Robots want to "save people in danger"

We closely follow the needs of our customers. Wherever the customer is, we will produce wherever. "The person who said this was Chen Yi, vice president of Han's Laser, who is also the general manager of the sheet metal equipment business unit responsible for the company's industrial robot business.

What he means is that the local supplier of industrial robots , it is necessary to research and develop according to the needs of the manufacturer's customers, to produce robot products that satisfy customers, in order to compete with powerful foreign suppliers.

Han's Laser is the world's leading manufacturer of laser processing equipment One, in 2014, the sales revenue was 5.5 billion yuan, and Han's Laser ranked second in market value and first in net sales among global listed laser companies. Chen Yi's opinion is absolutely confident.

In With rising labor costs and frequent occurrences of "labor shortages", the country has launched the "Made in China 2025" plan and plan, and a wave of "machine substitution" has begun to blow up in China's manufacturing industry.

Faced with this trend, people in the industry need to have a clearer understanding of basic issues: what are the main application directions of industrial robots? Which fields and processes are suitable for using robots? What customer needs should be considered when developing and manufacturing industrial robots? From the perspective of robot suppliers, Chen Yi shared the experience of Han's Laser.

Application direction: intelligent transformation

"Intelligent manufacturing is inseparable from robots, and robots are also Inseparable from intelligent manufacturing, in fact, the two are interdependent. Think about it, if I want to achieve intelligent manufacturing, can this thing still be called intelligent manufacturing without the participation of robots? "In Chen Yi's view, the application direction of industrial robots is mainly to carry out intelligent transformation of Chinese manufacturing.

Three years ago, the first fully automated cutting production line in China, the Han's laser flexible production line, was successfully delivered to Xugong Group has been put into full production. This signifies that the Han's laser cutting machine, an industrial robot, has entered the stage of automatic assembly, which represents a substantial breakthrough in the research and development of domestic laser cutting machines to production automation, and breaks the long-term monopoly of international giants on this project.

In the operation demonstration site of XCMG Group, two flexible production lines with independent intellectual property rights were successfully connected with seven laser cutting machines, fully automatic loading and unloading, realizing a high degree of automation and intelligence.

The connection between flexible production line and laser cutting machine can greatly improve productivity and reduce labor intensity. This enables enterprises to flexibly respond to changes in market demand and improve their adaptability to multi-variety and small-batch products.

As the intelligent transformation of Chinese manufacturing begins to take the fast lane, Han's Laser's industrial robot and intelligent manufacturing fields have ushered in the momentum of rapid growth. Sales of industrial robots hit an all-time high, and smart manufacturing systems made their way to more Chinese manufacturers.

Han's Laser's 2014 annual report shows that the sales performance of high-power laser equipment has reached a new high, with sales revenue of 850 million yuan, a year-on-year increase of 15%. The sales volume and sales revenue of high-power laser cutting and welding equipment rank first in the country. Among them, the installed capacity of fiber laser cutting machines exceeds 1,500, ranking first in the world.

Application areas: logistics and manufacturing

From the perspective of business processes, robots are mostly used in manufacturing and related logistics links, and are often automated systems composed of robots. Integrate these two business functions. "Like the sheet metal manufacturing industry, a piece of steel needs to be cut and cut with a laser. In the past, people were used to move one piece of steel and the next piece, but now robots are used to take out the steel from the warehouse, cut it, and then cut it down. After the material is formed, it is transported back to form a closed-loop system." Chen Yi said as an example.

Based on the experience of XCMG's laser flexible production line three years ago, Han's Laser took the lead in completing the standardized configuration of automated cutting systems in China for the application scenarios of multiple manufacturers and customers. This new type of laser cutting automatic loading and unloading system has entered Mingyu Heavy Industry, Xingguang Agricultural Machinery and other enterprises to realize automatic operation of the whole process, save a lot of labor costs, and improve production efficiency by more than 30%.

Manufacturers in different industries have different characteristics due to different materials and processes. This gives industrial robots a place to play.

"In the current 3C industry, for example, Apple's mobile phone has marking, welding, and sapphire cutting, it all needs to use lasers, so it can use laser industrial robots to implement automation for it. production." Chen Yi said.

At the beginning of last year, Han's Laser's 1,000th fiber laser cutting machine was successfully accepted by Chery Heavy Industry Co., Ltd. and put into use. Chery Heavy Industry is an equipment manufacturing enterprise involved in agricultural equipment and other industrial fields.

The sheet metal processing parts of agricultural machinery products generally use 4-6mm steel plates. There are many kinds of sheet metal parts and the update is fast. The traditional sheet metal processing parts of agricultural machinery products usually use the punching method, which consumes a lot of molds.

In contrast, fiber laser technology has advantages. With the help of CNC software, the fiber laser cutting machine can realize the cutting and processing of metal sheets of any shape. The use of laser cutting technology not only has fast processing speed, high efficiency and low cost, but also avoids frequent replacement of molds and tools, shortens the processing cycle, is easy to achieve continuous processing, and greatly improves production efficiency.

The optical fiber cutting machine can also take advantage of optical fiber transmission. The laser is directly transmitted from the laser to the cutting head of the machine tool through the optical fiber. The mechanical structure is simple, the optical path is constant, the maintenance is basically free, and the cutting performance is stable.

Customer demand determines the value of robots

As China catches up with competitors from industrialized countries, the sales of industrial robots in the Chinese market increased by 54% to about 56,000 units. China has previously become the largest market for all-industrial robots.

Among the sales of industrial robots in the Chinese market, local suppliers sold 16,000 units, accounting for only 29%, while 71% came from overseas suppliers such as Switzerland, Germany, and Japan.

As a local laser robot supplier with global leadership, Han's Laser regards customers | resources as one of its core competitiveness. "After years of development, the company has accumulated more than 30,000 industrial customers, and has strong customer|resource advantages." The company's 2014 annual report wrote.

Han's Laser means to listen to the needs of customers, so as to manufacture robots suitable for customers and realize the value of robot products. Just like Chen Yi said, "Follow the needs of customers, and use demand to drive our R&D and production."

Manufacturers consider return on investment when deciding whether to buy a robot. "What customers need is to buy something that is worth investing in. I bought this thing, and I want to recover the cost in the shortest time. This is a good thing. Otherwise, I will not buy it no matter how good you are. Enterprise The core of the company is to create value and strive to increase profits. If this goal cannot be achieved, then the company will never buy this thing." Chen Yi said.

The scenario of robot application is also the focus of consideration. Chen Yi believes that although robots can replace most of human labor on the surface, in fact, the application of robots is often limited to some industries with high labor repetition and large batches. "If we talk about a single thing, the cost of introducing robots must be very high, so companies will naturally not adopt it."

Chen Yi emphasized: "Of course, in places that are not suitable for manual operation, For example, if you work in a very harsh environment, of course, robots will also need to operate."