NACKS to Become a Leader of Intelligent Manufacturing of Chinese Ships

Wu Xiuxia

On July 14, 2017, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology issued the list of pilot demonstration projects for integrative development of manufacturing industry and the internet in 2017. Nantong COSCO KHI Ship Engineering Co., Ltd.(NACKS)’s “Intelligent Shipyard Construction Based on the Deep Integration of Informationization and Industrialization”, is the only intelligent shipyard demonstration project in China at present.

In the process of carrying out intelligent manufacturing, NACKS closely combined with the enterprise development reality and development stage, promoted the construction of intelligent shipyard by drawing upon the experience gained on key points,and took the lead in opening up the road of intelligent shipyard construction with Chinese characteristics in China. Through continuous exploration and innovation in the process of intelligent manufacturing in recent years, NACKS found out a set of intelligent manufacturing secrets suitable for the enterprise itself and summed up three major experiences: First, the lean design / production / management and IT big data platform is an important support for the company's intelligent manufacturing equipment giving full play to efficiency and realizing capability.Second, the realization of efficient use of intelligent manufacturing equipment is an important driving force for the enterprise sustainably promoting intelligent manufacturing. Third, the basic design of process layout independently conducted is the key to achieve practical results.For this reason, NACKS said that the intelligent ship manufacturing has no rules to follow and no fixed mode to rely on.The enterprise should closely combine the actual needs of production and complete the basic design of the production line independently, which is the key to the effective intelligent manufacturing.

Innovative Mode: Intelligent Shipbuilding Leader

At the entrance of NACKS Intelligent Manufacturing Workshop are put up the development outline and implementation path of its intelligent manufacturing: “Taking digital lean design as the source, integrated information system as the support, lean production and intelligent equipment as the starting point, lean management as the guarantee, industrial robot application and automation production line transformation as the entry point of the integration of informationization and industrialization and intelligent manufacturing, promote intelligent manufacturing step by step.Construction of intelligent workshop is build on the basis of automation,intelligent production line and assembly line.” The goal is to form a fairly complete intelligent ship manufacturing system by 2025, and to build an intelligent shipyard at the primary stage.

Focusing on the strategy of “made in China 2025” and “Internet +”,NACKS takes robot application as the entry point of the deep integration of informationization and industrialization,and actively devotes itself to the construction of intelligent shipyard.The company has introduced four robot automation production lines to improve capabilities of precise and agile shipbuilding and create a new engine of“intelligent manufacturing”.

In 2012, NACKS established intelligent shipbuilding as the main direction of transformation and upgrading and the main way to achieve a strong shipyard, and put into production four robot production lines one after another,namely, section steel, rods, advance group erection and group erection welding production lines. NACKS implemented a number of semi-automatic assembly line, increased the production efficiency by 2-4 times, substantially reduced the labor intensity of workers, improved the working environment, the safety level and the product quality. The robot automation lines are independently developed and designed in line with the actual needs of the company, closely combined with practice results of lean production and informatization. Through the continuous research, the intelligent shipbuilding and lean management system with the features of digitalization,modeling, automation, visualization and integration was preliminarily established,and the comprehensive integration and cooperative operation of R&D, design,production and management were realized, the intelligent shipbuilding workshop with the demonstration effect was built, the intelligent manufacturing of each processing series was realized,tooling automation, process flow line,control intelligentization and lean management were achieved, the product quality was ensured, the processing period was shortened, the productivity was essentially improved, and the product quality and construction efficiency reached the world's advanced level.

The reporter learned in an interview that NACKS promoted intelligent manufacturing practice: first of all, it established a top-level planning train of thought and development path that closely integrated the reality of the enterprise and conformed to the development trend of the industry. The application of industrial robot and the transformation of automatic production line were taken as the entry point to form the R&D and customization abilities of intelligent production lines.They took the lead in opening up the road of “intelligent shipyard” construction with Chinese characteristics. Secondly,closely combined with the enterprise development reality and development stage, they took the benign development path of “stepwise implementation”.From its early stage to 2006, the company initially established an information system network in various business links. The depth integration of informationization and industrialization was realized in 2006-2012. Since 2012, they promoted the construction of intelligent shipbuilding workshop by drawing upon the experience gained on key points, thus building the intelligent shipyard.

