Advancing manufacturing from traditional production toward intelligent production requires embedding the principle of investing in people throughout the entire transformation and upgrading process, enhancing workers' ability to adapt to and command new technologies, and ensuring that smart manufacturing better serves human development and the people's needs for a better life.

At present, a new round of technological revolution and industrial transformation is accelerating. Artificial intelligence, the industrial internet, and intelligent robots are being rapidly integrated into manufacturing, driving profound changes in production methods, organizational structures, and job compositions. The development of smart manufacturing depends not only on advanced equipment, industrial software, and digital infrastructure, but also on high-quality workers who can master, apply, and improve technology. The more advanced the technology and the more complex the systems, the more important it becomes to prioritize investing in people, continuously upgrading workers' knowledge, skills, and capacity for innovation, using technological progress to expand the space for human development, and better promoting the free and comprehensive development of individuals.

The shift from manufacturing to smart manufacturing primarily changes how people participate in production. According to Marxist political economy, labor is the most active factor in productive forces. The intelligence of machines cannot be separated from human knowledge, experience, and creativity. Equipment must be researched and designed by people, systems must be operated and maintained by people, and processes must be continuously improved by people. In traditional manufacturing, workers were mainly engaged in direct operations and repetitive labor. Entering the smart manufacturing stage, increasingly programmatic and standardized tasks are handed over to machines, and workers are shifting more toward technological research and development, system control, process optimization, and production organization. The role of people is moving from operating machines to commanding the entire production system. Only when human capabilities are elevated in tandem can advanced equipment truly be used well and brought to life, thereby being converted into real productive forces.

The purpose of moving from manufacturing to smart manufacturing is to better promote human development. When analyzing the labor process, Marx regarded tools and machines as the "organs of activity" of humans, believing that they extend human natural limbs and enhance humanity's ability to transform nature. As smart manufacturing continues to develop, more and more repetitive, high-intensity, and high-risk labor can be undertaken by machines, thereby reducing workers' direct exposure to hazardous working environments and creating better conditions for ensuring labor safety. By the end of 2025, China had cumulatively built more than 35,000 basic-level, over 8,200 advanced-level, and more than 500 excellent-level smart factories, and cultivated 15 leading-level smart factories. The numerical control rate of key processes in major industrial enterprises rose from 52.1% in 2020 to 68.6% by the end of 2025. In the first half of this year, the number of basic-level smart factories increased to more than 56,000, and smart manufacturing is accelerating its transition from pilot demonstrations to large-scale promotion. As robots and intelligent systems increasingly enter production lines, working conditions and operational environments continue to improve, providing more space for workers to upgrade their skills, participate in innovation and creation, and achieve career development.

Looking ahead, to advance manufacturing from traditional production toward intelligent production, it is necessary to embed the principle of investing in people throughout the entire transformation and upgrading process, enhance workers' ability to adapt to and command new technologies, and ensure that smart manufacturing better serves human development and meets the people's needs for a better life. On the one hand, efforts should be accelerated to cultivate high-quality workers around smart manufacturing. It is important to continue implementing the "AI Plus" initiative, accelerate the digital and intelligent transformation of manufacturing, promote the empowerment of key industries by artificial intelligence, and drive the continuous emergence of new professions and new types of work. The deep integration of industrial chains, innovation chains, education chains, and talent chains should be promoted, deepening the integration of industry and education and school-enterprise cooperation, so that specialty settings, course content, and practical teaching keep pace with technological change. When enterprises carry out intelligent upgrading, they can simultaneously arrange personnel training, job transfers, and skill enhancement, providing workers with stable channels for on-the-job learning, skill improvement, and career development. At the same time, strategic scientific and technological talent and outstanding engineers should be cultivated, the ranks of highly skilled talent and new-type industrial workers should be expanded, and mechanisms for skill evaluation, job promotion, and income distribution should be further improved, so that workers' knowledge, skills, and innovative contributions are better reflected, forming talent support compatible with the development of smart manufacturing.

On the other hand, the effectiveness of smart manufacturing development must ultimately be reflected in meeting the people's needs for a better life. As consumer demand accelerates its shift from "whether there is something" to "whether it is good," manufacturing must also better adapt to quality-oriented, diverse, and personalized needs. The technological advantages of smart manufacturing should be leveraged to make product design more precise, production organization more flexible, and quality control more reliable, and on the basis of accelerating the deep integration of advanced manufacturing and modern services, better meet the consumer needs of different groups and different scenarios. By taking people's needs as the driving force, connecting technological innovation, product upgrading, service expansion, green development, and consumption quality improvement, promoting more high-quality products and services into daily life, transforming technological progress into improvements in quality of life, and translating industrial upgrading into enhanced public well-being, the fruits of smart manufacturing development can benefit the people more broadly and equitably and better serve the comprehensive development of individuals.

The essence of modernization is the modernization of people. In measuring the quality of smart manufacturing development, attention should be paid not only to improvements in production efficiency and industrial competitiveness, but also to whether workers' development opportunities are increasing and whether people's quality of life is improving. Placing greater emphasis on investing in people means allowing human development to advance in the same direction as technological progress and industrial upgrading, so that innovative achievements better benefit the vast number of workers and consumers.