Abstract: Manufacturing is not only the main part of the national economy, but also the foundation of the country, the foundation of a strong country and the instrument for rejuvenating the country. In 2002, China became a major manufacturing country in the world, but it has not yet developed into a manufacturing powerhouse. China’s manufacturing industry is large but not strong. There are four problems and challenges: weak independent innovation capability, outstanding product quality problems, low resource utilization efficiency, and weak strategic emerging industries. The new round of industrial technology changes and the transformation of China’s economic development mode have formed a historic convergence, especially to provide significant opportunities for implementing innovation-driven development strategies. The international frontier dynamics show that building an innovative ecosystem is a key issue in the process of intelligent manufacturing industrialization. Since 2015, China has also successively issued a series of policies indicating that China has upgraded the industrial innovation of intelligent manufacturing to optimize the innovation ecosystem to the national strategic level.
In addition, according to the literature, newspapers and related books, the article combs the developmenthistory of the smart manufacturing strategy of the United States, Germany and China. Among them, the United States started the earliest. In 1992, it implemented a new technology policy. In 2011, smart manufacturing was listed as a key development target. Only one year later, the first intelligent manufacturing innovation ecosystem was constructed. The development of intelligent manufacturing in Germany is located in the second phalanx of the world. It started slightly later than the United States. The company represented by Siemens brought intelligent manufacturing from the laboratory to actual production, making the Berg factory a model of “Industry 4.0”. As early as 1993, China established the major project of the Natural Science Foundation “Key Technology of Intelligent Manufacturing System”, but the overall development is relatively slow, lagging behind developed countries in Europe and America, and located in the third array.
Through a large number of literature readings, this paper finds that the existing research has the following characteristics: First, most scholars focus on the main function of the innovation ecosystem to influence the upgrading of the innovation main technology, and do not carry out the functions of other auxiliary units and the system inorganic environment. Second, scholars’ discussion of the innovation ecosystem focuses on theoretical expansion, and few studies integrate relevant theories and methods with actual industrial upgrading. Third, scholars carry out the functional structure of the innovation ecosystem from different perspectives and dimensions.However, analyses have not yet been systematically combed, lacking a complete functional evaluation system. In view of the shortcomings of the current development of traditional manufacturing industry in China, the article introduces the ideas and methods of the innovation ecosystem, and solves the four major problems by constructing an intelligent manufacturing innovation ecosystem.
Intelligent manufacturing has three dimensional scopes, from intelligent production lines, intelligent workshops, smart factories,smart connected production to intelligent industrial systems. The intelligent manufacturing innovation ecosystem reflects different technical levels, functional contents and system structures at different levels. The main content structure can be divided into rule layer, behavior layer and resource layer. Among them, the behavioral layer is composed of R&D-type enterprises, universities, and technology intermediaries, and forms a technical network through mutual cooperation or competitive behavior. The Institute of Technology and the core enterprises constitute the “core layer of ecology”. As a leader in the industry, star companies play a role in the technological transformation of the intelligent manufacturing industry. The organic body of the rule layer is the government department. As a promoter of strategic emerging technologies, it leads the construction of the “rule layer ecology” of the innovation ecosystem. The government departments cooperate with industry associations, professional think tank institutions, and demonstration enterprises to formulate and improve supporting policies, system norms, industry standards, and standards systems, and formulate forward-looking development strategies for the innovation ecosystem. The infrastructure and inorganic environment form the resource layer of the innovation ecosystem. The technical environment of intelligent manufacturing includes basic research knowledge such as advanced manufacturing, artificial intelligence, big data optimization decision-making, and the construction of basic technical equipment such as the Internet, numerical control equipment, and robot technology.
Based on previous scholars’ theoretical development of the innovation ecosystem and the research of intelligent manufacturing industry, this paper has divided the functional elements of the intelligent manufacturing innovation ecosystem into four modules: the innovation ability of the organic subject, the service ability of the auxiliary organization, and the support of the inorganic environment.System development capabilities and the independent innovation capability of the innovation ecosystem require not only the assessment of the creation process of the technology or products in the laboratory, but also the process of improvement, application and diffusion of new technologies and new products. The innovation ecosystem has the basic characteristics of the ecosystem. The innovation process of the organic body within the system is determined not only by its own innovation consciousness, innovation input, but also by the service capabilities and inorganic environmental support capabilities of other auxiliary institutions within the system. The construction of the auxiliary organization and the quality of service affect the innovation capability of the entire system. Intelligent manufacturing is a top equipment manufacturing industry, and technical intermediaries and technical associations are its main auxiliary institutions. The inorganic environment is mainly determined by policy elements and economic factors, providing a stable and suitable place for system innovation. The intelligent manufacturing innovation ecosystem is an organization with sustainable development and dynamic growth characteristics. The development capability of the system determines the degree of industrial technology change in the future. The openness of the system is one of the main influencing factors of its future innovation ability. The talent reserve is the living force of the system, and it is an indispensable element to play its function. The system culture needs the inter-subjects, the subject and the environment within the system. Elements such as experience of long-term contact are elements that other systems cannot replicate. Based on the functional analysis of the intelligent manufacturing innovation ecosystem above, a total of 27 indicators were selected based on the principles of comprehensiveness, comparability and operability to establish a functional evaluation system for the intelligent manufacturing innovation ecosystem. Finally, the article pays attention to the development strategy, functional structure, behavioral norms, and environmental optimization, and proposes corresponding governance mechanisms: system development strategy governance, system function structure governance, member behavior normative governance, and innovation environment optimization governance.

Key words:  intelligent manufacturing, innovation ecosystem, function evaluation system, governance mechanism