Reporter | Xu Ning
Edit | Zhang Hui Yang Yue
1
At the end of the year, in the cold winter of Wuhu, the faint sunlight is gently sprinkling.
At 8:30 a.m., the green belt at the entrance of the factory of Eft Intelligent Equipment Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as Eft, 688165.SH) was still covered with a thin layer of frost, and employees had entered the factory one after another to prepare to start the day's work.
Anhui Wuhu Eft factory entrance. Photo: Xu Ning
Eft Wuhu Factory is located in Jiujiang Economic Development Zone, Wuhu, which is the birthplace of industrial robots. Walking into the assembly workshop, the first thing that catches your eye are two rows of small collaborative robots standing upright, and workers are assembling them. In the area of the yellow lattice in the distance, the yellow robots are constantly "waving their arms", debugging various parameters...
In the passage of the factory area, the interface news reporter met Zhang Fei, who was inspecting the equipment. He wears yellow overalls, black-rimmed eyes, inches, a baby's face, and a sense of intimacy when he laughs.
Zhang Fei is the production dispatcher of Eft Robot Division, and he has now led a team of more than 80 people after the 90s.
"Every morning, I will first go to the factory building for a turn and check the movement of the robots at each station." Zhang Fei said, "There are some faults, and I can initially judge the problem by listening to the sound." ”
This is not an exaggeration. From front-line workers to team leaders, from the quality department to the production department, Zhang Fei has been working in Eft for nearly nine years.
From product development, prototyping, small batches to mass production, he is already familiar with the manufacturing process of robot products. Judging and handling failures in the production process is his specialty.
Zhang Fei said that every day he has to deal with abnormal conditions such as abnormal noises, oil spills, alarms and other abnormal conditions issued by robots at the workstation to ensure that the products can meet the off-line standards.
Zhang Fei, production dispatcher of Eft Robotics Division. Photography: Xu Ning "accidentally hit and bumped into the line"
Eft was founded in 2007 as part of chery's Automotive Equipment Division. Most of the industrial robot products produced by Eft in the early stage were supplied to the production line of Chery Automobile.
Before joining Eft, Zhang Fei worked as a welder in chery Automobile's workshop. At that time, next to his workstation, there was a welding robot working 24 hours a day.
"At that time, I had contact with and learned about the performance of some welding robots, but I didn't expect to hit by mistake and enter the industry." Zhang Fei said.
In June 2013, Zhang Fei felt that the work of welders was boring and had the idea of changing jobs. At that time, a friend happened to work in Eft, so he jumped ship and entered Eft.
At that time, Eft was also in a critical period of transformation. The company decided to go out of the automotive industry and expand the self-developed industrial robots to the sanitary ware, 3C electronics, furniture and other sub-sectors.
After entering Eft, Zhang Fei was taught by the master, starting from a simple robot base assembly, to installing gears, and then adjusting the clearance of gears.
"The master leads into the door, and the practice is in the individual." Zhang Fei smiled and said to the interface news reporter, "After about two or three months of training, I can basically get started." ”
After becoming familiar with the business, Zhang Fei slowly began to contact the research and development of some new projects. "With the R&D technical team, I also learned a lot, especially in the development of wrist technology for robots." Zhang Fei said.
According to him, the core component of robot assembly lies in the wrist, especially the tooth transmission, which requires high accuracy of clearance and parts.
"The gap between the gears is only about a third of a hair's. This is mainly through manual attempts to pad different thicknesses of gaskets to ensure the consistency of robot accuracy. Zhang Fei recalled, "At that time, there were only seven people in a team, and everyone was slowly groping for the feeling." ”
Zhang Fei said that at that time, the factory produced only a dozen units a month, and no more than 300 units a year.
Benefiting from the expansion of new markets, Zhang Fei clearly felt the change in the number of factory orders at the end of 2014, "the annual shipment volume gradually increased to more than 800 units." The capacity of the old plant is fully saturated. ”
In the process of market segmentation, Eft also realized the shortcomings of domestic robots in technology. In order to enhance its technical capabilities, the company has spent 1.1 billion yuan since 2015 to acquire three Italian system integrators CMA, EVOLUT and WFC to acquire their technologies in the field of robotic spraying, sanding, polishing and welding.
In order to keep up with the order demand, EFT also started the construction of a new plant (now Wuhu EFT plant) in 2015.
Two years later, Zhang Fei and several colleagues laid the first sign of the Eft Robot Industrial Park on the southeast corner of the gate of the new factory.
Now wuhu Eft factory entrance. Photo: Xu Ning's post-epidemic era order outbreak
After the construction of the new factory was completed, it caught up with the industry explosion period.
Especially in the past two years affected by the new crown epidemic, other countries are often in a state of suspension of work and production, China due to the epidemic control, to undertake a large number of production and manufacturing needs from all over the world, prompting the domestic manufacturing industry to form a small peak, indirectly driving the growth of industrial robots.
In the post-epidemic era, manufacturing companies have gradually realized the importance of automated production and reducing personnel dependence, and have begun to take the initiative to improve the automation rate of production lines.
In 2020, the scale of China's industrial robot market reached 42.25 billion yuan, an increase of 18.9% year-on-year. Eft also ushered in a period of rapid development in 2020.
Zhang Fei said that when Eft first settled in the robot industrial park, the first phase of the project only had a robot assembly workshop and an automobile project workshop. Due to the rapid development of the business, a new integrated workshop was built on the first phase of the project in 2020.
