In factories around the world, a nightmare scenario haunts those who operate high-speed rolling machines: that of a gloved fingertip becoming snagged, and the worker's hand being pulled in, resulting in instant catastrophic injuries.

That grim possibility is now less likely thanks to a company in the town of Zhongcun, Shandong province, whose engineers have produced what they call a breakaway safety glove.

"The glove maintains a strong grip for normal work, but when subjected to dangerous tension, specific knitting structures in the finger joints snap in less than a second, allowing the worker to pull his or her hand free from industrial machinery," said Wen Jie, executive manager of glove maker Shandong Yuhan Security Technology Co Ltd.

"This could help avoid injuries or worse."

This product exemplifies the industrial evolution underway in Zhongcun, Pingyi county. By giving top priority to research and development alongside smart manufacturing, glove-related companies in the town are transforming into tech-driven industrial powerhouses, delivering high-performance safety gear to customers both in China and across the world.

The town's glove-making lineage dates back to the late 1970s. What began as scattered household workshops has coalesced into a massive industrial cluster. Lin Cunjun, director of Zhongcun's economic and trade office, said Zhongcun is now one of the country's primary production bases for labor protection gloves and home to more than 660 related market entities that together produce about 6 billion pairs annually, accounting for 60 percent of China's total output. The sector's yearly industrial output value is now said to exceed 5 billion yuan ($730 million).

Over the past three years, local companies have undertaken a massive rollout of intelligent equipment to facilitate this industrial upgrade, Lin said.

"It used to be that one worker could only operate one machine. Now, with automated units, an operator can oversee about 50 knitting machines simultaneously. Each of these machines can churn out about 300 pairs of gloves a day."