How long does it take to produce a desk?

On January 12, carrying the stereotypical impression of buzzing electric saws and flying sawdust, the reporter walked into Sunon Office Xiongheng Industrial Park, hereinafter referred to as Sunon, located in Shenzhou Economic Development Zone. The 11,000-square-meter panel furniture production workshop was bright and clean, intelligent flexible production lines were running in an orderly manner, and robotic arms moved up and down. It takes only 90 seconds to produce all the panels needed for one desk. Liu Jiantang, production director of the industrial park, said with emotion: "Today's furniture manufacturing has boarded the fast train of intelligence, achieved green production, and advanced to the next level."

Since Shenzhou's green intelligent home furnishing industry started in 2012, over the past 14 years, more than 20 industry leaders have settled in Shenzhou, including Kuka Home, a leading national upholstered home furnishing manufacturer, Zhejiang Sunon, a top-ranking company in comprehensive strength in the office furniture sector, Boloni, a well-known Chinese mid-to-high-end cabinet brand, and Beijing Liming, which has ranked first for many consecutive years in procurement by central state organs. More than 50 upstream and downstream supporting enterprises have gathered, and annual output value has reached RMB 3.6. billion. Shenzhou's green intelligent home furnishing industry has risen strongly from scratch and has also become the leading industry for Shenzhou's future development.

Why have leading home furnishing companies clustered in Shenzhou?

A small city integrates into a major national strategy

Shenzhou was once a county-level city dominated by agriculture. However, this small city has always explored more paths for high-quality county-level economic development.

The opportunity began in 2014. That year, coordinated development of Beijing, Tianjin, and Hebei was elevated to a national strategy, and the gears of high-quality development for Shenzhou's home furnishing industry began to accelerate.

The relocation of Beijing's non-capital functions is the key to the coordinated development of Beijing, Tianjin, and Hebei. Because the home furnishing manufacturing industry did not fit the positioning of the capital's core functions, it was included among industries where new construction and expansion were prohibited. Leaving Beijing became an inevitable path for capital-based home furnishing enterprises seeking survival and development.

Why was Shenzhou chosen? It confirms the saying that opportunities favor prepared cities.

Superior transportation location and a good business environment laid the foundation for the development of Shenzhou's home furnishing industry. Shenzhou is located on the North China Plain, with flat and open terrain. It is 240 kilometers from Beijing and only 120 kilometers from Xiong'an New Area. The Daguang Expressway, Beijing-Kowloon Railway, and Xiong'an-Shangqiu High-Speed Railway, which is under construction, run north and south, while the Shijiazhuang-Huanghua Expressway, Shijiazhuang-Hengshui Expressway, and Shijiazhuang-Dezhou Railway run east and west. National and provincial trunk roads pass through the whole area. Shenzhou is located at the golden crossroads of national and provincial trunk lines, expressways, and railway arteries.

"Land is the capital of development, and transportation is the lifeline of development. We have significant transportation and location advantages, backed by Xiong'an and radiating toward Beijing and Tianjin, giving us full confidence and strength for industrial development," said Zhang Shaowei, member of the Party Working Committee and deputy director of the Management Committee of Shenzhou Economic Development Zone, with confidence.

As early as 2012, Shenzhou had already begun planning its home furnishing industry. That year, Kuka Group, based in Hangzhou, Zhejiang, began preparing to build a northern base, and Shenzhou keenly seized the opportunity.

Relevant leaders of Shenzhou formed an investment attraction team and traveled to Hangzhou more than a dozen times for negotiations and coordination. "Once, extreme weather disrupted the original travel plan. We immediately made a decisive move, changed route to Beijing, took a flight, and arrived on time for the appointment," recalled Li Jiajia, director of the Party and Government Office of Shenzhou Economic Development Zone. "We always brought full sincerity, integrity, determination to cooperate, and various preferential policies, which eventually moved the other side." In July 2012, Shenzhou successfully joined hands with Kuka Group. One flower brought a hundred flowers into bloom. Subsequently, dozens of upstream and downstream related projects in fields such as sponge, frames, nail making, and packaging materials settled there.

The settlement of Kuka Group brought great confidence to Shenzhou's industrial development. In 2014, when the era opportunity of coordinated development of Beijing, Tianjin, and Hebei arrived, Shenzhou had an even bigger dream. Shenzhou made the firm decision to win its own development by actively integrating into the national strategy.

In December 2016, the Beijing Furniture Industry Association reached a cooperation agreement with the Shenzhou Municipal Party Committee and municipal government to jointly build the Beijing-Shenzhou Green Home Furnishing Industrial Park.

