1. 你好呀，超级智能工厂！/ Hello, Super Smart Factory!

上周，小朋友小宇去参观了爸爸工作的巧克力工厂，他刚进传统车间，就看见工人李叔叔抱着一个笔记本，满头大汗地跑向调温机：“温度又偏高2度了！快调整！” 小宇凑过去一看，传送带上的巧克力有的歪歪扭扭，有的连糖纸都没包好，李叔叔叹了口气说：“今天要做平安节的特制款，刚换了模具，调试了好久，还是做不好。” 等小宇下午去智能工厂参观的时候，却看见控制室的阿姨正坐在电脑前点鼠标，不到10分钟，就有一块印着小宇名字的巧克力从传送带上送了出来，阿姨笑着说：“这是专门给你做的，智能工厂换产只要12分钟，所以来得及做你的专属款哦！” 小宇咬了一口巧克力，甜得他眼睛都眯了起来：“原来智能工厂这么厉害呀！”

Last week, a little kid named Xiaoyu visited the chocolate factory where his dad worked. As soon as he walked into the traditional workshop, he saw Worker Uncle Li holding a notebook and running to the tempering machine sweating all over: “The temperature is 2 degrees higher again! Adjust it quickly!” Xiaoyu leaned over and saw that the chocolates on the conveyor belt were crooked, and some were not even wrapped with foil. Uncle Li sighed and said: “We need to make special chocolates for the Peace Festival today. We just changed the molds and debugged for a long time, but we still can’t make them well.” When Xiaoyu visited the smart factory in the afternoon, he saw an auntie sitting in front of the computer clicking the mouse in the control room. In less than 10 minutes, a chocolate printed with Xiaoyu’s name came out from the conveyor belt. The auntie smiled and said: “This is made especially for you. The smart factory only takes 12 minutes to change production, so we have time to make your customized chocolate!” Xiaoyu took a bite of the chocolate, and the sweetness made his eyes squint: “So the smart factory is so amazing!”

如果你推开一扇飘着黄油与可可香气的大门，踩在软乎乎的巧克力碎渣上，会不会以为闯进了《查理和巧克力工厂》里的奇幻世界？🥳 今天我们就一起钻进两家超可爱的工厂——一家是做巧克力甜点的传统工厂，一家是会“魔法”的智能工厂，看看它们到底有什么不一样。我们先从大家最爱的巧克力工厂说起吧！

If you push open a door wafting with the scent of butter and cocoa, and step on soft chocolate crumbs, you might think you’ve wandered into the fantasy world of *Charlie and the Chocolate Factory*! 🥳 Today we’re going to peek into two super cute factories: a traditional chocolate & candy factory, and a magic smart factory, to see what makes them so different. Let’s start with the chocolate factory that everyone loves!

1.1 传统工厂的“慢吞吞日常” / The “Slow Daily Life” of Traditional Factories

先看左边的传统巧克力工厂吧：一进车间，你就能听见“轰隆隆”的机器响，十几台大机器孤零零站在各自的角落里，就像被分开坐的小朋友，谁也不跟谁说话。调温机只管把巧克力浆调到合适的温度，成型机只管把巧克力浆倒进模具里，包装机只管给凝固的巧克力包上漂亮的糖纸——它们从来不会“交流”，就算调温机今天把巧克力浆调得有点稀，成型机也不知道，照旧倒进模具，最后出来的巧克力要么歪歪扭扭，要么一碰就碎。

Let’s look at the traditional chocolate factory on the left first: as soon as you walk into the workshop, you can hear the rumbling of machines, and more than a dozen big machines stand alone in their own corners, just like kids sitting separately in class who never talk to each other. The tempering machine only cares about heating the chocolate syrup to the right temperature, the molding machine only pours the syrup into molds, and the wrapping machine only wraps the hardened chocolate with pretty foil — they never “talk” to each other. Even if the tempering machine makes the syrup a little too thin one day, the molding machine doesn’t know, and still pours the syrup into the mold. The final chocolate will either be crooked or crumble when touched.

这时候就得靠旁边的工人叔叔阿姨啦！他们得举着小本本，每隔5分钟就跑过来摸一摸巧克力浆的温度，记一记机器的转速，有时候还要凑过去看看巧克力有没有印对图案，累得满头汗也只能勉强保证大部分巧克力是合格的。要是机器突然坏了，还得打电话喊维修师傅，等师傅过来修好，至少得花半小时，传送带上的巧克力都融化了，浪费好多好多的可可脂，相当于几十块巧克力没了。

At this time, we have to rely on the worker uncles and aunties! They have to hold small notebooks, run over to touch the temperature of the chocolate syrup and record the speed of the machines every 5 minutes, and sometimes lean over to check if the chocolates are printed with the right patterns. They sweat all over, but can only barely make sure most of the chocolates are up to standard. If a machine suddenly breaks down, they have to call the maintenance master. It takes at least half an hour for the master to come and fix it, and the chocolates on the conveyor belt will melt, wasting a lot of cocoa butter, which is equivalent to losing dozens of chocolates.

