now be completed in just tens of minutes, greatly improving efficiency.
In 2023, the beauty fridge went from inspiration to finished product in just half the usual development cycle, making a stunning market debut and quickly becoming a bestseller. Following the innovative path paved by AI, Arrow Home has introduced a series of revolutionary products:small washing machine integrated into the bathroom cabinet to solve the problem of clothing classification and washing; The bathroom water purification module accurately matches the needs of washing water, making brushing teeth and washing face a new opportunity for skin care. The beauty fridge stands out as a flagship example of how AI empowers product innovation at Arrow Home.
"AI is not just an ordinary auxiliary tool; it's reshaping the ecosystem of the home industry and becoming a core driving force," Lin Huaqiao remarked reflectively. "It breaks the constraints of traditional R&D, allowing us to rapidly iterate products centered around user pain points, precisely targeting market demands and gaining a competitive edge in the race toward smart home solutions." Today, the value of AI is continuously demonstrated across all aspects of Arrow Home’s operations, permeating every critical link from research and development (R&D), production, supply chain, sales, to service.
At the forefront of R&D, AI assists throughout—from mining critical information from a vast array of academic papers to drafting professional reports. On the marketing front, AI handles content creation and provides seamless support through intelligent customer service. In manufacturing processes, AI optimizes production schedules and accurately identifies quality defects. During logistics and delivery, AI plans efficient routes for energy savings and optimal performance.
Arrow Home Factory
"Innovation has always been the primary driver of Arrow Home's development, and AI serves as the powerful accelerator propelling us toward the future. By relying on a controllable and iterable smart manufacturing application strategy, we are confident that we can continuously enhance our core competitiveness in both domestic and international markets amidst the digital wave. We aim to provide users with a rich experience of smart living and develop the next generation of comprehensive smart living solutions for the industry," Lin Huaqiao said with full confidence.
