The general trend of industry transformation How to achieve new breakthroughs in the lithium battery equipment industry

　　According to the "Expected Plan for the Development of Lithium Battery Engineering Equipment Development Roadmap in 2018" disclosed at the conference, the output value of China's lithium battery equipment industry in 2016 was about 13 billion yuan, and about 17 billion yuan in 2017. This figure will be 20-30% per year. Speed growth. It is expected that by 2025, lithium battery engineering equipment will maintain this relatively high growth rate.

　　The "Made in China 2025" issued by the State Council in May 2015 pointed out that after decades of rapid development, my country's manufacturing scale has become the largest in the world, and a complete, independent and complete manufacturing system has been established to support my country's economy and society. An important cornerstone of development and an important force for promoting world economic development. However, our country is still in the process of industrialization, and there is still a big gap compared with advanced countries. The specific performance in the equipment industry is that key core technologies and high-end equipment are highly dependent on foreign sources, and the development of high-end equipment manufacturing and producer services is lagging behind.

　　This situation is more obvious in the emerging industry that the state supports-the lithium battery industry.

　　Recently, the China Automotive Power Battery Industry Innovation Alliance Engineering Equipment Branch was established and the Intelligent Manufacturing Technology Seminar was successfully held. According to the "Expected Plan for the Development of Lithium Battery Engineering Equipment Development Roadmap in 2018" disclosed at the conference, the output value of China's lithium battery equipment industry in 2016 was about 13 billion yuan, and about 17 billion yuan in 2017. This figure will be 20-30% per year. Speed growth. It is expected that by 2025, lithium battery engineering equipment will maintain this relatively high growth rate.

　　The "Plan" pointed out that the advantage of Chinese equipment lies in the large scale of the industry and the opportunity for continuous innovation and upgrading. The domestic production rate of lithium battery engineering equipment has reached more than 70%. The disadvantage lies in the lack of industry standards and brutal development. Due to the weak industrial foundation and the gap between the manufacturing concept and the international market, the phenomenon of shoddy manufacturing is serious. Although the production capacity is sufficient, there are not many high-quality equipment. China accounts for about 35%-40% of the world's power battery equipment.

　　"Equipment is the hen of the strong lithium battery and the guarantee of strong quality," Yang Rukun, chairman of the Engineering Equipment Branch of the Innovation Alliance and chairman of Shenzhen Jiyang Intelligent Technology Co., Ltd., explained the importance of the lithium battery equipment industry with an image metaphor at the meeting. .

　　In the past few years, my country’s lithium battery industry has experienced rising investment and capacity expansion, and the market scale has emerged. The future is about to usher in a period of transformation, and the industry will accelerate its reshuffle, achieving an improvement from quantity to quality. As an important support for the lithium battery industry, equipment is also facing new opportunities for breakthroughs.

　　In the "China Automotive Power Battery Industry Innovation Alliance Engineering Equipment Branch Establishment and Intelligent Manufacturing Technology Seminar", many experts from lithium battery and equipment companies, industry organizations, and scientific research institutions discussed the development route, standard construction, and intelligent technology of power battery engineering equipment. Comments on topics such as introduction, collaborative innovation model, etc. were expressed. From their point of view, we can see a new path for my country's lithium battery equipment industry to achieve breakthroughs.

　　Standardization construction promotes intelligent transformationwebcam factory

　　At present, my country’s power battery shipments have ranked first in the world, but in general, high-end production capacity is scarce, and low-end production capacity is overcapacity. One of the fundamental reasons is that the equipment is not highly intelligent, and the integration of automation, digitization, and informationization is low. As a result, there is a gap between the consistency and safety of the company's lithium battery products and the advanced companies in Japan and South Korea.

　　Intelligent manufacturing is not only a development trend of power batteries in the future, but more importantly, it can improve the product quality of battery companies, which is of great significance to enhance the overall competitiveness and market share of power battery companies in my country.

　　Guoxuan Hi-Tech Power Energy Co., Ltd. IT director Zhou Zhijun deeply feels about the standardization issues in the production process of lithium batteries. He said that battery companies have equipment from more than a dozen manufacturers. Due to the inconsistent interfaces between the devices, they cannot be interconnected and data collection is difficult. Battery companies need to coordinate device interfaces with each company separately. If standardization can be achieved in terms of equipment interconnection and intercommunication, not only will companies save time and effort, but they will also be able to achieve ready-to-use and improve production efficiency.