传统工厂最麻烦的就是“换产品”啦！要是老板突然说“最近平安节快到了，我们要做一批带平安符图案的巧克力”，那整个车间都得忙翻啦！工人要先停掉所有机器，把原来装普通巧克力模具的架子拆下来，再搬上去新的平安符模具，还要一点点调试机器的参数，比如倒浆的速度、冷却的时间，光这些就要花4个小时，相当于从早上上课到下午放学的时间。等好不容易调试好了，试产出来的第一批巧克力还有好多印歪了，得再花1个小时调整，等正式开始做，太阳都快下山啦。要是再做另一种口味的，比如草莓夹心的，又得把所有东西拆了重装，一天最多只能做2-3种产品，要是临时加单，小朋友可能要等好几天才能拿到想要的巧克力。

The most troublesome thing for traditional factories is “switching products”! If the boss suddenly says “the Peace Festival is coming soon, we need to make a batch of chocolates with peace patterns”, the whole workshop will be in chaos! Workers have to stop all the machines first, take down the racks with regular chocolate molds, put on new peace pattern molds, and adjust the machine parameters bit by bit, such as the speed of pouring syrup and the cooling time. All this will take 4 hours, which is equal to the time from morning class to after school. After the hard debugging, the first batch of trial-produced chocolates has many misprinted patterns, and it will take another hour to adjust. When the official production starts, the sun is almost setting. If we want to make another flavor, such as strawberry filled chocolate, we have to take everything apart and reinstall it. The whole factory can only make 2-3 kinds of products a day, and if there is an urgent order, kids may have to wait several days to get the chocolate they want.

做玩具的传统工厂更麻烦啦！比如做积木的工厂，要做红色的大块积木，就开一条专门的生产线，要做蓝色的小块积木，就得把整条线停下来，换模具、换颜料桶，光换一次就要2个小时，工人还要拿着抹布把机器上沾的红色颜料擦得干干净净，不然蓝色积木上就会沾到红点点，变成“不合格品”。要是幼儿园老师临时说要给小朋友做100块印着小太阳的黄色积木，工厂根本接不了这个单，因为换产要一下午，等做好都放学啦。

Traditional toy factories are even more troublesome! Take the building block factory for example, to make red large building blocks, we open a dedicated production line. To make blue small building blocks, we have to stop the whole line, change the mold, change the paint bucket, and it takes 2 hours to change the mold. Workers also have to hold rags to wipe the red paint on the machine clean, otherwise the blue building blocks will have red dots and become “unqualified products”. If the kindergarten teacher suddenly says she

小宇的同学明明去年过生日的时候就遇到过这样的事：他特别想要一套印着自己全家福的定制积木，妈妈问了好几家传统玩具工厂，工厂的叔叔阿姨都摇着头说“做不了”，因为换产要一下午，还要专门做一套模具，成本太高了，就算做，也要等一个多星期，明明早就想去游乐园玩积木啦。他当时难过得掉了眼泪，直到妈妈带他去智能玩具工厂，才拿到了他想要的定制积木，那天他开心得抱着积木睡了一晚上呢。

Xiaoyu’s classmate Mingming had exactly this problem for his birthday last year: he really wanted a set of custom building blocks printed with a photo of his whole family. His mom asked several traditional toy factories, but all the uncles and aunties shook their heads and said “we can’t make that”. Switching production takes a whole afternoon, and they have to make a special set of molds, which costs too much. Even if they agreed to make it, it would take more than a week, and Mingming had already planned to build a block castle at the amusement park that weekend. He was so sad he cried, until his mom took him to a smart toy factory, where he got the custom blocks he wanted. He was so happy he hugged the blocks and slept with them that night.

传统工厂不仅换产慢，还会浪费好多好多材料哦。比如巧克力工厂每次换模具的时候，传送带上的半成品巧克力都要扔掉了，一次就要浪费20公斤巧克力浆，相当于40块大巧克力，一年换100次产，就要浪费4000块巧克力，够一个班级的小朋友每人分2块啦。还有积木工厂换颜料的时候，要把颜料桶里剩下的旧颜料洗干净才能倒新颜料，每次就要浪费1公斤颜料，一年下来浪费的颜料能涂满1000块积木。要是订单算错了，做多了卖不出去，浪费就更严重了：前年春节的时候，一家传统巧克力工厂做了10吨生肖兔的巧克力，结果订单只接了6吨，剩下的4吨都过期扔掉了，相当于浪费了2万块钱，这些钱可以买好多好多的巧克力，送给山区的小朋友呢。

Traditional factories don’t just switch products slowly — they also waste a lot of materials! Every time a chocolate factory changes molds, all the half-finished chocolates on the conveyor belt have to be thrown away. Each switch wastes 20 kilograms of chocolate syrup, which is equal to 40 big chocolates. If they switch production 100 times a year, that’s 4000 wasted chocolates, enough for every kid in a class to get 2 pieces! For building block factories, when they change paint colors, they have to wash out the old paint from the buckets before adding new paint, wasting 1 kilogram of paint each time. Over a year, that’s enough paint to cover 1000 building blocks. And if they misjudge orders and make more products than they can sell, the waste is even worse: the year before last, during the Spring Festival, a