Since 2017, Xiong'an New Area has entered large-scale development and construction. Shenzhou implemented Hengshui's development goals of supporting Xiong'an construction with Hengshui services, Xiong'an research and development with Hengshui manufacturing, and Xiong'an life with Hengshui services. It firmly advanced the construction of the Shenzhou section of the Xiong'an-Hengshui Cooperation Zone, and used the favorable opportunity of the Xiong'an-Shangqiu High-Speed Railway stopping in Shenzhou to build a 3,000-mu green intelligent home furnishing industrial park in the high-speed rail new area.

In March 2018, Beijing Times Wenyi Furniture Co., Ltd. completed its relocation and became the first Beijing home furnishing enterprise to settle in Shenzhou. Since then, a group of representative Beijing enterprises, including Liming International Intelligent Home Furnishing (Shenzhou) Co., Ltd., hereinafter referred to as Liming International, and Boloni Home Group, have successively moved in, forming a sound trend of industrial clustering.

Building a complete industrial ecosystem

Competition in modern industries is not only competition among individual enterprises, but also competition in the overall efficiency of industrial parks, industrial chains, and supply chains. Only by building a complete industrial ecosystem and forming an economic ecosystem in which upstream and downstream enterprises, research institutions, service platforms, and others collaborate around leading industries and prosper together can sustainable development be achieved.

Planting the first tree can be achieved through the combination of opportunity and effort, but forming a forest requires the combined effects of timing, location, and people. What can Shenzhou rely on to attract and retain leading home furnishing companies and build an industrial pattern where the north looks to Shenzhou for home furnishings? This tests Shenzhou's administrators.

Investment attraction is key to building an industrial ecosystem. Shenzhou has actively built a broad investment attraction pattern featuring targeted attraction, full participation, and prominent themes. It has shifted from providing hard incentives to upgrading soft services, and from introducing individual projects to building industrial chains. "One cannot cook without rice. Only by gathering all types of production factors essential for enterprise production and forming a complete and high-quality industrial chain can we truly keep the hearts and feet of these leading home furnishing companies," Zhang Shaowei said.

Production factors follow projects, and services revolve around projects. Shenzhou has strengthened full life-cycle management of projects.

On one hand, it plans and builds supporting service projects such as raw and auxiliary materials industrial parks, furniture exhibition centers, furniture quality inspection and testing centers, and logistics parks. It also promotes the construction of roads, schools, hospitals, parks, housing, and other living facilities, providing strong support for project implementation.

On the other hand, it vigorously implements the industrial chain strengthening, supplementing, and extending project, establishes catalogs of missing links and problem lists in the industry, draws industrial chain maps, and conducts precise investment attraction according to the maps to make up for weaknesses in the industrial chain.

To better serve the rapidly rising home furnishing industry, Shenzhou has opened a special column for approval services for the entire furniture industrial chain and launched an enterprise registration zone, enabling enterprise establishment to be completed within one day. Good policies and good services empower industrial development.

"After visiting more than 20 development zones across the country, we finally joined hands with Shenzhou. In addition to location advantages, what attracted us more was the excellent business environment here," said Zhang Hao, general manager of Liming International. "When handling procedures, dedicated teams led, assisted, and handled matters on our behalf, and all departments worked efficiently together to achieve approval in one pass. During trial production and production stages, departments such as work safety, environmental protection, and industry and information technology came to provide free on-site guidance, explained policies, and delivered services, helping the enterprise enter the track of development."

In recent years, Hengshui has focused on building 9+5. county-level characteristic industrial clusters, carrying out comprehensive planning and layout in areas such as investment attraction, scientific and technological innovation, quality and brand improvement, and cultivation of high-quality enterprises, effectively releasing the multiplier effect of industries. Shenzhou has also made efforts in land use, employment, and cultivation of local enterprises, continuously extending, supplementing, and strengthening the chain, making the industrial development ecosystem healthier and development momentum stronger.

Through hard work, Shenzhou has gradually formed a complete home furnishing industrial chain integrating design and research and development, production and processing, quality inspection, and exhibition and trading, creating an industrial community with lower costs, higher efficiency, and smoother collaboration for enterprises rooted in Shenzhou.

At Sunon Office Xiongheng Industrial Park, six upstream suppliers including Louxin Packaging and Naps Sponge Products settled together with Sunon. They collaborate with and support each other, realizing localized supporting supply of raw materials. Leading home furnishing companies such as Sunon and Liming International have formed complete chains covering design and research and development, production and processing, quality inspection, and exhibition and trading.

