The Innovation Center will integrate the innovation and R&D of intelligent manufacturing, bring together the innovation of discrete and process manufacturing software and hardware technology, and become a demonstration base for the integration of innovation centers and digital factories in the same city.
Speaking of Siemens' digital factory, we have to mention that in 20 1 1 year, Siemens (China) began to build Chengdu production and R&D base of industrial automation products in Chengdu High-tech Zone. This base is the largest digital factory of Siemens in China, the third R&D center of industrial automation products in the world after Germany and the United States, and a typical representative of Siemens' digital factory implementing "Industry 4.0" in Germany.
There are few forklifts, and there is a "conveyor belt" hidden downstairs in the workshop.
When visiting Siemens factory in Chengdu, you are not allowed to take photos all the time. All doors need to be swiped in and out, and the management is very strict.
Li Yongli, the head of the R&D base, first showed everyone around the first floor, which is a bit like an underground garage. There is no one in front of us, only the conveyor belt, and the products flow tirelessly on the integrated track.
Upstairs is the production workshop. Almost all materials are transported by these first floor conveyors, and those that need to be sent to the workshop are transported by straight ladders.
Therefore, in the whole Siemens Chengdu factory, forklifts are rarely seen, and there are few mountains of materials and semi-finished products in the workshop. All materials waiting or processed are quickly transferred to the conveyor belt downstairs.
On one wall of the production workshop, there are various products of Siemens factory, including industrial control products, PLC, man-machine interface and so on. , will be displayed. One of them is a small box that is not very impressive. It is mainly used to collect data of various terminals and devices in industrial scenes, and then upload them to Siemens MindSphere cloud platform.
Data first, each material carries an "ID card"
On the assembly line, if the operator needs materials, he only needs to click on the computer display screen on the workbench, and the required materials will automatically appear at the designated place in a few minutes.
Such a scene has appeared in Siemens Chengdu Digital Factory every day for more than two years. So, how is this information transmitted?
There is a one-dimensional code on the back of each material, and there are more than 65438+ million one-dimensional codes in the whole factory. It's like the number of a taxi, which records how many passengers are in it, when to get on and off, and so on.
This is like an "identity card", from the date of production to all aspects of production, there are a lot of information stored in it; Just like a resume, it can be traced back for life. With these data, more improvements can be made in the subsequent prediction and optimization.
The data generated by R&D link is transmitted in real time between various systems in the factory, and the synchronous update of data also avoids the mistakes that often occur in traditional manufacturing enterprises due to poor communication, which greatly improves the efficiency.
An advanced factory still uses one-dimensional code? Li Yongli explained that in fact, one-dimensional code is enough, and the cost is lower. Some things look very advanced, in fact, one-dimensional code is the most effective.
The most advanced factories don't buy the most advanced equipment directly.
In Li Yongli's view, if we want to improve product quality, we must improve the degree of automation, because automation can't go wrong.
To improve automation and realize the most advanced mode of production is to buy the most advanced equipment directly? "Actually otherwise, because next year's equipment, certainly more advanced than this year, so you are going to change new equipment? The correct idea should be to continuously optimize the original equipment. "
In the Chengdu factory, many grabbing robots come from KUKA, but Li Yongli said that this does not mean that you can complete the work well by purchasing the most advanced robots. Just like everyone's computer, there is no obvious difference in the production technology of computers now. What kind of manipulation is done with the computer is the most critical.
For another example, many factories already exist, so is it necessary to tear them down and rebuild them to realize the latest production mode? Of course not, but to reconstruct the mathematical model, what can be improved and what can be eliminated, and make it through the process.
In this process, the factory has moved to computer mode to operate. Generally speaking, if you buy a robot, you must have a mathematical model of the robot, and his every move must be described by a digital model.
When there is a problem-people solve the problem-solidify the knowledge and process of solving the problem into the equipment and production line-automatically solve or avoid similar problems ... this has become a main line of solving problems in Germany.
Before the project goes online, simulate "running" online.
Next, Li Yongli introduced "digital twins" to everyone.
In the field of data storage, there is a technical term called "mirror image". The so-called "digital twin" is very similar to the concept of mirror image. It mirrors the actual product manufacturing, production process and even the whole factory management, and reproduces the testing and production process in a completely virtual environment.
Li Yongli said that the first generation products should be simulated and tested before development. "Many problems are not found through testing, but almost all problems should be tested before the project starts."
"How long does it take for the computer to detect a screw?" Li Yongli said.
For another example, the mechanical arm takes the material out of the box, puts it on the stage for testing and processing, and then puts it back in the box. A seemingly simple action requires great optimization.
In the optimization, it is found that before the mechanical arm grabs the material and inserts it into the slot, the material swings, so it needs to be paused, and the material is still inserted accurately. However, this imperceptible pause is likely to cause "traffic jam" in the follow-up production line for the production line that races against time, so it needs to be optimized.
In his view, many people are talking about information and process automation, which is the characteristic of global manufacturing and supply chain. In fact, in many cases, manual tedious work is constantly replaced. After several years of development, some gadgets can be formed, which is only the initial stage of digitalization. If upgraded to a platform, these tools can form a joint force to achieve cooperation between platforms.
Product quality problems can be traced back to the source.
Li Yongli said that the most difficult thing for manufacturing industry is to improve quality. Many people say that the quality of their products can reach 99.999%, but in fact this refers to the quality of products when they leave the factory, not the quality of products during production. Theoretically, the quality of products should be 100%, even if one of the 100 million products sold is bad, it is unacceptable.
Li Yongli quoted a word called "Error Rate" (dpm), that is, all errors occurred in 6,543.8+0,000 parts. In April this year, the dpm of Siemens Chengdu factory was 2 parts per million. Fortunately, all the data can be checked backwards. For example, there are 654.38+02 errors in pasting a component on the production line, and 654.38+02 errors in other links.
"Now that the problem has been found, the next step should be optimization, so can dpm be reduced to 1.9 and 1.8 next time?" Li Yongli said that the error rate has been reduced so little.
The produced products will go to Siemens factories in Germany and Suzhou every two days on average, and the longest stay in Chengdu factory after these products are produced will not exceed 12 hours.
Before shipment, these products are stored in a three-dimensional warehouse. This three-dimensional warehouse is also the last stop of our visit. The container with a height of tens of meters is divided into seven lanes, each lane is 17000 products, and the whole product is 10000 products, all painted black, just like a scene in a blockbuster.
Author Gao Xiaoping
From Southern Plus Client of Southern Newspaper Media Group