The new plant of Zhejiang Xinke Transmission Technology Co., Ltd. in Tongxiang is an "unmanned factory", which passed the acceptance at the end of April this year, and now every 85 seconds, a pure electric vehicle transmission is off the production line, which is supplied to Geely, BAIC, Renault and other automobile companies. "The number of employees here is only one-fifth of the old factory, but the production speed has not decreased, and the quality consistency of the products is higher." Jin Jianhua, general manager of Xinke Transmission, said.
This "unmanned factory" is designed by Shanghai Jiaotong University Zhibang Technology Co., Ltd., and its core is "intelligent manufacturing line for electric drive transmissions for new energy vehicles". The successful development of this production line stems from the "Automotive Powertrain Intelligent Manufacturing Integrated Verification Line" in the Lingang New Area of the Free Trade Zone, which "connects domestic CNC machine tools and other equipment into lines" and has the function of testing and verification. The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology refers to this domestic equipment verification platform as the "Jiaotong University Zhibang Model".
Build a verification line to crack the "contradiction" of domestic CNC machine tools
For a long time, high-end CNC machine tools and other equipment is the short board of China's manufacturing industry, how to achieve independent control in this field as soon as possible? Xi Juntong, general manager of Shanghai Intelligent Manufacturing R&D and Transformation Functional Platform and professor of Shanghai Jiao Tong University, said that domestic enterprises have been able to provide single equipment and unit technology, but domestic CNC machine tools rarely have the opportunity to form production lines. This includes a contradiction - on the one hand, the reliability and accuracy of domestic machine tools are not as good as some imported products, and domestic manufacturing enterprises are not willing to use them; on the other hand, because enterprises are not willing to use them, domestic machine tools lack the opportunity to test and verify, and it is difficult to improve quality.
In response to this contradiction, Shanghai Jiaotong University implemented the national strategic requirements and put forward the concept of building an "integrated verification line for intelligent manufacturing of automobile powertrains" to provide a test and verification platform for equipment and related technologies such as domestic CNC machine tools. "The reason why I chose automotive powertrain is because it is a high-end, high-tempo manufacturing field, and the requirements for technological advancement and production reliability are relatively high." Xi Juntong explained, "If we let this verification line play a role, we can also expand to industries such as construction machinery, aerospace, and high-speed rail, and fully empower intelligent manufacturing." ”
In November 2017, the Shanghai Intelligent Manufacturing R&D and Transformation Functional Platform, jointly initiated by a number of units, landed in Lingang and started construction, becoming one of the first 18 functional platforms for the layout and construction of the Shanghai Municipal Government. In June 2018, with the support of major national science and technology projects, relevant shanghai municipal party committees and offices, Lingang New Area Management Committee, Lingang Group and related automobile enterprises, the "Automotive Powertrain Intelligent Manufacturing Integrated Verification Line" was completed in Lingang.
In order to operate this verification line well, the intelligent manufacturing functional platform has incubated Jiaoda Zhibang. This enterprise gathered a group of R & D personnel from Shanghai Jiaotong University and manufacturing enterprises. They use the verification line to carry out research and development, master the digital design of high-end equipment and the key core technologies of intelligent manufacturing production line, digital workshop, and smart factory planning and construction, and can provide system solutions for manufacturing enterprises.
Shanghai and Soviet enterprises have joined hands to build intelligent production lines for Zhejiang enterprises
"The positioning of Jiaotong University Zhibang is to build a bridge between machine tool companies and automobile companies." Chen Zhixiang, engineering director of the company, told the Jiefang Daily Shangguan News reporter that they digested and absorbed the manufacturing process technology of key components of the automobile powertrain, customized highly reliable, high-precision and high-efficiency CNC equipment for enterprises, and cooperated with domestic machine tool companies.
