With the deep integration of the Internet of Things and industrial technology, the furniture manufacturing industry continues to develop and enter the era of intelligent manufacturing, also known as Industry 4.0. With main features such as equipment interconnection, integration, big data, intelligent plants and a main operating network system, all production equipment can be connected to different functions The Supervisor:A “commander” in Industry 4.0 manufacturingthrough wireless signals, and integrate sensors into a production system platform. This system is called the master control, which supervises the process of the entire production line and makes decisions independently, and controls and coordinates the orderly work of various agencies according to production needs to truly use software to steer machinery and achieve human-machine intelligent production.Nanxing Machinery and FinChinaSoft have worked closely to realise the requirements of Industry 4.0 and successively launched customised production modes for B and C components, and Industry 4.0 intelligent production line solutions for the mass production mode of component A. The role of the master control as a “commander” is particularly important in these two types of programmes.
COMPONENTS B AND C: SOLUTIONS FOR
CUSTOMISED PRODUCTION
A batch-size-one production mode involves diversification, and a small-scale and controllable cycle. For the traditional production mode, the machine requires frequent manual adjustments the machine depending on the different sideband thickness, colour, size and others. Making such manual adjustments causes the machine to be idle and unproductive, harder to manage, and yield a high error rate. While, Nanxing’s Industry 4.0 intelligent production line is highly flexible. The four workstations for cutting, edge banding, drilling, sorting are seamlessly connected by robots and software, creating an automated assembly line for the processing of workpieces from cutting to sorting. The master control can directly control and monitor each work unit through the sensor and the controller, so that independent units can be integrated and coordinated with each other in an orderly manner. At the same time, the panel processing data can be docked with the manufacturing execution system for automatic identification, judgment and switching. Sizes, colours and other changes can be adjusted automatically without manually adjusting the machine. By receiving a real-time scheduling data stream from the advanced planning and scheduling system (APS), timely calculations, adjustments and matching of the production capacity can be carried out. By reducing the need for manual intervention, the error rate is better controlled and the delivery cycle is greatly shortened. Compared to a traditional production line, the production efficiency increases by 35%, the number of staff needed is reduced by half, the added value of the entire production process can be increased by about 20%, and mass customisation can be achieved.
COMPONENTS B AND C: SOLUTIONS FOR
CUSTOMISED PRODUCTION
In the traditional mass production mode, compared to customised production, the batch size is large and the panel size is relatively fixed. In order to achieve a high standard of overall equipment effectiveness value while ensuring high production quality to realize smart production of panels without landing, Nanxing and Finsoft have changed the logic of the master control, where the operator will set the corresponding optimal formula according to the length-breadth ratio of the panel in the master control centre. Using the formula, the master control can trigger the automatic adjustment of the whole line after receiving the scheduling data stream from the APS system, such as speed matching of robots, equipment, rolling table and processing settings, etc. The whole line formula can be quickly and automatically switched within ten minutes to reduce unnecessary time wasted.
At the same time, the hardware of equipment and equipment layout has been upgraded, including heavy-duty double-end seals with high speed, two high-speed CNC drills for board drilling to ensure high operating speed of the equipment without sacrificing product quality, and two sets of robots at the front and back of the equipment for loading and unloading to ensure the beat of the whole line. After upgrading both the software and hardware, the programme has a high overall performance, stability and production quality; 20,000 parts can be produced in two shifts a day, beating ordinary automatic production lines.
In short, a more intelligent furniture manufacturing industry solves the problems faced by traditional furniture manufacturers, such as low efficiency of resource allocation, and high labour cost and management, and helps enterprises quickly respond to market demands. This is the inevitable trend of furniture development in the future.
The master control plays an extremely important role as “commander” in an Industry 4.0 unmanned factory. It coordinates the work of various agencies according to production requirements through powerful algorithms, and adjusts in real time according to the feedback of various sensors so that the agencies can always coordinate with each other in an orderly way. This acts as an important link between the manufacturing industry and the Internet.