Networked Manufacturing - The Road to Innovation in Automotive Manufacturing

The automobile production and management process will be designed, manufactured, sold and serviced on the network to form a networked manufacturing of the product throughout its life cycle. The formation of advanced manufacturing technologies represented by Agile Manufacturing under the support of computer and network technology will quickly respond to market demands in the manufacturing industry.

Automobile manufacturing is an important symbol of manufacturing technology development

As early as the 50s and 60s of the last century, the industrialized countries generally adopted high-quality and high-efficiency process equipment and achieved flexible automation. At present, they are developing in the direction of integration, digitization, and agility. Networked manufacturing is the vehicle for the realization of advanced manufacturing technologies in the automotive industry. The rapid development of the automobile manufacturing industry has promoted the application and development of supporting computer software technology and network communication technology in the traditional automotive manufacturing field, and formed advanced manufacturing technology and management methods with lean production as the main concept.

The current overall level of China's manufacturing industry is still relatively low, and the backwardness of the management and management means of the automobile manufacturing industry and low production efficiency are prominent performances. Therefore, the lean production of the automobile manufacturing industry under the support of networked manufacturing reflects the manufacturing capacity and level of a country, and it is a sign of changing the traditional manufacturing industry of our country toward the development of advanced manufacturing technology.

Characteristics of the automobile manufacturing and parts industry

The automotive industry is a combination of typical line production and discrete manufacturing. For the automobile assembly plant, a large number of assembly line production is used. The production of the previous process directly affects the next process and is linked together. As long as one link is out of control, the entire production line will be affected. In auto parts manufacturing plants, the production process has a "processing-assembly" nature. The processing process basically divides the raw material into discrete blanks, which are then subjected to cold and hot processing, component assembly, and final assembly into parts. In addition, the automobile manufacturing industry also has a variety of production and operation modes, such as: Design for Customer Orders (ETO), Production for Orders (MTO), Assembly for Orders (ATO), and Market Forecasting for Inventory Production (MTS), corresponding organizations The modes of production include single-piece production, multiple varieties/small batches, and repeated mass production. Its product structure is complex, the manufacturing process is complex, and a wide variety of machine equipment and fixtures are required for the production process. Moreover, the product composition produced in each period changes with the market demand, so the equipment resources to be used also change accordingly. Because the manufacturing cycle of each component in the product is of varying lengths and the uncertainty of the product processing route, resulting in dynamic changes in the management of the object, so in order to ensure complete sets of products, delivery on time, but also to minimize the product backlog, resulting in the production of material management The work is very complicated and needs to be pushed back from the delivery date of each product, and the input/output quantity and time of the final product, parts, components, and blanks must be carefully arranged.

As the product structure and process of the auto industry are more complex, the task of engineering design is very heavy. Not only new product development needs to be redesigned, but also a large number of variant designs and process designs are required in the production process. In order to continuously introduce new products with high knowledge content and acceptable prices, automotive manufacturers must have strong new product development capabilities.

In order to adapt to the ever-changing product structure, the bottom processing equipment of the automobile manufacturing industry should be flexible enough to continuously replace the ordinary machine tools with numerical control machine tools. The use of machining centers to replace specialized types of machine tools is a development trend.

Due to the multi-disciplinary and multi-technology involved in the design and manufacture of automotive products, under the current global market competition situation, the situation of relying on a single player in a company has become uncompetitive. Currently assembly and parts manufacturing plants (also known as midfield companies) The separation of enterprises and organizing cross-regional enterprise dynamic alliances has become an inevitable trend in the industrial restructuring of the automobile manufacturing industry. Therefore, the informationization of automobile manufacturing enterprises should also have the ability to dynamically manage and control the quality of coalition enterprise resources.

Realizing Innovative Ways for Automobile Manufacturing

The automobile production and management process will be designed, manufactured, sold and serviced on the network to form a networked manufacturing of the product throughout its life cycle. Advanced manufacturing technologies represented by Agile Manufacturing, supported by computer and network technologies, will be the main means by which manufacturing industries respond quickly to market demands, continuously launch new products, win competition, and seek survival and development. in:

1. Product research and development includes structural design, engineering analysis, engineering drawing, process design, numerical control programming and simulation. Therefore, the research and development process is to achieve two-dimensional, three-dimensional drawing and assembly inspection CAD, CAE simulation of machine performance, process design CAPP, and NC programming-based CAM under the support of PDM. In order to improve the operating efficiency of enterprises, product design needs to improve the standardization, generalization and module parameterization level of products according to the principles of rationalization engineering; in order to improve the overall efficiency of design work, CAD/CAPP/CAM information integration and work process integration are realized with PDM support; In order to shorten the development cycle, we must organize collaborative development of new products in parallel in accordance with parallel engineering methods, and adopt DFX technologies such as manufacturing-oriented design DFM and assembly-oriented design DFA in the product design phase. In recent years, the virtual manufacturing technology has also been rapidly developed. development of.

