Nuggets lithium battery intelligent manufacturing "new blue ocean"-Intelligent Manufacturing Channel

According to data from the China Automobile Association: In 2020, China's new energy vehicle sales are about 1.3 million, and sales are expected to reach 1.8 million in 2021, an increase of nearly 40% year-on-year. The rapid growth of downstream market demand not only drove the capital market share price carnival, but also brought a wave of production expansion to the upper and midstream material and battery manufacturers.

According to incomplete statistics from Gaogong Lithium, there will be 26 power battery expansion projects in 2020, with a total amount of over 176 billion yuan. At the beginning of 2021, power battery companies' orders have skyrocketed. In January alone, there were 19 expansion projects. With 9 battery projects, the leading domestic power battery companies such as Ningde Times, AVIC Lithium Battery, Honeycomb Energy, and Yiwei Lithium Energy have successively received information on capacity expansion.

The outbreak of the lithium battery industry has undoubtedly directly brought major benefits to upstream automation equipment vendors and system integrators. Take Ningde Times as an example. Since the end of October 2020, a total of Han's Laser, Hymson Laser, Yinghe Technology, and Pioneer Co., Ltd. , Today International, Nebulas, Chaoye Precision, Zhengye Technology, Nakonor and other 10 equipment companies issued large orders with a value of over 8.2 billion yuan, and the delivery date is concentrated in 2021 or 2022.

The CATL’s accelerated production capacity competition and order lock-in are only the epitome of a new round of global expansion of power batteries. At present, global head power battery companies including LG Chem, Panasonic, SKI, AVIC Lithium, BYD, Guoxuan Hi-Tech, etc. are all active The deployment capacity is launched.

As a visible hot spot for downstream investment, robot manufacturers must not give up this big cake. But for most robot manufacturers, they don’t know much about the lithium battery manufacturing process. Where are the opportunities? How to enter the industry chain and get a share of the pie is the key point.

To understand these, we must first clarify the basic flow of the lithium battery manufacturing process. It is roughly as follows:

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Lu Zhangyuan, director of the Advanced Robotics Industry Research Institute (GGII), said: “The process is different, and each segment has different requirements for each category of robots, but first of all, it must be clear that if robot manufacturers want to enter the lithium battery industry chain, it is better not to enter the lithium battery industry chain. Later, as the lithium battery industry enters a period of large-scale expansion, a large number of new factories are under construction. For robot manufacturers, the opportunities outweigh the challenges."

From the perspective of industry development, the concentration of the lithium battery industry chain is rising. It can also be seen from the companies that have expanded their production. They are basically leading companies such as Ningde Times, BYD, Yiwei Lithium Energy, and AVIC Lithium Battery. The selection of equipment suppliers by these companies is basically fixed. Their cooperation with equipment suppliers is getting closer, and it is very difficult for latecomers to enter this market.

In addition, from the perspective of the robot itself, the equipment must follow the process. You can understand the pain points of the industry earlier when you enter the industry, and design robots that are more compatible with different processes for these pain points.

So specific to each process, "From the perspective of the lithium battery manufacturing industry, the front stage, such as coating, slitting, baking, and winding, is mainly based on lithium special machines. The use of traditional four- or six-axis robots is mainly concentrated in the middle and rear. Section, including battery cell assembly, testing, battery assembly and other links." said Du Yixian, director of Li Yuanheng Industrial Research Institute.

But it is not absolute. In some process segments, companies still try to use robots, such as the lamination link, which is faster. Parallel robots have advantages in this regard. In the packaging process after the winding process, SCARA and the six-axis can complete the functions of loading and unloading, gluing, and internal transfer of the machine, and then complete with special equipment. On-line inspection can also be carried out by SCARA for conveyor pick-up.

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In addition, it is most suitable for linear modular robots and SCARA robots to carry out the work of handling and product change in the production line.

As mobile robot solutions have gradually matured in recent years, more and more manufacturers have begun to try to integrate various AGVs, AMRs, forklift AGVs, etc. in their solutions.

The middle process of winding, sheeting, shelling, liquid injection, and sealing is mainly based on the transportation mode of conveyor belt, which is difficult to modify. However, the demand for mobile robots in the front and rear sections is very large. The front section is mainly due to the volume and load of the materials, which requires precise docking with the production line, which causes too much loss of personnel.

"Currently, GeekPlus’ projects in the lithium battery industry are mainly focused on the pre-process and module links of the battery cells, including warehouse docking, line side warehouse access, material handling and other scenarios, using the SLAM laser navigation independently developed by GeekPlus. Robot products, including two series of latent robots and unmanned forklifts, with loads ranging from 600kg to 5000kg, can realize intelligent handling of various scenes and materials, improve handling efficiency and greatly improve safety." Cao Xiaogang, Director of Global Supply Chain Solutions, said.

