Traditional Turbine Factory Turns Intelligent

In a production workshop of Harbin Turbine Company Ltd. in Heilongjiang province, northeast China, huge digital screens display real-time data on production progress, the operating status of equipment and quality inspection, updated in milliseconds.

Established in 1956, the company has been developing and manufacturing turbines for seven decades. Now with new technologies like 5G, digital twin and AI intelligent testing, operations have been digitalized, greatly enhancing production capacity.

Total process upgrade

Production workshops are the main battlefield for the transition to intelligent manufacturing.

In a workshop for turbine blade production, precise and agile robotic arms sequentially grip, position and process the blades, while automated guided vehicles shuttle materials between production lines and component warehouses without human intervention, creating a fully automated closed-loop workflow.

Fan Yu, deputy director of the company's digital information department, said this is the turbine industry's first automated production line cluster covering every manufacturing operation across the entire production workflow for small and medium-sized turbine blades.

Built on a 5G-enabled flexible manufacturing management and control system, the production line is equipped with a "superbrain" and a central nervous system, enabling a seamless end-to-end workflow from receiving incoming material and code marking them to intelligent machining, sawing, milling, grinding and automated polishing.

After upgrading, the comprehensive utility rate of machine tools has increased by eight percent and comprehensive production capacity by 20 percent.

Welding, critical for core turbine assemblies, is one of the most demanding jobs in traditional heavy manufacturing. When key turbine components are welded, the temperatures must be above 350°C, which, in the past, exposed the workers to intense heat and pervasive welding fumes.

That situation has changed in the cold working factory of the company. At the new intelligent welding production line welding robots work with precision. A digital control system manages the welding parameters, temperature and trajectory during the entire process, resulting in flexible automated welding of key components.

Thanks to this, high-pressure assembly production capacity has been enhanced by 20 percent.

Digital and intelligent upgrading also extends to the quality inspection of products. Digital facilities like three-coordinate measuring machines and LiDAR are deployed in the inspection area to collect all-round data of components.

High-definition shooting equipment captures the product details in real time and uploads the photos to the cloud in a millisecond. The photos are analyzed by an intelligent AI system, and deficits that are difficult for the human eye to discern, like weld deviations and microscopic cracks on the inner walls of cylinders, are detected and prompt warnings issued.

The company's services continue to be available even during on-site operation and maintenance. At the sites where its equipment is used, the staff can connect to the remote technology meeting room of the company by wearing AR glasses with 5G modules. On-site images can be transmitted in real time and voice communication conducted simultaneously.

Problems that used to require several days for resolution and required on-site visits by experts can now be remotely solved instantly, significantly cutting the time the client has to stop the machine, Fan said.

The private 5G network now covers 160,000 square meters of the factory's production area, and core business like mechanical processing, welding, heat treatment and assembly have all been digitalized with technologies like digital twin and 3D modeling.

Integrated digital management

Digital transformation does not mean only the intelligentization of production and equipment, but all-round upgrading of the management system.

In the development and design segment, the company has established a modular design platform and a platform integrating design, craft and manufacturing. Using parameter-based design tools and simulation knowledge base, all links are seamlessly connected. Tasks like designing blades and laying out piping that used to take days or even weeks now take only a couple of hours, greatly reducing the product development cycle.

The upgraded manufacturing operation management system plays a key role in production control, enabling end-to-end digital, closed-loop control across the entire process, from issuing production plans and accurately assembling materials to executing manufacturing operations and tracing product quality.

The management staff can check the production schedule across all workshops and production stages in real time, dynamically adjust the production plan, and monitor the operation status of equipment online. This has solved the industry-wide challenges of segmented management, data silos, and delayed oversight.

In addition, the company has established a digital platform integrating core business systems like production plan, corporate resource plan and quality management, achieving data connection of the entire process, including R&D, planning, manufacturing, quality control and delivery, greatly enhancing cross-department coordinating efficiency.

According to Fan, business data and financial accounting are interconnected, which not only enables more precise business control and clearer cost accounting, but also provides early risk warning and continuous release of data value, providing solid support for scientific decision making.

Source: Science and Technology Daily