2. The management information subsystem should support the operation of the company's three-tier value chain (decision-making value chain, supporting value chain and main value chain). The goal of the implementation of the management information system is to deliver on time and reduce costs. Therefore, the core content is to arrange the production according to the philosophy of MRP II and implement integrated management of production, supply, sales, deposits, and finances so as to achieve logistics/fund flow. integrated. With the support of the network, supply chain management and collaborative commerce, including suppliers and customers, are realized. This is the main value chain of the company. In addition, an enterprise resource planning (ERP) system should be formed through the management of supportive value chains (human resources, equipment, quality, funds) and decision support for business leaders.

3. With the rapid development of manufacturing automation in the automotive industry, most companies' manufacturing systems form a "moderately automated" system that combines common machine tools and CNC machine tools. The key processes of manufacturing use CNC machine tool group control system DNC or flexible manufacturing unit FMC, flexible manufacturing line FMS, to achieve NC program, tool management and production scheduling. In addition, the automated warehouse is also the bottom layer equipment to be managed by the information system; in some workshops, there is also an automatic material delivery system.

4. The quality will still be the lifeline of the automobile manufacturing industry. A quality assurance system will be established according to the ISO 9000 system standard. To control the quality of work in all aspects, strengthen on-site quality information management, management of measuring instruments, and establish automatic generation systems for inspection procedures and automatic collection and analysis of inspection data. If it is the relationship between automakers and alliance companies, it is also necessary to establish a graded quality assurance system.

The innovation of the automobile manufacturing industry is mainly reflected in the innovation of business ideas and management concepts, the innovation of organizational structure and management mechanism, the innovation of management norms and work processes, and the innovation of management methods and manufacturing technologies. Networked manufacturing is the carrier that realizes these innovations. Through it, it improves the manufacturing level and capability of the enterprise as a whole. It uses the Internet to establish agile new product design and development environment, rapid sales channels, flexible manufacturing processes and effective Supply chain, improve the company's global market competitiveness and modern management.
1. Restructuring of manufacturing processes and establishment of lean production methods

The enterprise benefit is the life of the enterprise. The benefits of the modern enterprise must not only be established in the good reputation of the product, such as good performance, high quality, prompt delivery, and comprehensive after-sales service, but also be based on low-cost production and manufacturing. The Lean Production, which matured in the 1960s with the support of computer-aided and communication technologies, adapts to the development of agile manufacturing, emphasizes the simplification of the organization and human integration, and is an important production method for the advancement of manufacturing technology. When a product with good market prospects and technical performance is developed, efficient and low-cost manufacturing becomes a major issue. Research and application of lean production methods supported by CIMS has become an important part of the company’s manufacturing technology progress. The research content is: Focusing on new product development and automotive industrialization, lean production methods are used to reorganize the product manufacturing process to form a scale production and meet the requirements of changing products, low cost, high quality and high efficiency.

2. Reorganization product process

GT (Group Technology) is used to analyze the structure of the product and reorganize the process, establish the specialized production of the machining center series of products and supporting parts, concentrate on the processing of the basic parts and the assembly of the products, and realize the specialized production of parts according to similar classification principles. Specialized social collaboration and good cost control. The process route was adjusted to form a flexible production system that includes processing, testing, independent production inspection and assembly and commissioning, and greatly improved labor productivity.

3, lean production methods

The application of lean production methods simplifies production organizations and production processes, reduces non-productive costs, simplifies collaboration, emphasizes the role of people, emphasizes integration and flexibility, and makes punctual production.

A reconfigurable Pallet Loader Type HOLONICAL FMC is established, and a CNC machining machine with exchangeable worktables forms a processing line for the basic parts to realize automatic processing.

Establish a three-dimensional library inside the workshop to meet the “mechanization with meals” method, and purchase, produce, manage, and issue each product as a unit.

The establishment of a mixed-flow assembly production line enables real-time assembly of different deformed products according to market demand. The entire assembly line uses parallel operations.

Establish a professional supporting and cooperation system to realize the supporting production of sheet metal, precision transmission parts and electrical appliances.

4, improve the level of CNC manufacturing and processing equipment

According to the analysis of the product's process and manufacturing process, all use exchangeable desktop CNC machine tools, configure the corresponding material transportation equipment, and achieve three consecutive shifts per day (two of which are unmanned). Appropriate application of CNC precision equipment in key areas, extensive use of DNC technology, and increase the level of manufacturing flexibility.

5. Establish a quality assurance system under lean production

In combination with the ISO90000 quality assurance system, the company implements defect-free parts production, applies on-line inspection technology, and collaborates with production quality control to establish product reliability control methods and testing methods.

With the further formation of the global unified market, China's automobile manufacturing industry has been thrown into the international and domestic unified big market in advance. The auto manufacturing industry must bear the tremendous pressure caused by technological progress from the world, and accept the severe test of the market. Facing the fierce competition in the global unified market, only the use of modern manufacturing methods can promote the continuous progress of the automotive industry.