This article is Ban Jianfeng, manager of the Information Department of Chinalco Liancheng Branch, sharing the technology on the development and practice of intelligent casting systems, explaining the construction process of intelligent manufacturing from the ideas, process background and system module realization.
In recent years, the proposal of "Made in China 2025" has driven my country to transform from a manufacturing power to a manufacturing power. Its core content is to replace human labor with machines and develop intelligent manufacturing technology. Under the premise of "Intelligent Manufacturing 2025", Chinalco put forward the mission of "traditional industry + Internet", the purpose is to improve efficiency, form characteristics, and gradually cultivate an influential intelligent manufacturing industry in the industry.
The first to lead this reform is the information department of the enterprise. The information department in the enterprise has a low status and is easy to be marginalized, and the project benefit is not easy to quantify. Therefore, the proposal of this task makes the integration of informatization and industrialization, and uses informatization, automation and intelligent technologies to transform traditional production models, realize intelligent manufacturing, and make the benefits of informatization projects easy to quantify.
Intelligent manufacturing construction ideas
The first layer is the perception layer, because the equipment first needs to have sensors; the second layer is data mining, including CNC equipment and key components, to automatically predict equipment failures. Then, through the network and cognitive levels, collect data, visualize it, realize real-time monitoring and data decision-making, and reach high-level management.
At the management level, the company currently regards the data decision-making platform as a large base of data, and integrates the reports scattered on the database platform to display on the data decision-making platform developed by FanRuan Report.
Business Background - Process Flow of Electrolytic Aluminum Casting
Traditional electrolytic aluminum casting has a large number of participants and various departments, requiring personnel management, high management costs, and a large amount of manual information transmission in all production processes. The manufacturing process mainly includes the aluminum production process, the casting process, and the storage process. The electrolytic aluminum workshop will formulate an aluminum production plan every day. After the plan is made, the aluminum ladle allocation plan will be completed according to the Fe, Ca, Mg and other contents of each electrolytic cell. After the ratio is completed, the aluminum worker will complete the ladle and aluminum allocation according to the plan, and cooperate with the crane operator to measure and measure according to the plan. This process is all carried out manually, including elevated metering, car weighing in the foundry, aluminum production, and introduction of molten aluminum into the mixing furnace. This is a casting process that includes assaying ingredients, manual manual slag removal, maintenance, flipping, palletizing, packing, and more.
Intelligent Manufacturing Practice - Electrolytic Aluminum Intelligent Casting System
In order to connect these processes in series, the Ministry of Information has produced 15 systems and 15 modules. The whole process ranges from the original manual to the current fully automatic unmanned processing, intelligent reading of data.
1. Related systems for electrolytic aluminum production:
- Precise aluminum output measurement : realize closed-loop aluminum output control under strong magnetic environment;
- Intelligent aluminum distribution system : Aiming at the shortest route of the aluminum overhead crane, and satisfying the constraints of the test components after co-packing, the intelligent algorithm is used to realize the intelligent aluminum distribution calculation;
In the past, for the electrolysis of aluminum, which aluminum tank meets the standard is judged based on manual experience, now it can be automatically judged based on weight, which is more accurate and optimizes the aluminum tank ratio. It can also monitor the consumption of natural gas, electricity and other energy sources in real time.
2. Electrolytic aluminum casting related systems:
- Automatic sampling and testing : The mobile mechanism automatically samples and sends it to the workshop sample laboratory for rapid analysis;
- Robot online slagging : use a manipulator to replace manual slagging;
- Automatic packaging system : the casting production line realizes the packaging of aluminum ingots online;
- Automatic transfer trolley : automatic transfer of finished aluminum ingot stacks from the casting line;
- Online metering system : integrated with the casting machine to realize online metering of aluminum ingot stacks;
- Laser online label printing system : use laser to directly ablate the label on the surface of the aluminum ingot;
In the past, equipment parts were manually repaired until they were damaged. Now, the safety problem of manual field operations can be solved by detecting the operating status of the equipment, capturing operating data, and automatically wrapping them.
3. Relevant systems for inbound and outbound storage:
- Stereoscopic warehouse system : realize the automatic control of the ingot and out of the warehouse;
- Warehouse management system : scan the QR code of the aluminum ingot stack, and automatically enter the warehouse. According to the requirements of vehicle distribution, realize automatic out of warehouse;
- Finished aluminum scanning code query system : provide customers with scanning code query quality data;
Using the patented laser engraving technology developed and efficiently developed, it is the first to use lasers to burn labels on the surface, reducing manual participation. The outbound transfer process is currently made into an automated warehouse. In this process, there are intelligent metering systems, orientation systems, and video surveillance systems to assist supervision.
4. Quality and process related systems:
- Smelting furnace monitoring system : operation process monitoring, energy consumption analysis, process parameter analysis;
- 铸造机监控系统：生产统计（班次、合格率、月报年报等）、关键件寿命等；
- 视频监控系统：基于视频实现工艺流程及现场远程监控；
- 铝锭质量信息系统：包括电解槽原铝化验数据系统、铸件熔炼炉成分化验系统、成品量化验系统以及合格证系统。
在这个过程中，将生产、质量、能源、设备这四个方面的数据和分析，通过集成了FineReport报表功能的OA系统中，建立了如下的管理驾驶舱，来进行数据展示和监控。
模板一：集中计量
各图表模块之间进行数据联动，可展示进厂、出厂，还有厂内调拨的数据情况。
模板二：工艺监测
模板三：原铝衡量数据测试
