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By Josie Zhu, Founder & CEO of Knowhy
Persistence means change—provided you're persisting in the right things.
The Starting Point
Some decisions may seem like the beginning of a single company, but in retrospect, they mark a turning point for an entire industry.
In 2019, we founded Knowhy.It wasn’t a choice driven by popular trends or industry buzzwords—it was a fundamental questioning of industrial services: can they be done better?
Hermann Khunle, father of Industry 4.0, once said:
“The future of industrial competition lies in the competition of service ecosystems.”
Many treat this as a slogan; we treat it as strategy.Because only those who truly understand the complexity and non-standard nature of the manufacturing site are qualified to talk about ecosystems.
Seven years on, we are still on a road less traveled—more convinced than ever:
Whoever can integrate data, technology, and service will define the new manufacturing order.
Photo taken at Sanxingdui Museum
A 4,000-year-old mark of civilization offers a profound footnote to the spirit of Chinese craftsmanship—resonating with this culture’s enduring pursuit of tools and order.
Breaking Barriers in Industrial Services
The traditional industrial service sector has long been plagued by the “island effect”: process optimization, supply chain management, and data services each operate in isolation.
A typical manufacturer has to coordinate with seven types of service providers, with coordination alone consuming 23% of overall service costs.
This is precisely the pain point that gave rise to Knowhy’s platform-based model—reconstructing the industrial service ecosystem through systems thinking.
In our seventh year, we officially proposed a strategic direction: “Boundary Breaking & Integration.”
Not merely an expansion of business lines, but the creation of a new service paradigm through three-dimensional boundary-breaking:
Breaking functional boundaries: Enabling technical engineers to actively participate in supply chain optimization.
Breaking data silos: Feeding real-time tool life data (e.g., tool change frequency) back into process R&D and optimization.
Breaking cognitive barriers: Reconstructing service processes using integrated capabilities from supply chain partners.
A First-Principles Practice Anchored in End-State Thinking
When serving a precision manufacturing customer in Jiangsu, we applied first-principles thinking to get to the essence:
What they needed wasn’t just a tool—it was cost-effective part machining.
We assembled a joint internal-external technical team. Through process program optimization and tool technology support, we reduced the number of tool changes across two production lines by 68 times within 12 hours—a 24% reduction in total tool change frequency.This case confirmed the value of our “end-state mindset”:
Every step in the service process must ultimately point toward maximizing manufacturing value.
This mindset now permeates every aspect of our operations:
On the customer side: Building a “demand funnel” to convert surface-level needs into root problems.
On the R&D side: Establishing a process BOM and technical knowledge base, accumulating over 10,000 part-level process optimization cases.
On the talent development side: Launching a “cross-functional talent” program, requiring technical and operations managers to possess both vertical expertise and horizontal service integration capabilities.
Photo taken at BMW Museum, Germany
From steam power to intelligent manufacturing, every industrial leap has been accompanied by a redefinition of service paradigms.
Tool Life Data Collection: Service Evolution in Action
At a pilot part manufacturing plant in Liyang, our tool life data acquisition system is redefining the pricing logic for cutting tools. Through real-time data collection from the physical world—machines, processes, materials, and tool life—we’ve achieved three major breakthroughs:
Real-time tool life collection for each individual tool in each process (in units of part count or cutting time).
Correlation analysis between tool issuance and tool usage, forming a usage-issue closed loop to maximize utilization.
Real-time and phased evaluation of tool life, offering strong data support for selecting the most suitable tool product.
This project signifies our official entry into Tool Management Service 4.0—integrating frontier technologies to build a self-evolving ecosystem for machining technology services.
Building an Industrial Community
Boundary-breaking is not only technological—it’s ecological.
We are actively building an industrial service alliance, currently composed of 8 high-quality suppliers and 4 cutting-edge technologies (friction reduction, machining program optimization, ultrasonic machining, cryogenic machining). Within this community:
Customer bases and product needs are shared, reducing customer acquisition costs
Innovations and tech results are shared, accelerating commercialization
Technical engineers are shared, improving service efficiency and reducing costs
This symbiotic model has already been successfully implemented with a client in Jiaxing.
At the intersection of Industry 4.0 and smart manufacturing, Knowhy is reshaping industry standards as a boundary breaker.Our ultimate goal is to become:
The technical connector and value amplifier of China’s industrial service sector.
As traditional boundaries fade and data and technology begin to flow freely, we firmly believe:
Every boundary broken is a new beginning.
Every pain point in manufacturing services holds the seed of evolution.
Photo: A quiet moment practicing calligraphy
Strategic depth is often born from reflection, writing, and intuitive insight.
Stillness breeds clarity.
The Future Is Already Here.With “Boundary Breaking & Integration” as our compass, and First Principles Thinking as our sail, Knowhy is navigating the vast ocean of industrial services—charting a new course for Chinese manufacturing.
Because we believe:
The true industrial revolution is always a revolution in service.