The "new energy vehicle electric drive intelligent manufacturing production line" built by Jiaotong University Zhibang for Zhejiang Xinke adopts this product development model. With the R&D and integration experience accumulated in the Lingang verification line, they designed the entire production line for the housing machining, assembly and performance testing needs of pure electric vehicle transmissions, and cooperated with Neway CNC Equipment (Suzhou) Co., Ltd. Jiaotong University Zhibang provides a full set of drawings of shell processing CNC machine tools, Neway is responsible for manufacturing, and then Jiaotong University Zhibang is responsible for machining, assembly and testing of the whole line integration.
Since the acceptance at the end of April this year, the production line jointly built by this Shanghai-Soviet enterprise has been in good operation. Loading and unloading, marking, machining, cleaning, leak testing, in-line detection, pressing, gluing, tightening, running-in testing... There are more than 40 workstations on the line, almost all of which are completed automatically. In the old plant, Zhejiang Xinke relies on single machining of the transmission housing, relying on manual assembly and testing, and cannot be tested for performance. Comparing the two, it can be described as a world of difference. "Such a car transmission 'unmanned factory' has reached the international advanced level." Jin Jianhua said, "It is also a smart factory, with an information management system that realizes the synergy of logistics, control flow and information flow." The dimensions of each part are automatically measured and entered into the system without any labor. ”
According to reports, the pure electric vehicle transmission off the line from here has a maximum speed of more than 14,000 rpm, a maximum torque of 300 Nm, and a speed of 180 kilometers per hour, reaching the leading level in China.
Improve the energy level of CNC machine tools and robot industry chains
Lingang's "Automotive Powertrain Intelligent Manufacturing Integrated Verification Line" has not only improved the level of the automobile industry in the Yangtze River Delta, but also improved the energy level of the CNC machine tool and industrial robot industry chain in the Yangtze River Delta and other provinces and cities.
Under the deployment of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the functional components of multiple CNC machine tools have been tested and verified on this line. The machine tool moving parts developed by Nanjing Process Equipment Manufacturing Co., Ltd. - lead screw guide rail, and similar products of a Japanese company were connected to the verification line, and a comparison test was carried out, and it was found that the domestic screw guide rail had problems such as unreasonable structural design and water blockage failure. Therefore, Nanjing Technology and Jiaotong University Zhibang jointly tackled key problems and solved these problems. The numerical control system developed by Wuhan Huazhong CNC Co., Ltd. is connected to the verification line with similar products of another Japanese company, and after comparison and testing, it has also achieved good technical improvement results.
Also upgrading technology through the verification line is Jinshi Robotics Changzhou Co., Ltd., an enterprise that produces truss robots for material transportation on production lines. In order to improve the running speed of the truss robot, Jiaotong University Zhibang worked closely with Jinshi Robot to redesign on the basis of verification tests, increasing the robot speed to 6 meters per second, refreshing the national record for the speed of the truss robot.
"The verification line of the intelligent manufacturing functional platform adopts an open system architecture to ensure that different technologies and systems can be accessed, and the reliability and maturity of the technology can be verified." Xi Juntong said, "We hope to cooperate with more domestic enterprises to provide scientific and technological supply for improving equipment quality, and can also directly export system solutions, core equipment and manufacturing processes to enterprises." ”
In addition to delivering Zhejiang Xinke's intelligent production line, Jiaotong University Zhibang also designed and developed two "automotive engine block processing production lines", one of which was delivered to SAIC-GM-Wuling in February this year, and the other is scheduled to be delivered to SAIC-GM by the end of this year.
With the successive delivery of system solutions, the "Jiaotong University Zhibang Model" is also in the process of replication and promotion. It is reported that two aviation intelligent manufacturing integration verification lines have been laid out in Lingang. The intelligent manufacturing functional platform is also docking with large enterprises in industries such as construction machinery and high-speed rail, and strives to cooperate in the development of a series of industrial common technologies. Let domestic equipment and technology have a test and verification platform with energy lines, and carry out joint technical research on the basis of verification, and the "Jiaotong University Zhibang Model" is expected to play an increasingly important role in China's scientific and technological and industrial innovation.
Column Editor-in-Chief: Huang Haihua Text Editor: Yu Taoran Title Image Source: Yu Taoran Photo
Source: Author: Yu Taoran