At the recent forum on automotive equipment, Chen Changnian, director of the equipment department of the China Automotive Engineering Society, talked about the demand for machine tool equipment for automobile development: "The level and quality of automobile manufacturing depend on the level of equipment, and at the same time, the automotive industry. International competitiveness depends on the advancement of equipment and manufacturing costs."
“Automotive equipment supports half of the automotive industry and the machine tool industry.†For this statement, Chen Changnian believes that there are three reasons:
"First, China's automobile industry accounts for about half of the equipment manufacturing industry's output value and profits. Second, since 2002, China's automobile industry has surpassed the electronics industry for the first time, becoming the first driving force for industrial growth. Third, the automotive industry. Development not only depends on the technological progress of the machine tool industry, but also leads the development of the machine tool industry. In the past decade, China's automobile industry has become the main body of machine tool consumption, accounting for 70% of China's total machine tool consumption. At the same time, more than half of the investment in the automotive industry Also used to buy metalworking machine tools, of which imported machine tools account for about 80%."
Looking back at the history of the car, it is not difficult to see the role of advanced equipment and manufacturing processes.
In the last century, the automatic line of combined machine tools dominated the production of the automotive industry with its high efficiency. With the intensification of competition in the automotive industry, the cycle of replacement of automobile products has been shortened from several decades to three to five years, and the automatic line of combined machine tools cannot be adapted due to lack of flexibility. In the 1980s, American auto giant Ford worked with machine tool giant INGERSOLL to develop a high-speed machining center that combines high flexibility and high efficiency. The advent of flexible automatic production lines has accelerated the upgrading of automotive products and improved the efficiency and flexibility of enterprises. This is one of the reasons why we can see dozens of new cars coming out every year.
Detonating the third engine technology revolution Chen Changnian believes that with the advancement of technology, the development speed of automobile engines will be faster and faster, and the new product development cycle will be shortened from 30 months to 13 months. At the same time, the growing diversity of demand will make the models The number has increased dramatically; at the same time, the competition in the engine market has become increasingly fierce, and the uncertainty of production volume has increased. However, the current popular flexible automatic line, due to the high price, has increased the investment risk of the automobile manufacturing industry. At the same time, the contradiction of overcapacity has become increasingly prominent. This is the background of the third revolution in engine manufacturing technology.
In recent years, people have been exploring the contradictions that are increasingly addressing diversity and economics. To meet the needs of variable varieties and variable batches, and to take into account the requirements of high flexibility, high efficiency, low investment and rapid market response; at the same time, we are also exploring the century-old contradiction of overcapacity by the revolution of manufacturing systems.
Therefore, Chen Changnian judged that the third revolution in engine manufacturing technology is coming. And this technological innovation will also be detonated by advanced machine tool processing technology. Reconfigurable manufacturing system RMS may be a fuse.
The Reconfigurable Manufacturing System RMS was listed by the National Research Council in 1998 as the top 10 key technologies that manufacturing must prioritize in the next 20 years.
RMS focuses on the rapid adjustment of the manufacturing system structure. The principle is to quickly adapt to the market environment of new product production or production batch changes by adjusting the machine configuration in the manufacturing system and increasing or decreasing the machine function modules. This also gave birth to the reconfigurable machine tool RMT. The RMT consists of standardized modules. The essential difference from a traditional modular machine tool (such as a combination machine tool) is its reconfigurability in use. The structure and layout of the RMS can be quickly reorganized at the user's site as needed.
According to this, the Japanese Mazak company developed a parting manufacturing system. The essence is "single kit production", which is a versatile module production solution that can handle various parts processing. The principle is "one-time card processing." Even with a few INTEGREX machines, the five major parts of the engine were completely processed, and the “kit production†was carried out, and then assembled into an engine. This allows the engine to be produced with minimal investment and speed. It is very suitable for new engine development, and the parting and manufacturing system fully utilizes the software and hardware of the composite machine tool technology.
The process of the parting manufacturing system is characterized by a centralized process. One machine machine completes all processes “independentlyâ€, increases the machine tool when the production batch is increased, and is equipped with material storage and conveying devices. The equipment arrangement features are parallel, one machine fails, and the production line runs as usual.
Chen Changnian believes that the parting manufacturing system can cope with the production of common modules for various parts processing, and is more suitable for the production of multi-variety, small-lot and multi-style. But if the upper batch efficiency advantage is not obvious.
New requirements in the era of diversified cars Multi-variety high-volume manufacturing systems are the new auto parts manufacturing systems in the era of diversification, and are the latest technological innovations in manufacturing technologies that address the diversity and economic requirements.