　　Similarly, Chen Ling, Chief Information Officer of Ningde Times New Energy Technology Co., Ltd., said: “As for intelligent manufacturing, if it is impossible to make equipment, it needs an instant feedback and immediate control. The equipment and terminal equipment themselves must also be intelligent. , I hope all parties in the industry will standardize the terminal technology architecture. This is a very painful transformation."

　　"I think the most important thing for smart manufacturing is interconnection and interoperability, so that the equipment can hear, understand, understand and think." Yang Rukun, chairman of Jiyang Intelligent, added that the lithium battery manufacturing process can also focus on some processes and summarize 20 quality controls. It can be controlled in several stages, which can better solve the problems of battery capacity, size, consistency, stability, and reliability. At this stage, my country's lithium battery industry has issued a number of national standards, industry standards and group standards in terms of lithium battery product standards, manufacturing standards, and equipment standards.

　　Relevant government departments have also formulated and issued relevant policies, such as "Lithium-ion Battery Comprehensive Standardization Technical System", "Guidelines for the Construction of National Intelligent Manufacturing Standard System", etc., to help standardize the lithium battery industry.

　　In terms of lithium battery equipment, JB/T12763-2015 "Lithium-ion battery winding equipment", DB44/T1668-2015 "Lithium-ion battery continuous welding machine", DB44/T1925-2016 "Li-ion battery scraper equipment" have been released. . The standards being drafted include 2015-1325T-JB "Lithium-ion battery pole piece coating machine", 2015-1326T-JB "Lithium-ion battery cell stacking machine", 20160533-T-604 "General technical requirements for lithium-ion battery production equipment" ".

　　Xie Bingbing, an expert of the National Intelligent Manufacturing Standardization Expert Advisory Group, chief engineer and researcher of the Beijing Institute of Machinery Industry Automation, emphasized that intelligent manufacturing must be standardized first. To carry out smart manufacturing standardization, one must focus on top-level design, second, to verify the terms of the standard, and third, to build an organization that meets the requirements of smart manufacturing standardization.

　　China Automotive Power Battery Industry Innovation Alliance Engineering Equipment Branch came into being. One of its main businesses is to organize and implement industry standards, and actively conduct research, demonstration, evaluation, and follow-up of relevant standards and regulations for automotive power battery manufacturing engineering equipment. In 2018, the Engineering Equipment Branch plans to establish a project to develop 2-3 core key preparation standards with significance in the lithium battery era.

　　The path to realize is to grasp basic research

　　Wang Zidong, director of the Power Battery Laboratory of the China North Vehicle Research Institute and director of the 863 Electric Vehicle Major and Special Power Battery Test Center, pointed out that the state has supported more research work on basic materials for power batteries in recent years, but it has supported research on power battery production equipment. not much. The structure of R&D personnel in equipment companies is unreasonable, and there are not enough professional talents.

　　He put forward four suggestions. First, the relevant state departments should increase support for power battery production equipment and technology, and establish a special fund to support the research and development of key equipment; second, power battery manufacturers should improve their understanding of power batteries and strengthen production processes and equipment. For matching technology research, we must learn to set requirements for equipment companies; third, through equipment upgrades, improve the quality control ability of the production process, increase production efficiency, and reduce costs; fourth, the development of power battery production equipment should focus on the "four highs" (high reliability) , High-precision, high-efficiency, high-automation) make a fuss, upstream and downstream enterprises should fully communicate and cooperate.

　　As a true practitioner, Yang Rukun also described the "three-step" strategy to realize the vision of intelligent manufacturing. The first step is model-based digitization, the second step is based on big data intelligence, and the third step is constant intelligence.

　　For example, in the process of adding powder, the current equipment cannot determine the impurity data of the electrolyte. If a set of data (iron, nickel content, etc.) can be detected within one millisecond, it will have practical value for the development of the industry, which requires digital technology Support. From the perspective of the main line of the entire factory design, especially the incoming material design, it is necessary to establish an industrial Internet architecture. Through analysis, the hybrid cloud architecture is more suitable for battery companies.

