In 2015, the Chinese government launched the “Made in China 2025” plan. This shows that China must upgrade its manufacturing industry by vigorously developing advanced manufacturing and intelligent manufacturing to rank among the world's manufacturing powers. From the perspective of international experience, during the development of the manufacturing industry, The continuous upgrading and optimization of logistics systems that play an important supporting role is one of the key factors. However, for a long time, Chinese manufacturing companies have not paid enough attention to logistics and the level of logistics management operation is low. In China's manufacturing industry, it is in an important position of transformation and upgrading, manufacturing. Industry logistics also needs improvement. What are the characteristics of manufacturing logistics? How to achieve upgrade optimization? With these issues, "Logistics Technology and Application" magazine interviewed the industry's senior experts - Beijing Machinery Industry Automation Institute Co., Ltd. Logistics Technical Engineering Division General Manager Yan Yongjiang.
Beijing Machinery Industry Automation Research Institute Co., Ltd. is a multi-disciplinary comprehensive high-tech company that aims to promote and develop integrated manufacturing automation technology and intelligent manufacturing technologies. It is dedicated to the development of industrial intelligent units, system integration and related supporting technologies. Applications. The main research areas are: Manufacturing ERP, Enterprise Computer Integrated Application Software, Including Computer-Assisted Enterprise Management System (MIS), Computer Aided Design and Manufacturing (CAD/CAM), Automatic Control and Application Engineering, Including System and Integration , network and communication, manufacturing process control and management, flexible manufacturing system, shop-level logistics system, automated warehouse, logistics technology and automatic detection; industrial robot and artificial intelligence application engineering; mechatronic non-standard equipment development and application engineering.
Reporter: Bei Zi has successfully implemented many manufacturing logistics projects. Based on your experience, under what circumstances will manufacturing companies consider optimizing or improving the logistics system?
Jin Yongjiang: For manufacturing companies, manufacturing is the main business, logistics is an auxiliary work, and its role is to help production. Therefore, many manufacturing companies are 'discovering' the logistics upgrade during the process of production technological transformation. The demand for optimization. Take the example of a project that we once implemented—a production and logistics system for a large sheet metal processing company. The company has introduced advanced automated production equipment. The machine tool can be unmanned for 24 hours, but the original The production logistics system is not a fully automatic system and cannot be matched with efficient automated production, which restricts the improvement of production efficiency. Our solution is to meet the production needs. An automatic warehouse system is set up in the production workshop, and the automated production machine tool docking realizes the automatic up-and-down on demand. Materials and information management. This satisfies the company's need for uninterrupted production for 24 hours, which greatly increases production efficiency.
In addition to passively improving logistics, manufacturing companies, especially some industry leaders, tend to favor the most advanced production systems, including logistics systems, when they build new factories to maintain and expand their competitive advantages. For example, one of our customers is a Well-known furniture manufacturers are committed to building world-renowned brands. They have been researching at home and abroad for several years both inside and outside the industry, and finally determined to build a new, advanced smart factory. The new factory has a distinctive 'smart manufacturing', on demand Production's characteristics: Production begins with customer needs, and designs products based on the customer's room type. Then the customer can select the company's mature product module according to the room type and form the final solution. The factory customizes the production of furniture, and the entire production process achieves efficient production. The planning and construction of our production logistics system for the company, including WMS, WCS, intelligent stacker, AGV, RGV, fully automated conveyors, shelves, etc.
In summary, manufacturing logistics is the link of various production links, and the logistics system is closely linked with the production line and production cycle. All kinds of advanced logistics equipment are an important part of this comprehensive large-scale system, and are in advanced information management systems. Under the unified command, high-efficiency production is achieved. Only when the logistics is reasonably smooth can the entire plant's operational efficiency and management level be improved. If the logistics is not smooth, it will affect production.
Reporter: What are the difficulties in improving the logistics system for manufacturing companies? What are the key points to note?
