On August 15, in the workshop of yongsheng machinery co., LTD., located in the economic development zone of hefei, the robot "welding" will be working with blue-collar workers to make orders for the middle frame, moving arm and bucket bar of a large excavator.

"A manipulator is equivalent to three skilled workers, not tired, no complaints."

"Yi yi yi yi..." Sparks flew, sparks flashed, and the welding robot began its new job.

Welding is a core process at the company, which produces metal structural parts for construction and construction machinery. "The company's existing industrial robots are mainly seven-axis robots that do welding work. It has human-like arm and wrist capabilities and can perform many of the operations performed by skilled workers." Yongsheng machinery deputy general manager zhao gang said. In 2009, the company launched its first welding robot, and now the hefei plant alone has 18.

Talking about the original intention of the company's industrial robots, zhao gang told reporters that at first, the main consideration is good stability of robot welding, high quality.

"Guess how heavy the pole is? 3.7 tons!" Pointing to a side to be welded excavator bucket bar semi-finished products, he told reporters that the company's production of large construction machinery structure, welding tasks and welding quality requirements are high. "One of our biggest models, a robotic arm that works for 16 hours can only do 30 percent of the work, which shows how heavy the welding task is."

"A robotic hand is equivalent to the efficiency of three skilled workers. If needed, it can work 24 hours a day without fatigue or complaints." Industrial robots can perform simple repetitive tasks accurately and tirelessly, which not only improves labor productivity, but also ensures reliable welding quality, zhao said.

Like yongsheng machinery, a variety of manipulator, injection molding machine, punching machine, transmission machine and other intelligent equipment continue to appear in the province's manufacturing enterprises, intelligent manufacturing units, intelligent workshops, intelligent factories to accelerate the emergence. In the first half of the year, more than 1600 industrial robots were promoted and applied in the province.

Because of the application of new technology, the competitiveness of many smes in traditional industries is constantly improving. "Our company is not big, but most of our clients are fortune 500 companies. We support eight of the world's top 10 companies in the field of construction machinery." Zhao gang proudly said that the company has become Hitachi construction machinery, caterpillar, Volvo and many other world famous construction machinery brands strategic cooperation suppliers, products exported to Japan, Europe, the United States and other places.

"In the future, cheaper and better robots will accelerate the replacement of people."

Take off the helmet, protective glasses, welding mask, respirator, and then take off the thick protective clothing, insulating rubber shoes, welding master wang shaohua while welding gap rest.

His blue overalls were wet, and beads of sweat were running down his forehead. Wang told reporters that regardless of the heat and cold, work should wear professional protective clothing. If you do not wear, welding out of the sparks, can burn holes in the flesh.

"Welding work is very tiring, very hard, people sitting in the office can not personally experience." Yongsheng machinery union chairman wang xia said.

Wang told reporters that although welders earn an average of more than 5,000 yuan a month, the turnover rate is high because of hard work. Nowadays, there are fewer and fewer young people who are willing to engage in welding work. Although the company also adopts a variety of methods such as online recruitment, on-site recruitment, school-enterprise cooperation to introduce and train welding talents, the overall effect is not big. "When orders are busy, the company leadership has to be there in person. "Industrial robots are playing an increasingly important role in replacing people and alleviating labor shortages."

"In the future, cheaper and better robots will accelerate the replacement of people." Shen zhonglin, director of the provincial economic and information technology commission's equipment department, believes that thanks to the development of technology, the overall cost of robots will be lower, performance will be improved. While older robots can only cope with a few predetermined situations, the new generation can cope with more complex and demanding tasks with newer and better sensors.

As the demographic dividend gradually weakens and the labor cost keeps rising, more and more manufacturing enterprises are using robots to replace labor, promoting the industrial transformation and upgrading. In the first half of the year, the added value of the equipment manufacturing industry and the electronic information industry increased by 12.7% and 23.5% respectively, 4.1 and 14.9 percentage points higher than that of the industries above the scale, accounting for 36.4% and 6.5% of the total industries above the scale, respectively.

A large number of robots to replace the production of people, what do the separated employees do?

"Five new robots ordered for this year will take over next month to manage the new manipulator or achieve man-machine cooperation by replacing some of the labor saved after the workload." Wang Xia said.

"Give repetitive, low-end, somewhat dangerous work to machines, and people do management, and do more creative work." Shen zhonglin said to the reporter.

"Dot, line, plane" omni-directional layout, intelligent manufacturing further promote upgrading

As a former worker at a mining plant in hefei in the 1990s, zhao was exposed to industrial robots. Since then, he has decided that replacing people with industrial robots is the way forward in manufacturing.

"Each year, the main engine factory undercuts the prices of our supporting smes by around 2% on average. "With limited profit margins, you have to be more productive in order to survive and live well." Zhao said.

Smart manufacturing is the future of manufacturing. Since this year, the province has carried out the demonstration action of intelligent manufacturing, focusing on the implementation of 283 intelligent manufacturing projects, 11 projects into the ministry of industry and information technology smart manufacturing special list, ranking the fourth in the country; Four projects were listed in the national pilot demonstration of the integration of manufacturing industry and the Internet, ranking the second in China. Eleven enterprises through the national integration of management system, ranked fourth in the country.

Reporters in yongsheng machinery to understand that high repetitive work can be replaced by robots, but due to the complex internal structure of the product, not the rules, any manipulator technology can not complete this part of the work requirements, a product about 30% of the welding work still need to be completed by manual. Before the enterprise also want to use the manipulator on the paint process, but because of different customers, different types, different models of products to paint varieties, color requirements are not the same, the use of the manipulator is not economic, not efficient, so temporarily not implemented.

"Personalized requirements of the process, not suitable for the use of manipulator." A robot costs from hundreds of thousands to millions of yuan, with a large investment in intelligent equipment and a long return cycle, zhao said. For small and medium-sized enterprises, if there is no stable customer orders to do support, blindly mount sophisticated equipment, but will give the enterprise money pressure and cost. Use which technology level of manipulator, the key to meet the needs of the enterprise. "You can't use a calf to pull a cart. You can't use an anti-aircraft gun to shoot mosquitoes.

Enterprises apply new technologies and equipment to transform production lines, and the government has scientifically formulated the development path to promote intelligent manufacturing. We provincial large-scale implementation of a new round of technical reform to promote the proposal, the implementation of intelligent manufacturing action. We will promote "Internet + manufacturing" and "dot, line and surface" all-round intelligent manufacturing. We will carry out "ten hundred thousand robot applications" on "dot", and promote the application of more than 3,000 industrial robots annually in over 300 key manufacturing enterprises in 10 major fields, including machinery, automobiles, electronics and electric. The traditional manufacturing process is upgraded "on line", and 100 digital workshops and production lines are transformed every year. We will build smart factories and smart parks, and cultivate 20 smart factories every year.

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