The 2020 East China Sheet Metal Enterprises Sustainable Development Spring Networking Event - and the First MFC Sheet Metal Automation Bending Technology Forum was successfully held in Wuxi.

On January 10, 2020, the "2020 East China Sheet Metal Enterprises Sustainable Development Spring Networking Conference - and the First MFC Sheet Metal Automation Bending Technology Forum" organized by the Jiangsu Sheet Metal Industry Association Preparatory Group was successfully held at Wuxi Runlian Technology Co., Ltd. The conference was attended by over 70 representatives from more than 50 upstream and downstream sheet metal enterprises. The meeting was hosted by Wang Sijie from the association's preparatory group, marking the third member activity since the association's establishment. Automation in sheet metal bending has been a hot topic in the industry in recent years, so experts were invited to share their insights at the forum. At the beginning of the meeting, Xu Xiaojin, the general manager of Wuxi Runlian, spoke as the host. Wuxi Runlian has rapidly emerged as a dark horse in the industry in recent years, known for its meticulous management and high processing standards, and it is a sheet metal processing enterprise with a very high export rate. The China-U.S. trade dispute has significantly impacted its exports, leading to some orders being lost to other countries. Runlian has been actively promoting the concept of standardized sheet metal factories, not pursuing mere scale but rather stimulating employee creativity through a comprehensive reward and punishment system and profit-sharing, maintaining integrity in operations, continuously improving technical levels, production efficiency, and per capita differences, and establishing stable customer relationships. Li Dongbing, president of the Changzhou Sheet Metal Association, shared a report titled "Refined Cost Accounting and Performance Evaluation Dual-Drive, Achieving Cost Reduction and Efficiency Increase and Employee Autonomous Management." President Li comes from the well-known sheet metal enterprise Changzhou Weitai Technology, which has five companies in East China, North China, and Europe, with over 1,000 employees. The business involves rail transit equipment, medical equipment, imaging equipment, semiconductor equipment, financial equipment, and various other industrial equipment. Weitai Technology emphasizes internal procedural and process construction, having independently developed and improved its ERP system and workflow management software, providing strong guarantees for continuously improving service consistency and reliability, and continuously enhancing quality levels and communication efficiency. President Li analyzed various challenges in the sheet metal industry: many industries face overcapacity, trade wars force upstream suppliers to share tax burdens; small companies are emerging one after another, impacting the market with low prices; large companies have advantages in taxes, subsidies, and financing costs, and may also engage in strategic low-price competition; in summary, costs in labor, materials, and management across the industry are rising, and competition is intensifying. For enterprises in this situation, refined cost accounting and performance evaluation have become necessary choices to cope with competition. He shared the company's management experience and tools with detailed data and case studies, which were highly practical and inspired the attending representatives. Subsequently, Mr. Deng Xiang from Zhejiang Tiansheng Machinery presented a report on bending automation. He believes that for enterprises, on one hand, there is a demand for superior performance and precision in intelligent bending systems; on the other hand, there is a requirement for low prices, which brings unprecedented opportunities and challenges for the development of sheet metal bending robots. After manual bending, there was a period when a follow-up front support frame was used in front of the bending machine to provide some support during bending, but it only played a minor role. Now, with automatic bending robots, loading, unloading, and flipping actions do not require manual operation. This fundamentally reduces labor intensity and improves the working environment. Currently, many enterprises are using sheet metal bending robots to replace manual bending. Previously, the main production method for electrical cabinets relied heavily on manual labor, but with the shortage of human resources and rising labor costs, the profits of enterprises have gradually thinned, while users' quality requirements for electrical cabinets have also increased. The consistency of products produced by traditional manual bending is difficult to meet customer requirements, leading to a growing urgency among specialized electrical cabinet manufacturers for intelligent automatic bending robots. From the perspectives of technical difficulty and equipment costs, developing dedicated sheet metal bending robots is the trend in the development of intelligent bending systems. Currently, the systems of bending machines and bending robots are independent, communicating with each other to ensure coherent actions. However, in the future, the systems of bending machines and bending robots will inevitably