EasyCar Original On July 19th, I was honored to be invited to participate in the BMW 2021 Digital Factory Experience Day, which was unexpectedly held at BMW Brilliance Tiexi Plant. This experience day has a lot of dry goods, the core of which is to show BMW's digital strategy, digital technology to empower the traditional production and operation mode, to realize the production base from the quality, efficiency, low carbon/sustainable, humanistic care and other aspects of the upgrading. In the course of the event, BMW Brilliance fully demonstrated the practical achievements of the digital factory from various perspectives, such as digital platform, digital technology application, etc., revealing the future vision of digital development and realizing high-quality sustainable development.
Dr. Franz Decker, Senior Vice President of Technology and Production of BMW Brilliance Automotive Ltd. said, "With the deep integration of BMW's century-old production capacity and cutting-edge digital technology, BMW Brilliance has one of the most advanced production bases in China. BMW Brilliance has one of the most advanced production bases in China. Our vision for the future of the Digital Factory will explore our digital potential to realize a more efficient, flexible and human-centered sustainable factory. In the future, we will continue to introduce cutting-edge digital technologies to empower the integration and digital upgrading of the entire value chain, create richer added value for users, and comprehensively promote the digital transformation of the automotive manufacturing industry."Why Transformation? The core concept of the digital factory?
With the acceleration of the digital revolution, digital transformation has become one of the most important tasks for the manufacturing industry to enhance market competitiveness and achieve more robust and sustainable development. To this end, the BMW Group has put forward a "lean, green and digital" production strategy, and the BMW Brilliance Tiexi Plant has become a testing ground for digital transformation.
The digital factory is BMW Brilliance's vision for the future of manufacturing, aiming to build a high-quality, high-efficiency, flexible, convenient and people-oriented sustainable factory through the application of digital technology and data interconnection***, and to lead the automotive industry in its future development prospects. In a digital factory, a highly interconnected, intelligent data ecosystem integrates data collected from equipment, processes and technologies, and automatically processes and analyzes it to optimize the entire value chain, from manufacturing to logistics. Employees will be able to make data-driven decisions through self-service digital tools and data platforms, and enjoy a safer and healthier work environment with smarter and more flexible work solutions. The BMW Brilliance Digital Factory is empowered by a unified digital platform, which supports the operation and interoperability of digital planning, digital production, digital logistics and digital parks, and builds an interconnected production and operation model, comprehensively improving production efficiency and product quality, and realizing the double growth of business value and user value.
In which, the digital platform serves as the foundation to unify and aggregate scattered equipment, technology and system data, process and analyze them, and apply them in different scenarios. Digital planning uses digital tools such as 3D modeling, VR (virtual reality technology) and virtual debugging to create digital twins in the virtual world for product and factory development and testing, and to apply them in real life, thus improving planning and development efficiency. Digital Production promotes flexible, efficient and sustainable production processes through cutting-edge digital production technologies. Digital Logistics aims to realize a connected, transparent and efficient logistics management system through cutting-edge digital technologies such as AI (Artificial Intelligence), IoT and Big Data. Digital Park creates a more energy-efficient, environmentally friendly and human-centered green factory by integrating digital systems such as building facility management, intelligent office systems and energy management.
How far have we come? Successful implementation of the digital factory?
At the BMW Brilliance Tiexi Plant, digitalization has already covered every aspect of the final assembly workshop, engine machining workshop, logistics, and office area. Here, digitalization is not a concept, but a technology that has been successfully implemented.
The application of cutting-edge digital technology will further enhance the level of production technology and create higher-value products and services for consumers. Especially in the quality control process, BMW Brilliance gives full play to the self-learning and information processing capabilities of digital technologies such as artificial intelligence and big data analysis to optimize product quality and improve production efficiency. Taking the AI vision inspection system of BMW Brilliance's powertrain plant as an example, it uses AI technology applied to detecting tiny imperfections on the surface of the engine cylinder head, with an accuracy rate as high as 99.7%. In addition, BMW Brilliance also adopts visual recognition technology to analyze seam data and online geometric inspection for each body, and predicts and timely adjusts quality problems in the production process through the circulation of quality data to provide consumers with better quality products.
