The spring of smart manufacturing is approaching, and Kingerobot is stepping up its "training of internal skills"
Kingerobot will accelerate the research and development of industrial truck loading robots in response to more machine replacement needs in the future; in response to the point-to-face changes in intelligent demand, it will start to build a modular and standardized technology platform.
In the warehouse of a mineral water manufacturer, boxes of goods that are about to leave the factory are neatly transported by the robot into the transport vehicle. There is no need for the staff to "command and control", and the robot will automatically use the space to fill the vehicle. Using the prototype of the loading robot just developed, the engineers of Qingdao Kingerobot Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as Kingerobot) are simulating and testing the robot's future work status.
Less than two months after the resumption of work, Kingerobot has repeatedly advanced the research and development schedule of this product, and finally made a prototype at the end of March. Engineers and technicians here feel that the day-to-day work is even busier than it used to be. Not only should the projects already in progress be accelerated, but some projects that were originally classified as reserves also need to start planning and promotion immediately, such as the more systematic modular and standardized development of technology platforms.
"During the epidemic, smart manufacturing, like online consumption and unmanned distribution, has shown huge growth potential. The spring of robotics, automation and other industries is approaching." Tao Xibing said.
In the face of the increasingly strong demand from manufacturing enterprises, Kingerobot has accelerated the pace of stockpiling technology and products, and cultivated its internal strength.
Unmanned opening up intelligent warehousing and social logistics
Tao Xibing's judgment on the future of the industry is not only based on personal experience and external voices, but also from the real needs of customers.
Shortly after the Spring Festival, one of the company's major customers, Foxconn, took the initiative to contact and request to change the original design plan of the storage system. This is the newly signed contract between Kingerobot and Foxconn in 2019, and the plan was basically formed years ago. "Now the other party is asking to change from the previous limited automation to full automation, that is, to realize unmanned." Tao Xibing said.
The rapid response of Foxconn was unexpected by Kingerobot. It is precisely because of this that Tao Xibing has seen more clearly the employment reality of manufacturing enterprises that have experienced the epidemic, and their possible next steps. In this context, the value of machine substitution and intelligent manufacturing is becoming more and more prominent. This is a special market education, and companies will be more or less pushed forward. For Tao Xibing and his peers, it is necessary to take a step forward in product development, so that more and more links will be unmanned.
Kingerobot products include industrial robots, automated logistics equipment, complete sets of intelligent manufacturing equipment, etc. It has worked for many years in the tire, 3C electronics and other industries. The industry's high-strength steel hot forming automatic production line, smart phone robot assembly system, etc. are the fist achievements of enterprise innovation.
At present, within manufacturing enterprises, production and processing, loading and unloading, transportation between production lines, warehousing and palletizing can all be completed by robots, and unmanned "black light factories" are not new. However, Tao Xibing found that only the loading link from warehouse to transportation still requires a lot of labor. "It is urgent to open up the stage of intelligent warehousing and social logistics. At present, no similar products have been found in the market," Tao Xibing said.
In the second half of last year, Kingerobot cooperated with a beverage manufacturer to formally develop a loading robot. A series of impacts brought by the epidemic made Kingerobot decide to speed up the progress, complete the development and rapidly expand to more application scenarios, such as loading, palletizing, and in-out of the warehouse for epidemic prevention materials, so as to improve the efficiency during the loading process. low problem.
Kingerobot Workshop, the injection molding robot developed by it has set a record for domestic robot export to Toyota.
Tao Xibing judged that loading robots must be one of the rigid needs of enterprises for robots in the future, and continuous improvement and research and development are one of the directions. "In the future, the robot will not only be able to automatically load boxes of the same specifications, but also different specifications. It will identify which boxes are available, and choose the stacking method and order based on the principle of space utilization."
"Customized" products for SMEs
What makes Tao Xibing feel that spring is approaching is the change in the attitude of a large number of small and medium-sized enterprises. In mid-March, the Municipal Bureau of Industry and Information Technology took the lead, and about 1,000 enterprises in the city's medical and pharmaceutical, machinery manufacturing, textile, logistics and other industries conducted an online demand docking with Kingerobot. Unlike in the past, most businesses are showing a high level of engagement. After the meeting, Tao Xibing clearly felt that the number of companies calling for consultation increased.
"Demand is expanding from point to point." He said that in the past, most of the demand came from large enterprises or industry leaders, but now it has become a more common demand for enterprises, and more small and medium-sized enterprises show enthusiasm is an important sign.
To cope with this change, companies need to come up with new strategies
Large enterprises are more standardized in management concepts and production processes, and the scale of transformation is usually larger and the budget is larger. For such customers, robot companies will develop customized products according to the industry and process. And when facing small and medium-sized customers, the cost of transformation must be considered.
"We will serialize, modularize and standardize the technology platform." Tao Xibing said. Relying on the practical experience and technical training of serving large enterprises in the past, the common things in the same industry are summarized and solidified. When it comes to the transformation of a specific enterprise, only local adjustments are required, which can greatly reduce costs.
The sudden changes in the industry also make Kingerobot expected to achieve its goals ahead of schedule. Now, in the global tire industry, Kingerobothas made a name for itself and will conquer more industries in the future.
Regarding the cross-industry strategy, Kingerobot has already made it clear that it will first reach the top of the familiar and good industries, and gradually spread out one by one. Each refinement of an industry is a process of continuous enhancement of the function and adaptability of the technology platform. Solid every step, first stronger and then bigger.
(Qingdao Daily/Qingdao View/Qingbao.com reporter Sun Xin)