China: Hisense Qingdao Plant Wins WEF Customer-Centric Lighthouse Recognition

Hisense’s Qingdao television production site has been singled out by the World Economic Forum as the industry’s first Customer Centricity Lighthouse, a recognition reserved for factories that apply advanced digital techniques to accelerate customer value and operational performance. The plant’s modernization program centered on integrating artificial intelligence, large-scale virtual reality, industrial simulation and advanced analytics into product development and factory workflows. Leaders report substantial operational gains: net promoter scores climbed well into the eighties, research-and-development lead times contracted sharply and material expenditure fell noticeably. The team also compressed the onboarding period for new hires and shortened the interval between identifying customer needs and converting them into product features. On the shop floor, cycle times for flagship large-screen panels tightened to measured single-digit seconds per key operation for an 85-inch line, reflecting a tighter link between design intent and manufacturability. This recognition complements other WEF honors previously won by Hisense entities and reinforces a corporate push toward human-centered, data-driven production. Strategically, the award signals to competitors and channel partners that Hisense is closing the loop from customer insight to product delivery faster than many rivals. For procurement and supply-chain partners, the reported cost and time improvements imply more predictable material requirements and shorter R&D-to-market windows. For customers, the practical outcome should be quicker iteration on features and potentially greater alignment between what buyers want and what appears on shelves. However, sustaining these gains will depend on continued investment in software, skills and cross-functional processes to prevent performance regressions as volumes and models change. The recognition also raises the bar in the TV sector: peers will feel pressure to adopt similar digital levers or risk falling behind on speed and customer alignment. In sum, the WEF designation is both a validation of Hisense’s recent transformation and a competitive signal that customer-driven, AI-enabled manufacturing is becoming a differentiator in consumer electronics.