Multi-variety high-volume manufacturing systems include workpiece-feeding machines and compact flexible automated lines. Only two German companies have been able to provide mature technology, but only for multi-variety mass production of small and complex parts. One is the XG series machining center developed by Ex-Cell-O in Germany with the characteristics of combined machine tools and machining centers; the other is the compact flexible automatic assembly line from Witzig & Frank of Germany.
For professional transmission plants and engine cylinder heads, due to the requirements of different users, it is necessary to provide a variety of variable size manufacturing systems for medium size and weight transmission housings and engine cylinder heads. TransFlex, a workpiece-feeding manufacturing unit from MODIG, Sweden, is a disruptive innovation in the way machine tools move. Chinese companies are introducing technology. Products are expected to be available around 2010.
Workpiece feed machines are also known as workbench inverted machines. The principle is that the spindle is mounted on the upper part of the machine and carries the workpiece upside down. All or a majority of the motion axes (3 to 5 axes) are concentrated on the main axis. The tool is mounted on the lower part of the machine. When machining, the spindle transports the workpiece to the tool tip according to the CNC software command.
Chen Changnian said that this type of machine tool first appeared in the "inverted car" more than ten years ago. On the other hand, the workpiece-feeding machine has revolutionized its development: from the vertical car to the machining center; it has a set of aligning tools or power tool shafts. These tools are modular, set according to the processing requirements, and it is convenient to change the tool when the object is changed. For example, if the turret tool holder of the horizontal CNC lathe is placed, the turret can be changed to realize the tool change. The turret can also include the power tool holder, such as the milling cutter shaft, the head shaft, the wire shaft, etc. Place independent high-power milling cutter shafts, cylindrical grinding heads, internal grinding heads, honing heads, laser heads, straight cutters, and turbo hob shafts. Such a multi-function or multi-tasking machine can achieve all machining except the clamping base. It is no longer limited to machining rotary parts, but also non-rotating parts, such as diamond-shaped parts, such as plates, shells, cabinets, cylinder heads and other special-shaped parts.
He believes that the workpiece feeding machine has the following advantages: First, automatic loading and unloading can be realized, and no additional investment is required, so that the single machine is upgraded to a manufacturing unit to realize automatic unmanned production. At the same time, it is convenient for chip removal and suitable for mass production.
Secondly, the workpiece can be quickly adjusted when the object is changed: the relative position of the workpiece and the tool and its accuracy are guaranteed by the intelligent numerical control software, which not only saves the positioning and tool setting time, but also can be easily adjusted when the processing object is changed, which is suitable for new product development and mass production. . In addition, the modular tool can be changed when the machining target is changed.
Third, the fixture is relatively simple. In principle, it is not necessary to design and manufacture complex special fixtures. Therefore, the cycle of processing new products is greatly shortened, and the cost is greatly reduced. At the same time, the tool change time is short, omitting most of the actions of the traditional machining center tool change, thus saving the tool change time.
At the same time, the movement chain of the workpiece and the tool is greatly shortened, which simplifies the machine structure and reduces the relative positional accuracy requirements of the various parts of the machine tool, thereby reducing the difficulty of machine tool manufacturing.
In addition, a workpiece-feeding machine can meet the requirements of a one-minute production cycle. Obviously, the investment is much smaller and there is no overcapacity problem. If the production cycle is shorter, you can add another workpiece-feeding machine, and so on. Compared with the traditional production line, the automatic workpiece transfer system is omitted, occupying a small workshop area and low installation cost.
In addition to workpiece-feeding machines, the multi-variety high-volume manufacturing system also has a compact flexible automatic assembly line. Compared with the traditional flexible automatic assembly line, its logistics system (raw material processing, storage, loading and unloading device, workpiece transfer device between machine tools) is very simple, and the work table (tray) and octagonal rotary tool magazine are also very simple.
The TRIé„„FLEX from Witzig & Frank in Germany is a compact flexible automatic assembly line with a small footprint, consisting of four modular machining centers around a central centralized logistics unit. It is suitable for the production of multi-variety and large-scale assembly lines for small precision auto parts. The loading robot sends the blanks to the central centralized logistics unit and then to the first machining center. After completing this process, the central centralized logistics unit can be rotated to 90 degrees (if 60 sets of 6 machining centers are rotated), then the work table (tray) placed on it can be sent to the second machining center. , and so on, complete all processing. Each machining center is machined in beats, and each production cycle (in minutes and seconds) produces a part.
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