Interpretation of the future automation empire – unmanned factory

Recently, more and more news about unmanned factories has been emerging. Both Germany, which first proposed the Industrial revolution 4.0, and the United States, which is committed to the development of the internet, regard smart generation and smart factories asIndustry 4.0Core. But in fact, the so-called Industry 4.0 can only be regarded as digital production, at most intelligent production. There is still a long way to go before the generation of wisdom. The real generation of wisdom may be called Industrial Revolution 5.0. In any case, the continuous emergence of unmanned factories will really affect our life, work and future.

“Unmanned factories” are blooming everywhere

At present, a large number of enterprises have taken the lead in investing in the construction of smart factories, such as Siemens, Bosch, Omron, Schneider, Rockwell, etc., including domestic manufacturing companies such as Midea, Foxconn, Gree, and Huawei. They have stepped into the “intelligent” transformation in the tide. The wise go first, so there are many followers. According to a recent statistic, there are currently only tens of thousands of relevant professional practitioners in China, and the salary of relevant programmers starts at 15K, and most of the relevant talents are recruited by companies such as Huawei. The concept of the Internet of Things will be more and more valued and applied. With the major labor shortages across the country and the huge increase in labor costs, more and more companies have begun to really consider how to use intelligent production lines to change this situation.

“Unmanned factories” still need operators

“The unmanned factory does not mean that there are no people at all, but it will reduce the number of labor on a large scale, even reaching a level of 90%.” In “smart factory“After the completion, some software systems and middle and back-end management personnel are still needed. It is estimated that no more than 200 people will be needed; if calculated according to the current manual production level, more than 2,000 workers will be needed. This is an unmanned factory in Dongguan, Guangdong in 2015. A passage from the chairman during the reporter’s interview after the completion. Whether it is Foxconn’s “light-off factory”, Haier’s “interconnected factory”, or Midea’s digital intelligent base, behind the construction of a smart factory, both domestic and foreign companies need Supported by powerful intelligent equipment, including powerful industrial automation software, based onrobotAutomatic production lines, one-stop solutions, etc. Under the general trend of transformation and upgrading, enterprises must constantly improve their soft and hard power in order to seize the opportunity in the fierce market competition and remain invincible.

Giants deploy “unmanned factories”

1. Alibaba Cainiao unmanned warehouse robot

Teacher Ma said, “Cainiao should go all out to build a national intelligent logistics backbone network, and reduce the proportion of China’s logistics costs to GDP to below 5%.”AIThe technology allows a large number of Robots to work together in the warehouse to form an easy-to-deploy, easy-to-expand, and efficient full-link warehouse automation solution.

Cainiao plans to build a national intelligent logistics backbone network to reduce the proportion of China’s logistics costs to GDP to below 5%. To this end, Cainiao has developed a flexible automated warehousing system, using AI technology to allow a large number of robots to work together in the warehouse to form an easy-to-deploy, easy-to-expand, and efficient full-link warehousing automation solution.

Behind the unmanned warehouse is Cainiao’s five-year continuous exploration and thinking in flexible automation. In the future, logistics will create a comprehensive intelligent and automated logistics system through technological innovations including AI to meet user needs more quickly and efficiently.

2. JD.com’s “Asia No. 1” unmanned warehouse

Asia One is JD.com’s first full-process unmanned warehouse, with a construction area of ​​40,000 square meters. The main body of the logistics center consists of four operating systems: receiving, storage, packaging, and order picking. According to public information, Asia One was officially put into use in October 2014; on October 9, 2017, Jingdong officially announced that the Asia One warehouse had been completed; today it is open to the outside world for the first time.

At present, Asia One has realized the whole process of unmanned operation. In the receiving storage stage, Asia No. 1 uses high-density storage shelves. The storage system consists of 8 sets of shuttle garage systems, which can store 60,000 boxes of goods at the same time. It can be simply understood as an unmanned shelf with a larger storage capacity. Each node of the shelf has infrared rays. This is because no one is in the process of transporting the goods, so it is necessary to determine the position and distance of the goods to ensure the orderly discharge of the goods.

The launch of the unmanned warehouse is crucial to JD.com. When all warehousing is fully unmanned, the number of transshipments of goods will be reduced to a minimum, the personnel structure will become simpler, the logistics efficiency and accuracy will be greatly improved, and the operating cost will be greatly reduced.

3. Midea automatic air-conditioning production line

Since 2012, Midea has put into use a total of more than 800 robots to realize the strategic transformation of automated production. Midea’s central air-conditioning has core components and fully automatic assembly production lines. The production efficiency has increased by 70%, the number of people in the production line has decreased by 50%, and the man-machine ratio has reached 4. % or more, the product qualification rate reaches 99.9%, reaching the leading level in the air-conditioning industry, comparable to the automated production lines of BMW and Mercedes-Benz, and leading the era of Industry 4.0.

Midea’s central air conditioner has built a Chinese pioneer base of Industry 4.0 in its Shunde factory. The overall design, technological process and layout of the workshop have established digital models, using CAD, CAM, etc. for simulation, and through ERP, PDM, etc. to realize the digital management of the entire process of planning, production, and operation.

4. Shanghai GM Jinqiao Plant

100% welding automation has been realized in the workshop of SAIC-GM’s Jinqiao factory, where there are more than 300 robots.

However, there are only a dozen operators who manage these robots. They cooperate with the robots to produce new cars every day, which is incredible. Of course, they have a huge technical and maintenance team behind them. Automated and rapid production also improves product quality.

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The advantages of the past will be replaced by trends. In the past, it could last for ten years, but today it may only be half a year. Today, the changes are too fast. Companies with the size of Kodak and Motorola will disappear if they say nothing.

But should we panic? The emergence of the railway once took away many porter jobs, but added at least 2 million more railway workers. Technological changes will take away some low-end and tedious jobs, and eventually create more high-end humane jobs.

In the future, traditional manufacturing and traditional banks will actively transform and reform towards Internet smart manufacturing and Internet finance, and will achieve greater glory than in the past. I hope that in the future China will see more smart manufacturing and more unmanned factories.