Thanks to the complete industrial ecosystem, home furnishing enterprises settled in Shenzhou have achieved leapfrog development. Taking Liming International as an example, its factory area has expanded nearly threefold, and intelligent development has advanced rapidly. Since production began, the company has achieved the goal of output value exceeding RMB 100 million. It now covers almost all home furnishing categories and has formed its own large home furnishing ecosystem model from design, production, and research and development to manufacturing.

Only by actively bringing enterprises in and fully supporting them so they can take root, blossom, and bear fruit can industries grow and achieve a win-win outcome for enterprise development and local economic development. At present, the 3,000-mu intelligent home furnishing industrial park has begun to take shape, and the green intelligent home furnishing industry has become a new engine and strong support for the economic development of Shenzhou and even Hengshui.

Promoting the shift from manufacturing to intelligent manufacturing

Moving from manufacturing to intelligent manufacturing is the core path for high-quality development of the manufacturing industry.

In recent years, the deep integration of 5G, the industrial internet, big data, artificial intelligence, and manufacturing has accelerated changes in manufacturing production methods, organizational forms, and business models. Shenzhou's home furnishing industry has recognized and firmly seized the trend of intelligent manufacturing, achieving rapid industrial development.

Based on its own realities, Shenzhou has clearly established green intelligent home furnishing intelligent manufacturing as its leading industry. It is using the strength of the whole city to build a high-end intelligent office furniture base in northern China that deeply integrates the industrial chain and innovation chain, seamlessly connects market demand with industrial design, and closely coordinates the supply chain with intelligent manufacturing, forming the industrial pattern of northern home furnishings looking to Shenzhou.

In the production workshop of the green intelligent home furnishing industrial park, intelligent power conveying of panels, electronic CNC cutting, intelligent laser high-speed edge banding, automatic code scanning and intelligent sorting, automatic carton cutting and packing, and other processes are carried out. Throughout the entire process, panels do not touch the ground, and once they do, they are finished products.

Zhang Hao told the reporter: "The entire production process is automated assembly-line operation and digitally managed. One process needs only one person, and eight workers can ensure normal operation of the entire production line. Per capita efficiency is more than ten times what it used to be."

Over the years, home furnishing manufacturing enterprises nationwide have developed rapidly and continuously transformed. The role of leaders is to lead. Today, Shenzhou is also using leading thinking, taking innovation as the driving force and sharing as the link, to seize the initiative in occupying the market and leading development.

For a long time, the home furnishing industry has faced pain points such as difficulty adapting mass production to personalized needs, high dependence on labor, and long delivery cycles. At present, consumers have more diverse needs for furniture styles, sizes, functions, and more. Intelligent production can quickly switch production parameters, enabling flexible production and efficient delivery of small-batch customized products. Intelligent machines replace manual cutting, polishing, and other processes, which not only reduces human error and improves product precision, but also enables 24-hour continuous operation, greatly improving production efficiency and reducing unit production costs.

To promote intelligent development of home furnishing and other industries, Shenzhou has issued and implemented regulations such as the Opinions on Further Encouraging Scientific and Technological Innovation by Industrial Enterprises to Promote High-Quality Development. Each year, it allocates at least RMB 50 million in special funds to encourage enterprise technological innovation and continuously develop new quality productive forces.

Since Liming International established its production base in Shenzhou in 2020, it has invested RMB 12.9577 million in research and development for enterprise innovation and R&D. Sunon Group put Sunon Office Xiongheng Industrial Park into production in 2023 and set up a dedicated automation department to research intelligent manufacturing, equipment connection, industrial robot applications, automated technical transformation, tooling and fixture R&D, and more. It has successfully applied for multiple patents.

Today, Shenzhou's intelligent home furnishing production relies on the data middle platform terminal as its brain, making the full product process controllable, visible, and manageable. Large terminal screens scroll in real time, showing production plan execution and order completion information for the entire workshop, making processing status clear at a glance. Each component has a QR code attached to it. This is the unique identity card of each panel. After a labeling machine attaches the QR code label to the panel, every subsequent step scans this small label to identify production tasks, customer information, and more, then adjusts machine movements and starts processing programs accordingly, ensuring products meet customers' personalized needs and truly realizing intelligent flexible production with higher intelligence, faster speed, less labor, and more accurate precision.

Sharing is another major tool for the high-quality development of Shenzhou's green intelligent home furnishing industrial cluster.

Shared manufacturing has advantages such as optimizing resource allocation, reducing production costs, and promoting enterprise collaboration. In recent years, Hengshui has empowered the development of county-level characteristic industrial clusters through top-level design, planning guidance, policy support, and sharing.