Zhai Yongjiang: Comparing with logistics construction in other industries, manufacturing logistics construction is more complicated because the manufacturing industry contains many different sub-sectors and each has its own characteristics. This also causes different manufacturing logistics systems to have some of their own uniqueness. .
From the point of view of manufacturing methods, manufacturing can be divided into process manufacturing and discrete manufacturing. Typical industries of process manufacturing, such as chemical industry, are characterized by the integration of production and logistics. Continuous production inevitably requires continuous material delivery. In addition, this industry is generally highly automated. When planning production workshops, production and material distribution plans must be adequately put in place. Therefore, the logistics of such manufacturing industry is mature, clear, and not too Large implementation difficulty.
For discrete manufacturing, it can be subdivided into manufacturing with large production volumes and manufacturing with low production volume. Representatives with large production volumes such as automobile manufacturing and home appliance manufacturing industries. These industries have been formed due to long-term development. The mature production model, logistics organization model, is a highly automated production line. Therefore, the logistics system of these industries also has a lot of mature, reference models. For some single product production industries, such as heavy Machining, the processes and processes of this industry are all very complicated, and the manufacture of many large or super large-scale equipment also involves factors such as the country’s economic security and military security. Technology-leading countries often block the leakage of technology, so we are also very Difficult to learn from, imitation of opportunities. This has caused the difficulty of this type of manufacturing logistics planning and implementation, and many times require special research projects.
Manufacturing logistics can be divided into two parts: production (line side) logistics and general logistics. The general logistics construction of manufacturing companies is to build warehouses for storing raw materials, accessories and finished products. The construction of warehouses in other industries is very similar and therefore easier to plan and implement.
The more difficult part is the planning and implementation of production (line-side) logistics. Whether it is the construction of a new factory's production logistics system or the optimization and improvement of the logistics of the reconstruction project, it is closely integrated with the production process. First, we must do a good job in process analysis. It is very important to plan the design flow line before considering the layout of the production equipment. It is very important to adopt the correct steps. However, most domestic manufacturing companies do not understand logistics. Therefore, it is often necessary to build factories, purchase equipment, and then consider logistics. As a result, logistics system construction faces many constraints and it is difficult to achieve optimality. This is very regrettable.
Reporter: What do you think are the main reasons for the problems in the production logistics system construction in China's manufacturing enterprises? How to solve the problems?
Ruan Yongjiang: Due to the original system of our country, when manufacturing companies are building projects, they all need to find design institutes for their respective industries to do factory design planning. For these design institutes, the focus of design planning is not logistics. First of all, we will consider plant buildings (buildings) and production processes. Due to the lack of planning awareness, logistics planning is also their weaknesses. China's manufacturing logistics has been relatively low for a long time, and it has a certain relationship with this. Now the design institutes are in charge of logistics planning and design. The degree of emphasis has also been on the rise and many experiences have been gained as the number of projects has increased. However, due to changes in business operations or market conditions, many completed factories have required logistics upgrades.
Therefore, I recently considered whether or not the North Union can integrate with the design institutes to integrate logistics planning and design into the business scope of the design institutes and jointly improve the ability of the manufacturing companies to design and construct logistics systems. In fact, internationally, logistics planning and design are usually It is completed by a professional logistics consulting company. However, I think that the strength of design institutes over consulting companies is their ability to design and refine their concepts. If we can achieve complementary strengths, we can better meet the needs of our customers. More competitive.
In fact, in the field of manufacturing logistics, the North Institute still has certain advantages. First, we have profound backgrounds. Since its establishment in 1954, it is a comprehensive research institute directly subordinate to the Ministry of Machinery Industry and is the earliest company engaged in automated logistics. The system integration and automated three-dimensional library construction unit, the national Ministry of Science and Technology designated the national promotion and application of logistics and warehousing technology support units. Secondly, due to the close relationship between manufacturing logistics and production processes, process management, etc., so the comprehensive ability is very important, and There are advantages in this area. We are committed to manufacturing automation, information, intelligent technology innovation, research, development and application, providing customers with overall solutions including development, design, manufacturing, installation and service. North owned ERP owned by , MES, logistics, assembly line and a series of project implementation capabilities. This is our comprehensive advantage.