merge into one, which will be the best matching effect. He compared the processing time, costs, and stability of manual and automated bending with detailed data, believing that compared to manual operations, the advantages of bending robots are reflected in efficiency, safety, and quality. The first two advantages are obvious, while the quality advantage mainly manifests in two aspects: first, the precise positioning and good repeatability of bending robots; second, the good clamping effect eliminates wrinkles, as manual operations require both hands to support the workpiece, leading to uneven force and potential wrinkles. Mr. Yao from Dongshan Precision Sheet Metal briefly shared insights on how to survive and achieve sustainable development in the current economic situation. Despite the immense pressure from industry decline, Dongshan Precision has achieved significant growth in revenue and profit. The third-quarter financial report for 2019 shows a revenue increase of 22.09%, with a net profit growth of 62.20% after excluding non-recurring gains and losses. This is closely related to breakthroughs in the company's main business direction, effective lean management, and a constant awareness of crisis. Following this, Mr. Xia from Jiyi Machine Tool (Shanghai) Co., Ltd. discussed the application of AI technology in the bending field, and a case study of the robotic bending unit was presented on-site. The company's robotic bending unit employs advanced 3D design, utilizing top international software and hardware brands in materials, structures, sensors, real-time compensation, following actions, laser angle measurement, automatic mold changing, automatic gripper changing, software and control, parametric programming, offline programming, production management software, and bus control technology. The design of the bending machine body uses the most advanced design software and methods in the world to conduct structural mechanics analysis, mastering the structural characteristics of the bending machine frame, and performing finite element analysis on each stress point, ensuring the rationality, reliability, and stability of the machine tool design. The robotic bending unit uses the latest technology (software and hardware) to create an intelligent product concept, allowing for real-time data exchange, real-time compensation, and bending tracking during the production process, providing the most comprehensive product technology and services. The main problems solved and effects achieved include: addressing the process challenges of customized sheet metal production, solving the rapid switching production issues of multiple products, small batches, and various parts; resolving issues of unstable product quality, low part precision, and poor product consistency; addressing low production efficiency and unreasonable production layout and process routes; tackling difficulties in recruitment, high labor costs, and the high labor intensity of manual bending; improving bending precision and automation levels, enhancing the enterprise's intelligent manufacturing capabilities, and increasing the visual effects for customer visits. Wang Sijie, representing MFC's "Metal Sheet Forming" magazine, shared macroeconomic data related to sheet metal and the situation of related industries. Overall, starting from November 2019, the continuous decline in the manufacturing industry began to reverse. The government's issuance of infrastructure debt has significantly accelerated, increasing by 134% year-on-year in January; investment in the high and low voltage electrical appliance industry has also accelerated after being suppressed for half a year; the elevator industry has benefited from favorable factors such as shantytown renovations and policy encouragement, completing 955,000 units in the first ten months of 2019, a year-on-year increase of 14.4%, with a potential of 2 million units still to be installed in residential areas; smart express cabinets have seen growth rates of over 50% in the past two years; there is still significant space for railway construction, with plans to build 25,000 kilometers of railway networks in the next five years, including 8,000 kilometers of high-speed rail, which will drive related industries; investment in 5G equipment also started in 2019, with significant efforts beginning in 2020, estimating a total investment of 900 to 1,500 billion yuan over five years. After the expert sharing, representatives at the meeting took turns to speak, sharing their insights and experiences from the past year, and agreed to visit each other to promote resource sharing among enterprises within the association. After the meeting, participants visited the clean and orderly production workshop of Wuxi Runlian, where various management details impressed industry experts, especially the unique spraying production line that caught the attention of the attendees. After the company visit, the representatives of the attending enterprises shared dinner in Wuxi Runlian's internal restaurant. The Han's Laser Intelligent Equipment Group also sponsored prizes for this dinner. The lottery segment was filled with excitement, laughter, and joy, bringing a successful conclusion to this event.

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