Shenzhou's green intelligent home furnishing industry actively builds shared platforms to achieve manufacturing sharing, opens the production lines of leading enterprises such as Liming International and Sunon, and provides OEM and order cooperation services. It supports and guides enterprises to open orders, improving overall order-taking and delivery capabilities. It promotes talent sharing by relying on vocational colleges to offer majors in home furnishing design and intelligent manufacturing, building the Shenzhou Home Furnishing Craftsman labor service brand. It advances financial sharing by innovating industrial cluster loan products and promoting coordinated development of funds, projects, and enterprises. At present, the green home furnishing shared intelligent manufacturing industrial park has attracted more than 80 enterprises, building a shared intelligent manufacturing system and providing strong support for high-quality development of the industrial cluster.

Enterprises can be brought in, stay, and develop well. Over the past 14 years, Shenzhou has deeply integrated into the concentric circles of Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei coordinated development and Xiong'an New Area construction, built itself into a bridgehead for receiving Xiong'an's resource spillover, and explored a distinctive path of industrial collaboration. Since Beijing Times Wenyi Furniture Co., Ltd. was completed and put into operation, its annual output has doubled. Boloni achieved an output value of more than RMB 1.3. billion only two years after Phase I was put into production. In 2025, Boloni and Kuka Home achieved sales of more than RMB 60 million in Xiong'an's civilian furniture market. To date, annual production of various intelligent home furnishing products has exceeded 7. million sets and pieces, creating output value as high as RMB 3.6. billion.

Shenzhou has always placed promotion of economic development at its core. In 2025, Shenzhou signed 53 projects, introduced RMB 10.5. billion in funds, and landed 18 projects.

The year 2026 is the opening year of the 15th Five-Year Plan. Shenzhou has thoroughly implemented the spirit of the Fourth Plenary Session of the 20th CPC Central Committee, the Ninth Plenary Session of the 10th Hebei Provincial Party Committee, and the 11th Plenary Session of the 5th Hengshui Municipal Party Committee. It has scientifically assessed the development situation and accurately positioned its development direction, putting forward the Seven Shenzhou goals for the 15th Five-Year Plan period: a strong Shenzhou, innovative Shenzhou, prosperous Shenzhou, civilized Shenzhou, happy Shenzhou, beautiful Shenzhou, and safe Shenzhou. It has also defined the development positioning of one city, two zones, and four bases: making every effort to build a modern sub-center city of Hengshui that is suitable for living, working, and tourism, the core area of the Xiong'an-Hengshui Cooperation Zone, a demonstration zone for integrated urban-rural development, a green intelligent home furnishing intelligent manufacturing base, a green and healthy agricultural product processing base, a precision auto parts production and manufacturing base, and a green circular new materials research, development, and manufacturing base, fully promoting Shenzhou's economic and social development to a new level.

The 11th Plenary Session of the 7th Shenzhou Municipal Party Committee and the Municipal Party Committee Economic Work Conference clearly proposed optimizing and strengthening green intelligent home furnishing intelligent manufacturing as the leading industry. "The Fourth Plenary Session of the 20th CPC Central Committee pointed out the direction for our development. The planning of the Shenzhou Municipal Party Committee and municipal government has given us a clear roadmap," Zhang Shaowei said. "In the future, we will strengthen confidence, move without pause, and promote high-quality development of the green intelligent home furnishing industry."

At the construction site of Shenzhou East Station on the Xiong'an-Shangqiu High-Speed Railway, tower cranes stand in rows, machines roar, and construction is in full swing. After the railway opens, Shenzhou will fully integrate into the one-hour economic circle around Beijing and the half-hour economic circle around Xiong'an. The flow of industrial factors will become smoother, and development momentum will become even stronger.

At present, the annual office furniture market demand in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region exceeds RMB 100 billion, while surrounding production capacity is only about RMB 40 billion. At the same time, as Xiong'an New Area enters the key stage of large-scale construction and receiving relocated functions, demand for high-end, green, and intelligent furniture is showing explosive growth.

In the green intelligent home furnishing industrial park, various panels rise and fall in an orderly manner and transform beautifully, while logistics vehicles loaded with furniture leave the factory area from time to time. Facing a huge market of more than RMB 100 billion, Shenzhou's green intelligent home furnishing intelligent manufacturing industry is riding the east wind of coordinated development of Beijing, Tianjin, and Hebei, using intelligent manufacturing as wings to help home furnishing enterprises take root, strengthen and optimize the industrial chain, continuously polish the golden brand of northern home furnishings looking to Shenzhou, move full speed ahead on the road of regional coordinated development, and write an even more brilliant chapter.

Source: Hengshui Daily