In July of that year, EFT became the first listed company on the Science and Technology Innovation Board in China with the whole industrial chain of industrial robots as its main business, ranking among the first echelon of the domestic industrial robot industry.
The range of robot products at EFT is also constantly expanding, with a minimum load of about three kilograms and a maximum load of up to 370 kilograms, which can be customized according to the different needs of customers. The main application areas of products have been gradually broadened to 3C, photovoltaic, PCB, furniture, ceramics, sanitary ware, cast steel structures, etc.
Among them, light desktop robots are mainly used for handling, testing, loading and unloading in the 3C industry; 15-20 kg of small and medium-sized robots, with spraying, grinding, welding and other functions, mainly used in auto parts, furniture manufacturing, ceramic bathroom and other industries; more than 50 kg of large-load robots are mainly used in photovoltaic and ceramics and other industries.
The high prosperity continues until 2021.
"In the middle of 2021, the downstream 3C industry orders broke out, and the company's single-month 3C robot assembly volume reached more than 300 units, accounting for about half of the company's overall shipments." Zhang Fei revealed.
In addition, with the rise of a new round of industrial change, the demand for automation transformation in emerging fields such as photovoltaics and lithium batteries has also promoted the rapid growth of domestic robot orders.
Zhang Fei said that the photovoltaic industry is developing rapidly and has a centralized delivery period, and the shipment speed of robots is required to be faster. "In order to deliver orders in a timely manner and seize market share, our ministers and leaders have taken the lead in not taking holidays."
"From raw materials into the factory, to assembly, testing, and shipment, the factory can ship about 20-30 photovoltaic robots a day at the fastest time." Zhang Fei said, "From 8:30 a.m. to 12:00 p.m., when we were busiest, we had seven days of continuous rotation and did not rest for a month. ”
"It's false to say you're not tired. But it is worth it to see one robot after another, rushing to the job, alleviating the problem of labor shortage and recruitment difficulties in enterprises. Zhang Fei said.
According to the latest data from the National Bureau of Statistics, the output of industrial robots in industrial enterprises above designated size in the country will reach 366,000 sets in 2021, an increase of 44.9% year-on-year, a record high.
Industrial robots under testing. Photo: Xu Ning's small and medium-sized enterprises are eager to transform
At present, Eft's customers are mainly domestic small and medium-sized enterprises, and customers in traditional manufacturing industries such as spraying and welding still occupy a large proportion.
"This is mainly because China's traditional manufacturing industry is eager to transform." Zhang Fei said.
He gave an example to the interface news reporter that a welder in traditional welding and other industries has an annual labor cost of about 150,000 yuan. As long as the industrial robot is put into the programmed program, it can work 24 hours a day, saving 2-4 manpower a year.
In special industries, welding, spraying and other processes will produce smoke, arc light, metal splashes, etc., and the working environment is poor. The use of industrial robots to work, can enable workers to avoid harsh environments, but also reduce the interference of manual operation, welding quality is more stable.
In the context of rising labor costs and increasing population aging, industrial robots are increasingly used in China's manufacturing industry.
Robot density is a barometer that tracks the extent of automation adoption in manufacturing worldwide. According to the International Federation of Robotics (IFR), the density of robots in China rose from 49 units in 2015 to 246 units in 2020, nearly double the global average of 126 units.
Eft robot equipment workshop. Photo: Xu Ning
In addition to traditional manufacturing, new fields are also accelerating to smart manufacturing. This puts forward higher requirements for domestic robots and also brings new opportunities.
"The most obvious change in the company's robot business in recent years is that the technology research and development speed is faster and the product categories are richer." Zhang Fei said, "Before a new product from research and development to investment, it may take one or two years, now it only takes about 3-6 months." ”
Zhang Fei said that EFT now has five module groups of robots such as 3C, spraying and collaboration, and there are two or three new projects under development in each project team.
According to him, in the actual operation process, the workers in the manufacturing department will put forward some feasible suggestions for the new project according to the actual situation, etc., and then feedback to the manufacturing representative, and the manufacturing representative and colleagues in the R & D department will communicate and cooperate to continuously promote the new project.
In order to cope with the rapid growth of orders and the constantly changing product technology, Effert and Anhui Mechanical and Electrical Vocational and Technical College jointly established the "Eft Robotics Academy".
China is the world's largest market for industrial robots and is still in a stage of rapid development. However, for a long time, foreign brands such as ABB, Fanuc, and Yaskawa have occupied a major share in the domestic market.
According to the data of the Prospective Industry Research Institute, the top five companies in China's industrial robots in 2020 are Fanuc, Epson, ABB, Yaskawa and KUKA, with market shares of 10%, 9%, 7%, 6% and 5% respectively.
Zhang Fei said that foreign robot brands mainly occupy domestic automobile and other industry orders, similar to emerging industries such as photovoltaics, and more and more manufacturers are willing to try domestic robots.
He believes that compared with foreign brands, domestic robots such as Eft have the advantages of customization, personalization, and short delivery cycle, "Some products can be developed according to the special application scenarios of customers." ”
For Zhang Fei, 2021 is undoubtedly a busy day. If he had an occasional day off, he would basically choose to rest at home.
Talking about future planning, Zhang Fei smiled and said to Interface News: "In the future, I think it is a line of love. ”