"In the latter stage, the demand for mobile robots is flexible handling. The traditional solution technology is simple and mature, but the biggest problem is that it is not flexible enough to switch between different types of batteries. And with the battery size and type More and more, flexible requirements will become more and more important." Du Yixian said.

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Lin Haijun, deputy general manager of Hanchuan Intelligent New Energy BU, also said: “Compared with the traditional production line process method, the AGV production line logistics solution is more flexible and intelligent. Multiple AGVs can operate independently and independently. It can be combined and connected accurately and orderly, forming no physical partition, which can not only play a dynamic adjustment role, but also extend the working range radius to form a highly flexible production line. It can reduce labor costs and facilitate automatic connection with other high-tech equipment. The implementation of unmanned operations can also reduce the chance of manual contact with the cells and ensure the quality of the cells, but its disadvantages are mainly reflected in the unstable technology of the industry and the high failure rate."

In addition to the functions of AGVs for carrying, there are also more and more composite robots of AGV+manipulators. "The demand for this kind of composite robot mainly exists in the equipment inspection of the production line and the transportation of scattered materials, such as the collection and sampling of certain waste materials." Du Yixian said.

But on the one hand, the AGV models used in the battery field are complex and diverse. At present, AGVs used in the battery field include forklift type, cantilever type, roller type, loading and unloading, system assembly, submerged traction type, jacking storage type and many other types. The development of the AGV market has not yet entered a fully mature stage, and there are not many AGV suppliers that can meet the diversified and deep customization of the lithium battery industry.

On the other hand, as a special manufacturing industry with extremely high requirements for safety, consistency, and reliability, lithium batteries pay more attention to the accuracy of AGV positioning, coordination with the overall production cycle, and the stability of the scheduling system in application scenarios. As well as the accuracy of data collection, it is more important for the design of the AGV automatic line scheme and the selection of suppliers.

Therefore, it is now a good time for mobile robot companies to enter the lithium battery industry. In addition to industrial robots and mobile robots, opportunities for terminal sensors such as machine vision are also emerging.

For example, the concept of "Extreme Manufacturing Innovation" in the Ningde era requires that the defect rate of power batteries be increased from ppm (parts per million) to ppb (parts per billion), and this requires more and more visual inspection. .

"From a stand-alone machine to a production line to a smart factory, the release of production capacity is the key, but the improvement of battery energy density and the balance of safety are the current core technology focus, so from this perspective, the construction of the overall smart factory in the lithium battery industry is imminent. "Lu Zhangyuan said.

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At present, the outstanding domestic integrators in the lithium battery industry have undergone a round of reshuffle, and the main ones left are Li Yuanheng, Pioneer, Hanchuan Intelligent, Corey Technology, Hymson Laser, Han's Laser, Topstar, Delta, Yuanrong Intelligent, etc., and as the industry concentration rises again, it is foreseeable that competition will become more intense.

Take the Hanchuan intelligent mid-to-high-end cylindrical battery cell automation production line as an example. The use of semi-automatic equipment will employ about 15 to 20 people for every 10,000 pieces of production, and the use of fully automatic equipment will employ about 10 people for every 10,000 pieces of production, and the per capita efficiency will increase by more than 30%; qualified; The rate can be increased from 90% to 95%.

This intelligent manufacturing system can help customers significantly improve the digital management level of production and operation, and achieve the control of production parameters to reduce the defect rate. The average failure response time is controlled within 2 minutes, and the management of equipment/tools and fixtures is paperless and informatized. , Intelligent, through the IT of the delivery process, H customer supply chain evaluation score increased by 21%.

Du Yixian believes that a smart factory consists of two parts: the first is hardware, which is automated equipment; the second is software, which is an artificial intelligence system based on sensor data collection. "Automated equipment is like a human bone, and software is like a nervous system."

Du Yixian believes that current manufacturing companies are still facing problems in informatization construction, workshop management has become a "black box" and information "islands" in the distribution of relevant links in the supply chain. For this reason, in terms of software, Lyrics uses modeling simulation and digital twin technology to empower factory intelligent manufacturing.

Founded in 2015,Zunhua Baorui Titanium Equipment Co.,Ltd. is a manufacturer specializing in pvd vacuum ion coating equipment. The company’s products mainly include large plate coating machine, large tube collating machine, tool coating machine and LOW-E glass production line. Mr.Wang baijiang ,general manager of the company ,has been engaged in vacuum coating industry for more than 30 years. He continuously improve production technology, improve product performance and devote himself to provide customers with better product experience and higher production efficiency.