Networked Manufacturing - The Road to Innovation in the Automotive Industry


The production and operation process of a car will be a networked design that is designed, manufactured, sold and serviced on the network to form a product life cycle. The formation of advanced manufacturing technologies represented by Agile Manufacturing with the support of computer and network technology will be the rapid response of the manufacturing market to market demand.

Automobile manufacturing is an important symbol of the development of manufacturing technology

As early as in the 1950s and 1960s, industrialized countries have generally adopted high-quality and efficient process equipment to achieve flexible automation. At present, it is developing in the direction of integration, digitization and agility. Networked manufacturing is the carrier of the advanced manufacturing technology 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 manufacturing field of automobiles, 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 backward management and low production efficiency of the automobile manufacturing industry is a prominent performance. Therefore, the lean manufacturing of the automobile manufacturing industry under the support of networked manufacturing is a sign reflecting the manufacturing capacity and level of a country, and is a sign that changes the traditional manufacturing industry in China towards advanced manufacturing technology.

Characteristics of the automobile manufacturing and parts industry

The automotive industry is a combination of typical assembly line production and discrete manufacturing. For the automobile assembly plant, a large number of production lines are used. The production of the previous process directly affects the next process, and the entire production line will be affected as long as one link is out of control. In the auto parts manufacturing plant, the production process has the nature of "processing-assembly". The process basically divides the raw materials into discrete blanks, and then passes through cold and hot processing, component assembly, and finally assembly into parts. In addition, the automotive industry has a variety of production and operation models, such as: user order design (ETO), order-to-order (MTO), order-to-order (ATO), and market-predicted inventory production (MTS), corresponding organizations The production mode includes single-piece production, multi-variety/small batch and repeated mass production. The product structure is complex, the manufacturing process is complex, and the machine equipment and fixtures required for the production process are various. Moreover, the composition of products produced in each period changes with market demand, and the equipment resources to be used also change. Due to the different manufacturing cycle lengths of various parts of the product and the uncertainty of the product processing route, the management object is dynamically changed. Therefore, in order to ensure the complete set of products and delivery on time, it is necessary to reduce the backlog of products as much as possible, resulting in the management of production materials. The work is very complicated, and it is necessary to reverse the delivery time of each product and carefully arrange the input/output quantity and time of the final product, parts, parts and blanks.

Due to the complexity of the product structure and process of the automotive industry, the engineering design task is very heavy, not only the new product development needs to be redesigned, but also a large number of variant design and process design in the production process. In order to continuously introduce new products with high knowledge and affordable prices, auto manufacturers must have strong new product development capabilities.

In order to adapt to the ever-changing product structure, the underlying processing equipment of the automobile manufacturing industry should have sufficient flexibility to continuously replace the ordinary machine tools with CNC machine tools, and the replacement of special machine tools by machining centers is a trend of development.

Due to the multi-disciplinary and multi-technology of automotive product design and manufacturing, in today's global market competition, the situation of relying on a single company has become uncompetitive. At present, the assembly plant and parts manufacturing plant (also known as the midfield enterprise) The separation of organizations and the organization of cross-regional enterprise dynamic alliances has become an inevitable trend in the adjustment of the industrial structure of the automobile manufacturing industry. Therefore, the informationization of automobile manufacturing enterprises should also have the dynamic management ability and quality control ability of the alliance enterprise resources.

Realizing innovative ways of automobile manufacturing

The production and operation process of a car will be a networked design that is designed, manufactured, sold and serviced on the network to form a product life cycle. The formation of advanced manufacturing technology represented by Agile Manufacturing with the support of computer and network technology will be the main means for the manufacturing industry to respond quickly to market demand, continuously introduce 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 R&D 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 on PDM support. In order to improve the business operation efficiency, product design needs to improve the standardization, generalization and module parameterization level of products according to the rationalization engineering principle; to improve the overall efficiency of design work, realize CAD/CAPP/CAM information integration and work process integration under the support of PDM; In order to shorten the development cycle, we should organize the collaborative development of new products in parallel according to the parallel engineering method, and adopt DFX technology such as manufacturing-oriented design DFM and assembly-oriented design DFA in the product design stage. In recent years, virtual manufacturing technology has also been adopted very quickly. development of.