Reporter: Please analyze typical cases to see how the North Zigong helps manufacturing companies to optimize the logistics system.
Min Yongjiang: Through thorough research and analysis of production processes in some industries, we have developed a logistics automation system that is suitable for the production characteristics of the field, and constructed a brand-new logistics operation mode, which has greatly increased the production efficiency of the company.
We have a lot of successful manufacturing logistics cases. For example, we have developed a 'Fully Automatic Drawdown System' for the textile industry. It consists of automatic threading machines, auxiliary operation equipment, robots, equipment operation scheduling and information management subsystems. Positioning technology, laser safety protection technology, fieldbus technology, wireless Ethernet technology, computer information technology and equipment scheduling optimization algorithms. The main functions of the system are: Automatic doffing and winding machine automatic docking, automatic doffing, and The cake is temporarily stored on the center bar of the car body, and the cake is sent to the balance room along with the operation of the automatic doffer, and is transferred to the auxiliary operation equipment, which is then directly grabbed by the robot and placed on the empty rack of the wire car. The system completely replaces the artificial equipment to realize doffing, loading and trans-shipment automation, and can meet the demand of multiple varieties of production and loading of single varieties at the same time. It also automatically completes tracking and label printing of cookie products. This system is in line with manufacturing. The development direction of the “machine-for-machine” industry has reduced the number of laborers, reduced production costs, and improved product quality for textile companies, and has driven companies. The technological progress has improved the company's international competitiveness. The system has reached the international advanced level and won a number of national patents. It was successfully selected as the top ten textile science news of 2015 in China.
Reporter: What are the benefits of manufacturing companies implementing logistics system improvement projects?
Zhai Yongjiang: As can be seen from the above cases, the changes that a successful logistics optimization implementation project brings to manufacturing companies are enormous, not only reflected in direct economic benefits, but also improving the company's on-site environment and enhancing corporate image. Even solve many management problems. For example, we have implemented another case, an electric switch production enterprise, the former mode of material distribution and management is extensive, the material management department uses the forklift to deliver spare parts for the production department, delivery time and delivery quantity. Can not be accurate. This makes the two departments often inconsistent for the parts of the inventory and inconsistent. The company implemented a logistics optimization project, using AGV to meet the production cycle to achieve accurate material delivery, not only solved the above problems, but also brought many additional Benefits. First of all, the logistics operation mode has changed. The AGV distribution materials have replaced the forklift truck operation, which has reduced manpower and is more safe and reliable. Secondly, the original forklift truck has a large number of batches for the forklift, and a large number of unfinished parts are piled up to the production line. Confusion, now is how much to send, production line is cleaner, material management is not Chaos. Also, in accordance with the production plan, the necessary parts are sent in the past, unused ones are stored in the warehouse, the material accounts are clear, and the accounts correspond to the storage location of the goods, so that the material consumption can be clearly understood, and the materials caused by repeated purchases can be reduced. Backlog and position occupation also reduce capital occupation.
Many excellent logistics projects can not only bring benefits directly to the company, but sometimes even drive the development of an industry. For example, the automatic doffing system that I just mentioned is characterized by stable operation, advanced technology, and high cost performance. Textile companies highly agree that they have achieved industrialization and have been widely applied in the textile industry. The system has greatly increased the production management level of textile enterprises, increased the production efficiency and flexibility of production scheduling, and has significant economic and social benefits.
With the development of smart manufacturing, Beizi Automation will strive to lead the automation, information, intelligence, and innovation of integrated equipment manufacturing in China's equipment manufacturing industry. According to the “Thirteenth Five-Year Plan” of the North Institute for Self-Employment, it focuses on the development of intelligent manufacturing and digitization. Engineering business, inspirational to become the best provider of intelligent manufacturing and digital factory overall solutions.
Content reprinted from public number: Logistics Technology and Applications