A brief analysis of the development trend from 'sheet metal automation' to 'flexible sheet metal processing lines'

In recent years, with the development of global economic civilization, various manufacturing technologies have been continuously maturing and improving, and the updates and iterations in various industries are also accelerating. The evolution of the sheet metal manufacturing industry is no exception, gradually transforming from a model of producing a few varieties in large quantities to a model of producing many varieties in small quantities, from an inventory production model to a JIT (Just-In-Time) production model, and from a labor-intensive production model to a mainstream production model dominated by equipment automation. However, as production management continues to refine, the evolution of technology and processes, and the continuous upgrading of demand, the accompanying problem is the lack of corresponding human resources. Although companies have tried various methods such as offering high salaries to recruit talent, the rising labor costs and the shortage of human resources weigh heavily on enterprises like mountains. How to solve these problems while successfully upgrading technology? How to transform and move forward step by step while keeping pace with the times? For companies in the sheet metal industry, these are urgent and important issues that need to be addressed directly.

The automation and flexibility of sheet metal can be said to be ever-changing. The different conditions of each company, such as product variety, production mode, and factory size, lead to completely different requirements for sheet metal automation and flexibility. Finding the most suitable automation and flexible processing line for one's own company is a shortcut to improving technology and saving costs. As a member of the sheet metal industry, Murata Machinery is honored to share the application solutions for sheet metal automation and flexible processing lines here, hoping

to provide some references for everyone.

Automation and flexibility of multi-column automatic intelligent warehouses

Centered around multi-column automatic intelligent warehouses, integrating processes such as cutting, punching, bending, and shearing, through the information exchange between the central control system and the customer's production management system, automatically scheduling the production of sheet metal processed products according to the order quantities in production orders, formulating production processing plans, and automatically programming and pushing to various processing equipment. The equipment communicates and interfaces with the automatic intelligent warehouse according to the processing plans set by the upper-level system, handling the inbound and outbound of required materials or semi-finished products to achieve automatic production processing. The monitoring system feeds back real-time processing information from each device to the upper-level system for comprehensive monitoring and management of the processing. Figure 1 shows an example of Murata's automatic intelligent warehouse FMS system, where the automatic intelligent warehouse serves as the storage and buffering unit for materials, semi-finished products, and finished products, as well as the handling unit to achieve the physical integration of the FMS system. Figure 2 shows a schematic diagram of the FMS system composition, where the central control system, intelligent warehouse control system, customer upper-level production management system, and various units are connected through a network composed of PLCs and other components to achieve information integration.