2. The management information subsystem should support the operation of the enterprise's three-tier value chain (decision-making value chain, supporting value chain and main value chain). The goal of implementing the management information system is firstly to deliver on time and reduce costs. Therefore, the core content is to arrange production according to MRP II philosophy, and implement integrated management of production, supply, sales, deposit and finance to realize logistics/financial flow. integrated. Further support the supply chain management and collaborative commerce including suppliers and customers under the network support, which is the main value chain of the enterprise. In addition, an enterprise resource planning (ERP) system should be formed with the support of supportive value chains (human resources, equipment, quality, capital) 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 ordinary machine tools with CNC machine tools. The key parts of the manufacturing process are CNC machine group control system DNC or flexible manufacturing unit FMC, flexible manufacturing line FMS, to achieve NC program, tool centralized management and production scheduling. In addition, the automated warehouse is also the underlying equipment to be managed by the information system; in some workshops, automatic material transfer equipment is also available.

4. Quality will remain the lifeline of the automobile manufacturing industry, and a quality assurance system will be established in accordance with the ISO 9000 system standard. Control the quality of work in all links, strengthen on-site quality information management, measurement instrument management, and establish automatic generation system and automatic data collection and analysis system for inspection procedures. If it is the relationship between the OEM and the alliance, it is necessary to establish a grading quality assurance system.

The innovation of the automobile manufacturing industry is mainly reflected in the innovation of management ideas and management concepts; the innovation of organizational structure and management mechanism; the innovation of management norms and workflow; the innovation of management methods and manufacturing technologies. Networked manufacturing is the carrier of these innovations. It improves the manufacturing level and capabilities of enterprises as a whole, and uses the Internet to build an agile new product design and development environment, fast sales channels, flexible manufacturing processes and effective Supply chain, improve the market competitiveness of enterprises and the modern management level.

1. Restructuring of the manufacturing process and establishment of lean production methods

Enterprise benefits are the life of an enterprise. The benefits of modern enterprises must not only be based on the good reputation of products, such as good performance, high quality, prompt delivery and after-sales service, but also based on low-cost manufacturing. In the 1950s, Lean Production, which was matured in the 1960s, was adapted to the development of agile manufacturing with the support of computer-aided and communication technology, emphasizing the simplification of organization and integration of human beings. It is an important production method for the advancement of manufacturing technology. When products with good market prospects and technical performance are developed, high-efficiency and low-cost manufacturing becomes a major problem. Research and application of lean manufacturing methods supported by CIMS has become an important part of the technological progress of enterprises. Focusing on new product development and automobile industrialization, the application of lean production methods reorganizes the product manufacturing process to form scale production and adapt to the requirements of product variety, low cost, high quality and high efficiency.

2. Restructuring product process

Apply GT (Group Technology) to carry out structural analysis and reorganization process of products, establish specialized production of machining center series products and supporting parts, concentrate on the processing of basic parts and products, and realize the specialized production of parts according to the principle of similar classification. Professional social collaboration and cost control. Adjust the process route to form a flexible production system including processing, testing, independent production inspection, assembly and commissioning, etc., greatly improving labor productivity.

3. Lean production method

The application of lean production methods simplifies production facilities and production processes, reduces non-productive costs, simplifies collaboration, emphasizes the role of people, emphasizes integration and flexibility, and produces on time.

Establish a reconfigurable decentralized self-discipline production line (Pallet Loader Type HOLONICAL FMC), and form a processing line for the basic parts with the CNC machine tool of the exchangeable worktable to realize automatic processing.

Establish a three-dimensional warehouse inside the workshop to meet the “dietary operation” method, and purchase, produce, manage and distribute the complete sets of materials for each product.

Establish a mixed-flow assembly line, which can be assembled in real time according to the needs of the market. The entire assembly line uses parallel operation.

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

4. Improve the numerical control level of processing and manufacturing equipment

According to the process analysis of the product and the analysis of the manufacturing process, all the exchangeable desktop CNC machine tools are used, and the corresponding material transportation equipment is configured to realize three consecutive daily operations (two of which are unmanned). Appropriate application of CNC precision equipment in key parts, extensive use of DNC technology to improve the level of manufacturing flexibility.

5. Establish a quality assurance system under lean production

Combined with the ISO90000 quality assurance system, the company implements defect-free production of parts, applies on-line inspection technology, and cooperates 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 market in advance. The automobile manufacturing industry must withstand the tremendous pressure caused by technological progress from all over the world and accept the severe test of the market. In the face of fierce competition in the global unified market, only the use of modern manufacturing methods can promote the continuous progress of the automotive industry.

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