Finally, combined with reality, the construction planning and scheme of independent design and reengineering process were established. “When production management has reached a mature stage and we can not always rely on the improvement of management methods, we must consider process reengineering,” Chen Gong said. As a shipbuilding enterprise engaged in thick plate operation and discrete production,we really encountered difficulties in implementing intelligent process reengineering. Independent tailor-made design is the key factor for intelligent manufacturing to give full play to its efficiency and reflect its ability. The pursuit of practical results and benefiting the enterprise and employees is the driving force for continuously promoting intelligent manufacturing.

At present, the intelligent shipbuilding mode of NACKS has integrated the design, manufacture,processing and management information,which runs through the whole process of generating and transmitting of the parts design information, process information,tooling information, material matching information, processing information and assembly information, and paperless is realized in purchase application form,bill of materials (BOM), pallet list and so on. Moreover, with the establishment and continuous improvement of intelligent logistics system, the company will continue to expand the application of industrial robots in the future development, in order to continuously enhance the enterprise competitiveness in the market.

Strengthening Management, Lean Manufacturing Contributes

Compared with foreign enterprises,the manufacturing efficiency of Chinese shipbuilding enterprises is often a short board, so how to shorten the manufacturing cycle, improve the efficiency, and realize the highquality development is the desire of many shipbuilding enterprises.Since the establishment, NACKS, by sharing, digesting, absorbing and reinnovation, has formed a Chinese-style lean management mode with distinct characteristics and competitiveness,which has the advantages of high technology content, high production efficiency, good economic benefit and low energy consumption in the production and operation activities.

“With a little progress every day,continuous improvement is the only way to achieve lean management, and there is no shortcut,” Chen Gong said. During the visit to the intelligent manufacturing workshop, the reporter saw the company had a number of characteristic production site management contents: such as 6S management (SEIRI, SEITON, SEISO,SEIKETSU, SHITSUKE, SECURIT) and NPS (NACKS Production Management System) activities. 6S management is one of the effective carriers of quality independent management, which requires all production workers to put an end to waste and pollution in the area of operation at any time, with daily cleanup of abandoned materials in daily production, clean-up of abandoned materials at any time, whoever cleans up abandoned materials in his daily production, to achieve safety and quality without leaving hidden dangers. NPS management mainly includes “clear management at a glance”, “invalid operation management”, “multifunctional management of personnel”,“improvement management of equipment and logistics”, etc., so as to maximize the capabilities of people, goods and equipment, and reduce production costs, and improve construction efficiency and ship quality.

Lean management is not only achieved in the production site,NACKS lean management also includes various dimensions of the enterprise from lean design management to lean quality management and lean cost management. In terms of lean design and management, NACKS runs through the whole process of basic design,detailed design and production design,realizes digital shipbuilding, digital modeling, and maximizes production accuracy, production efficiency and material utilization rate, pushes up the pre-outfitting rate above 85%. They implement production-oriented design,strive to achieve on the production site “high altitude work done on the ground, overhead position work done on prone position, water work done on land, external field work done inside the field, and narrow space job done in open air. The optimization design serves to ensure that each production link can be implemented in the best state to avoid unnecessary rework under bad working conditions. In the aspect of lean quality management, relying on the perfect system and operation benchmark, through the implementation of the independent management of the whole staff, the whole organization and the whole process, without the establishment of full-time quality inspectors, “Cost-effectively building the ship that meets the quality requirements of the shipowner” to achieve the high standard quality goal unanimously recognized by customers.Independent management puts the responsibility of quality control over to each operator, through staff self-restraint and self-control, problems are found,analyzed and solved.

In the lean cost management,NACKS, on the one hand, reduces the steel usage per ship by optimizing the ship type design, improves the steel utilization rate by optimizing the production design, and reduces the labor cost by reducing the working hours per ship. On the other hand, through the establishment of a computer network system covering the whole company and cost points, the procurement of materials, warehousing, working hours, consumption, departmental expenses, etc., are effectively followed and controlled, and on this basis, the procurement cost control becomes the top priority of cost management, and the purchasing cost control mechanism with its own characteristics is established accordingly.

“The lean production management model under the guidance of design and the intelligent transformation based on it are very important for the long-term healthy development of the enterprise,”Chen said that the lean management of the manufacturing enterprise, the wholeprocess digitization and intelligence are in the same line. If you can't achieve lean operation in all dimensions of the enterprise, you can't talk about intelligence.