At the same time, the application of digital technology further optimizes and enhances the production and operation processes, improves production efficiency, enhances flexibility, and contributes to the growth of business value. BMW Brilliance's predictive maintenance system for welding torches based on the IoT platform is a good application example. The system collects equipment data from more than 2,000 welding robots for real-time online analysis, predicts failures, and effectively reduces downtime for maintenance.
Not only that, BMW Brilliance Powertrain Plant adopts AGV (unmanned vehicle) system to automatically place orders in relation to the production demand, and assist the staff to complete the logistics transportation and picking work, upgrading from the traditional "people picking goods" to "goods to people". At present, 20 AGVs can complete more than 300 picking orders per hour, further improving the logistics management capability. Meanwhile, BMW Brilliance, as the first automobile manufacturer in the world to realize full coverage of 5G in its factories, empowers production with the low latency, high stability and high-speed information transmission of 5G technology, improving efficiency and reducing production preparation time. For example, AR (Augmented Reality) glasses through 5G high-speed connection can realize remote real-time diagnosis and maintenance work. And the application of 5G technology will enhance the link between machinery, providing the possibility of realizing flexible production with wireless connectivity.
Only at the production line? The human-centeredness of the digital factory
JoyChat Mobile Office PlatformIn addition to enhancing user value and business value, the digital factory will further empower employees by connecting production equipment and employees, individuals and teams more closely with the data interoperability of the production and operation model. The application of cutting-edge digital technology will release employees from monotonous and repetitive physical labor, and fully explore their personal potential to participate in more creative and decision-making work. In addition, BMW Brilliance also applies VR technology to employee training. Employees can visualize the internal structure of parts and components in the complete 3D image created by the VR system and carry out simulated disassembling and assembling, which enhances their learning efficiency and improves their technical operation level. In terms of daily work, BMW Brilliance has developed the JoyChat mobile office platform, which integrates daily communications, approval processes, work reports, schedule management and other content panels to closely link personnel from various departments within the enterprise, realizing instant online communication, and meeting employees' daily work needs with digital technology. In the digital factory, through more intelligent and flexible work solutions, employees will enjoy a safe and healthy working environment, feel the concept of people-oriented work, and improve their personal ability to achieve more rapid growth and development.
In this event, in order to further demonstrate the close connection between people and machines in the digital era, BMW Brilliance cooperated with a pioneering artist to design and exhibit a set of digital art installations inspired by the data generated in the digital production process***. The installation visualizes daily production data with colorful curves that can be changed, gives digital technology a temperature, and shows the artistic beauty of people, technology and the environment in harmony*** through digital art interaction, bringing a new and pleasurable sensory experience, and revealing BMW Brilliance's digital development prospects in a vivid art form.
What else has changed? The far-reaching significance of the digital factory
According to the official statement, BMW Brilliance will continue to push forward the BMW Group's "Lean, Green and Digital" production strategy, closely follow the target guidelines of China's "14th Five-Year Plan", and grasp the opportunities for digital development. BMW Brilliance will continue to promote BMW Group's "Lean, Green and Digital" production strategy, closely follow the objectives and guidelines of China's "14th Five-Year Plan", grasp the opportunities for digital development, and promote the comprehensive digitalization and upgrading of factories with industry-leading cutting-edge digital technology. BMW Brilliance will work with its quality technology partners and suppliers to promote the deep integration of forward-looking digital technology and traditional manufacturing industry through the digital development of the entire value chain, improve product quality and production efficiency, seize the initiative in the fierce market competition, and realize the comprehensive enhancement of business value and user value.
At the same time, BMW Brilliance also said that it will continue to explore cutting-edge digital technology and focus on digital talent training in the future, and lead the digital transformation of the manufacturing industry in Shenyang and even in Liaoning province with industry-leading production technology and forward-looking digital strategy, so as to promote the industrial optimization and upgrading of China's automobile manufacturing industry.