　　Siemens has accumulated a lot of experience in digitalization. According to Wang Qiling, technical director of Siemens Industrial Software's Key Account Department, Siemens can provide four aspects of services. One is the platform, which can provide software and software interconnection from the front-end R&D system and analysis system; the second is MOM, including the manufacturing operation management of the production process. ; The third is the data acquisition system, including various PLC and TIA automated equipment; the fourth is the big data integrated simulation to help companies better realize data-driven battery experiments and production.

　　From the perspective of the entire power battery industry, BYD is planning around a "smart factory". According to reports, automation should be done first, and the influence of manual differences should be eliminated as much as possible. The second is lean thinking, which is the core idea of BYD to build a smart factory.

　　"Data integration and utilization is the priority. BYD's next plan is not to let the data lie in the server, and to make full use of them." The relevant staff of BYD's power battery division said.

　　Ningde era believes that the basic framework of intelligent manufacturing is divided into three layers, namely R&D and design layer, enterprise operation layer and equipment layer. Currently, CATL is trying to get through the entire process from R&D to mass production, demand to verification. What is more worth looking forward to is that CATL is deploying the industrial chain clustering of manufacturing bases, and plans to comprehensively collaborate in the fields of R&D, supply, logistics, manufacturing, data, and security, moving from conventional operations to new manufacturing concepts.

　　"Finally is to open up the information island. The lithium battery industry, especially the power lithium battery, is still very young. The data and information must be extended to the front, from a single point of speed analysis to working condition monitoring, after-sales maintenance, production equipment, process equipment, process parameters, Comprehensive traceability of process inspection, incoming material inspection, incoming material process, design, trial production and verification information, so as to realize the entire development of informatization and intelligent manufacturing." said Chen Ling, Chief Information Officer of Ningde Times.

　　In terms of lithium battery equipment, the pioneer of domestic intelligent manufacturing, Jiyang Intelligent, is a national high-tech enterprise specializing in providing intelligent equipment for lithium-ion power battery manufacturing, and is the undertaking unit of the national lithium battery equipment standard formulation and revision working group. Since its establishment 12 years ago, Jiyang Intelligent has 6 foreign authorized patents, 18 PCT patents, 146 domestic inventions, 134 utility model patents, and 42 software copyrights. Scientific research technologies represented by core invention patents such as lithium-ion battery winding, lamination, and laser cutting have been in the forefront of the world.

　　"The pass rate of power battery manufacturing is about 90%, and it will reach 96% and 97% in the future. This is not a idiotic dream. The current state of intelligence is at an early stage, and we need to achieve it in one link and one link." Yang Rukun encourages enterprises in the industry to concentrate on Do a good job in basic research and join hands in the future agreement of "intelligent manufacturing".

　　Collaborative innovation and more combination punches

　　"A wooden barrel can't hold water if it's short." At the inauguration ceremony of the Engineering Equipment Branch, Dong Yang, chairman of the Innovation Alliance and executive vice chairman of the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers, called on the entire industrial chain of material companies, battery cell companies, and equipment companies involved in the development of China's electric vehicle industry to strengthen cooperation. .

　　The lithium battery production process is complex and numerous. The manufacturing process is divided into six core modules: slurry preparation, pole piece manufacturing, core package manufacturing, battery cell assembly, dry liquid injection, and chemical composition capacity. Each module has different processes and equipment, and the accuracy, stability, and efficiency of each equipment affect the quality and efficiency of battery products.

　　In view of the complexity of the manufacturing process, experts in the industry generally believe that lithium battery manufacturing should be collaboratively innovative. As Yang Rukun said: "Lithium battery technology continues to develop, and manufacturing technology is also constantly improving. It is difficult to adapt to the needs of rapid development alone. If the advantages of these companies can be put together and the shortcomings are avoided, Chinese lithium battery companies will still Will achieve better development."

　　He also proposed a simple model, that is, in accordance with the target demand, or in accordance with the principles of the business model, the equipment company takes the lead, the battery company participates, and even multiple battery companies participate, integrate innovative resources, and jointly build an ecological environment for lithium battery equipment. Seek major breakthroughs in battery manufacturing technology and equipment, accelerate the realization of China's power battery industry innovation, and form international competitiveness.