Volkswagen FAW Engine / Site Dalian

Volkswagen FAW Engine manufactures combustion engines in Dalian, China. Since 2018, the company has started to establish a key technology roadmap of a “digital smart factory”. In this context, the company has determined the direction of his digital transformation with those core elements:

• Establishing an advanced technology team and work together with various departments to promote the digital and smart project process.
• Collecting all kinds of data in the production process through equipment monitoring with new technologies such as production big data, cloud computing, digital twins.
• Realizing a fully digitized and paperless production area with a visual workshop management and an improved utilization rate of the production line.

The award-winning area is the entire production workshop of the company, including five machining production lines and three assembly production lines. The company realizes a smart factory application portal under the guiding principles of connectivity, visualization, analysis and improvement. It integrates new technologies such as production big data and cloud computing.

The whole solution is developed in a modular form, integrating 12 main modules. Overall, it is designed to improve the availability rate of production line and for a clear visualization of the shopfloor management processes. Through digital value stream monitoring system, the whole production process is comprehensively monitored, making all inventory information on the process chain visible. When deviations occur, messages are automatically pushed to relevant responsible persons for intervention, in order to reduce inventory, reduce transit time, and save costs.

At the factory level, a real time display of production status of each production line is in use. Beside other information, it shows the planned/actual production volume, the number of deviations, output rate. At the line level, real time monitoring of each equipment status and current output data is realized. In case of shutdowns the alarm information will be quickly sent to the relevant personnel’s smart watch. At the same time, the alarm station and the cause of the shutdown will be displayed on the monitor.

This module generates an OEE report, pareto report and multi-dimensional TOP losses analysis by automatically collecting shutdown data. The factories’ staff uses a variety of smart terminals, e.g. PAD, smart watches and display monitors. This replaces the previous manual recording of data, all data are more traceable and efficient.

An assembly line realtime response module with a dynamic display of product and assembly process from the first station to the last, reflects the assembly line one by one. It shows real time cycle time, changeover status, output rate, process deviation and other production indicators. Based on the collected data and algorithmic logic, shutdowns are predicted, and the system guides the line workers to take appropriate measures.

IoT sensors are used to create a database of vibration data during plant operation. The team can compare the data in terms of frequency and time of occurrence – and thus recognise the operating status of the plant in real time as well as problems in advance and block the cause of the problem.

Learn more about this Industry 4.0 solution from this interview with Liping Wang, Vice President, EFESO Consulting Shanghai.