Digital transformation serves as the core engine driving quality upgrades in manufacturing. In recent years, Nanchang has positioned itself as a national pilot city for digital transformation of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), relying on a coordinated three-tier working mechanism at the provincial, municipal, and district levels. Adhering to the service philosophy of "enterprises raise the challenges, government delivers the solutions," the city has precisely addressed the prominent difficulties faced by traditional SMEs, namely the reluctance to transform, the lack of know-how, and the inability to afford transformation costs. Through the layered coordination of provincial policy empowerment, municipal overall planning, and district-level service implementation, targeted support has been provided to help industry SMEs carry out lightweight and practical digital upgrades, continuously unleashing new momentum for the digital economy to empower real sector development. As a result, the digital transformation of the city's manufacturing sector is demonstrating a robust trend of scale expansion, quality improvement, and the emergence of exemplary models.

The beverage production line at Baisui Beverage (Nanchang) Co., Ltd. exemplifies the coordinated linkage between upstream and downstream operations, showcasing the construction of a digital transformation service system.

As one of the first national pilot cities for SME digital transformation, Nanchang closely aligns with the province's "No. 1 Development Project" for the digital economy. The city has established a three-tier interlinked work system spanning provincial, municipal, and district levels, precisely matching enterprise needs and targeting transformation bottlenecks, effectively resolving the challenges of "reluctance to transform, inability to transform, and unaffordability to transform" among SMEs. SMEs generally face numerous practical shortcomings in their transformation journey. Xu Jian, head of Jiangxi Mingfang Automotive Components, candidly acknowledged that the company faces issues such as rough order scheduling, severe inventory backlog, and prominent data silos, compounded by a lack of professional digital teams, creating reservations about the investment and effectiveness of transformation. Traditional manufacturing enterprises like Jiangxi Lingyun Automotive and Hexie Aluminum also commonly encounter problems including rough production control, low manual efficiency, and fragmented, lagging data, which severely constrain their ability to improve quality and efficiency.

In response to enterprise demands, Nanchang leverages its three-tier linkage mechanism to tackle these challenges with precision at every level. At the provincial level, the focus is on strengthening policy guidance and benchmarking cultivation, streamlining the application channels for central special reward subsidies, and advancing the provincial recognition of digital "Little Lighthouse" enterprises, thereby providing policy support and demonstrative direction for enterprise transformation. Enterprises such as Hexie Aluminum have successfully earned the provincial "Little Lighthouse" designation, establishing themselves as industry transformation benchmarks. At the municipal level, leveraging its pilot status, Nanchang coordinates city-wide transformation efforts by establishing dedicated task forces and building public service platforms. The city has innovatively launched four long-term mechanisms, including service provider "horse racing" competitions and cultivation of digital specialists. These four mechanisms, along with three industry transformation case studies, have been selected as national typical experiences by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology. Concurrently, the city regularly organizes "learn from models" workshop observation activities, allowing enterprises to intuitively perceive the value of transformation. At the district and county level, the focus is on deeply rooted territorial services to bridge the "last mile" of policy implementation. Anyi County has iteratively upgraded the provincial-level public service platform for the aluminum profile industry brain, empowering the transformation of its characteristic industrial cluster. Jinxian Economic Development Zone is focusing on the medical device industry, promoting the holistic digital upgrade of the cluster through one-on-one local connections, precise referral of service providers, and full-process project tracking, ensuring that enterprise-friendly policies reach the frontline of businesses directly.

To date, 489 enterprises in the city have signed digital transformation project agreements, with 417 companies having completed acceptance and met the national standards of Level 2 or above. The processing base of Yihai Kerry (Nanchang) Grain and Oil Food Co., Ltd. demonstrates the effectiveness of these initiatives.

Precise policy implementation has yielded tangible results across multiple fronts. Relying on three-tier coordinated precision services, SMEs in Nanchang are now operating with greater agility and dedicating themselves to digital transformation. Through lightweight and targeted upgrades, they are achieving cost reduction, quality enhancement, and improved efficiency. The effectiveness of collaborative industry chain transformation is becoming increasingly evident, and the matrix of intelligent manufacturing benchmarks continues to expand. Building upon the improvement of city-wide services, Nanchang has adopted a chain-based transformation approach. Leveraging the leading role of "chain master" enterprises, the city has cultivated 11 replicable and scalable "chain-type" transformation models for various industries, effectively resolving the dilemma of SMEs undertaking transformation "solo with high costs and insufficient coordination," and shifting from individual enterprise upgrades to the overall advancement of the industrial chain.

Inside the production workshop of Nanchang Highly Electric Co., Ltd. As an industry "chain master," Nanchang Highly Electric has adopted a digital "external introduction and internal linkage" model to aggregate upstream and downstream industrial resources. It has attracted more than 20 core supporting enterprises to establish operations locally, increasing the provincial supporting rate to over 31% and achieving local procurement exceeding 2.6 billion yuan. Through its digital platform, the company shares open data with more than 300 suppliers, enabling 4-hour rapid supply and 6-hour efficient inventory turnover, significantly compressing the industry chain circulation cycle and markedly enhancing the quality and efficiency of industrial collaboration. Nanchang continues to refine the digital transformation service ecosystem for SMEs, improving long-term service mechanisms, stationing service teams at the front line, and building supply-demand matching platforms to provide comprehensive support for enterprise transformation. The city consistently strengthens the service foundation for SMEs, achieving the province's first full coverage of SME service alliances at both the city and county levels, bringing together high-quality service institutions. It has innovatively established a "1+N+X" three-tier service workstation system at the city, county, and township levels, setting up 71 frontline service stations to extend enterprise-friendly services to the forefront of industrial parks, streets, and townships. In 2025, the city has conducted over a hundred various service activities including policy briefings, transformation training, and supply-demand matching, serving more than 20,000 enterprises and facilitating 759 million yuan in industrial transaction orders. Thanks to its solid service measures and favorable business environment, Nanchang has been rated as an "Outstanding City for SME Development Environment" by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology for several consecutive years, and has consistently ranked among the top three in the province's SME development environment assessment for three consecutive years.