Intelligent Transformation Case of Automobile Shock Absorber Buffer Block Production in Taizhou, Zhejiang
Customer Background
A manufacturer of automotive chassis rubber shock absorption components in Taizhou, Zhejiang, with 18 years of industry experience, mainly produces shock absorber buffer blocks, shock absorber isolation blocks, engine mounts, etc., applicable to both new energy vehicles and fuel-powered passenger cars. As a professional manufacturer deeply engaged in the industry, the enterprise has no basic production errors, but is restricted by problems such as process bottlenecks of traditional semi-automated core production lines and insufficient fine control capability of equipment, making it difficult to meet the high-end customization requirements of leading new energy vehicle enterprises. Combining the enterprise’s actual production needs and investment plan, Haifeng Automation customized a modular upgrade solution with a single model of equipment, in line with the enterprise’s demand for focusing on core production lines and phased upgrading. Without complex overhauls, the transformation of 2 core production lines for shock absorber buffer blocks was completed in only 5 months, focusing on optimizing the precision foaming and molding processes of high-value-added buffer blocks. The precise improvement of production capacity was achieved through standardized equipment upgrading, helping the enterprise successfully enter the supply chain system of leading new energy vehicle brands.
Project Overview
Located in Xianju County, Taizhou, the factory covers an area of 22,000 square meters and currently operates 4 semi-automated production lines, with a total annual capacity of 8 million units for all products and sales volume of 120 million RMB in 2024. Its core products mainly include polyurethane and rubber shock absorber buffer blocks, isolation blocks, mounts, dust covers, etc., among which shock absorber buffer blocks account for 45% of the total capacity with an annual output of 3.6 million units. The products are mainly supplied to distributors in East China, secondary suppliers of joint-venture automobile enterprises, and supporting manufacturers of some new energy vehicle companies. With the continuous improvement of leading new energy vehicle enterprises’ requirements for precision consistency, performance stability and full-process traceability of chassis components, the fine production capacity of the enterprise’s core shock absorber buffer block production lines has become a key bottleneck for access to the high-end supply chain. To control upgrading investment and reduce the costs of equipment adaptation and operation learning, the enterprise is in urgent need of an automated upgrade solution with single model and high adaptability, to break through process bottlenecks while retaining the mass production advantages of the original production lines, and avoid the capital and management pressure caused by the investment in multiple models of equipment.
Core Customer Pain Points
01
Insufficient Precision
The traditional semi-automated pouring equipment of the core production lines has limited precision in raw material proportioning, with the parameter fluctuation of manual auxiliary debugging exceeding ±3% and insufficient heating uniformity of the temperature control system, leading to the dimensional tolerance of shock absorber buffer blocks fluctuating at ±1.2mm, far failing to meet the precision requirement of ±0.3mm of leading new energy vehicle enterprises. Due to higher requirements for density and rebound rate, high-end customized buffer blocks have great process control difficulty with a defective rate of 5.2%. The annual loss from rework and repair of high-end orders of the core production lines alone exceeds 5 million RMB, which has become a core obstacle to entering the high-end supply chain.
02
Low production line operation efficiency, large losses in process connection and product switching
The 2 core dedicated production lines for shock absorber buffer blocks adopt semi-automated segmented operation, with each process of pouring, molding and transfer requiring manual connection. Each line needs to be equipped with 5 workers for auxiliary operations, with a daily output of only 12,000 units per line, and the time consumed by process connection accounts for 20% of the total production time. In addition, the equipment has no standardized parameter preset module, and when there is an occasional demand for switching to produce buffer blocks of different specifications, it is necessary to manually re-debug core parameters such as pouring volume and temperature control curve, taking more than 2 hours for the entire process. The production line operation rate is only 70%, and the delivery cycle of high-end customized buffer blocks is easy to exceed customer requirements in peak seasons, affecting cooperation expansion.
03
Extensive raw material and energy consumption management, with high comprehensive costs
Affected by the insufficient precision of pouring volume of traditional equipment and raw material loss in process connection gaps, the raw material loss rate of shock absorber buffer blocks in the core production lines reaches 7.2%, with an annual raw material loss cost of more than 2.4 million RMB for the 2 lines; the energy consumption design of old equipment is extensive, with a daily power consumption of 420 kWh for a single core production line, and the energy consumption cost is higher than the industry average; the VOCs collection efficiency of the traditional foaming process is insufficient, with the emission concentration close to the national standard limit, which requires additional investment to optimize environmental protection governance, further increasing production costs.
04
Dispersed data collection, making full-process traceability impossible
The production data of the core production lines is scattered in semi-automated equipment of each process, without a unified digital collection system, and needs to be manually summarized and entered into the production ledger, which is prone to data lag and incomplete information. It is impossible to realize full-process traceability from raw material batches, production parameters to finished product delivery, failing to meet the digital management requirements of leading new energy vehicle enterprises for suppliers, and encountering obstacles in high-end supplier audits many times due to insufficient traceability capability.
Haifeng's Solutions
01
Core Equipment Upgrade
In view of the enterprise’s upgrade demand for core production lines and investment plan of single model and high adaptability, the 2 core production lines for shock absorber buffer blocks are uniformly equipped with Haifeng JJF-G40 polyurethane medium-high pressure foaming pouring machines, with a metering accuracy of ±0.5% and matched with dynamic mixing heads with a rotating speed of 8000±200 rpm. The equipment is accurately adapted to the precision foaming production needs of conventional-sized high-resilience polyurethane buffer blocks, which can accurately control raw material proportioning and pouring volume, balancing mass production efficiency and product precision consistency. At the same time, the unified configuration of single model equipment greatly reduces the costs of equipment debugging, worker operation and later maintenance.
The equipment is equipped with 20-station automatic turntable molding machines, which realize seamless connection with the original production lines, and realize integrated operations of automatic mold positioning, quantitative pouring and finished product transfer, completely eliminating the efficiency loss of manual process connection; the equipment has a built-in multi-specification parameter preset module, which can store core production parameters such as pouring volume, temperature control curve and foaming time of different specifications of shock absorber buffer blocks. When there is an occasional demand for product switching, the preset parameters can be retrieved with one click, skipping the link of repeated manual debugging, quickly completing operation switching, and increasing the operation rate of core production lines to more than 95%.
02
Process and Environmental Optimization
A closed-loop intelligent temperature-controlled foaming system is matched with the upgraded core production lines, with the temperature control error accurately controlled within ±1℃, and 12 sets of exclusive adaptive foaming curves are preset according to different specifications and materials of shock absorber buffer blocks. The equipment can automatically adjust the temperature control rhythm, improve the uniformity of foaming density, stabilize core performances such as product rebound rate and aging resistance, and solve the process control problem of high-end customized products; the VOCs collection and treatment system is optimized, adopting an integrated treatment scheme of “closed foaming box + activated carbon + photocatalysis”, which increases the VOCs collection efficiency to more than 98%, and the emission concentration is far lower than the national standard limit, without the need for additional large investment in environmental rectification funds; exclusive energy consumption optimization design is carried out for the new equipment, and through frequency conversion control, waste heat recovery and other technologies, the power saving rate of the core production lines reaches 35%, greatly reducing energy costs.
03
Lightweight Digital Management and Control
A simple PLC intelligent management and control system is built for the 2 core production lines, which connects the data interfaces of the new equipment and the original process equipment, records core production information such as raw material proportioning, temperature control parameters, pouring volume and production batch in real time, and realizes real-time visual monitoring of production progress and product defective rate, without investing in complex large-scale digital systems; each product of the core production lines is assigned a unique QR code identification code, associated with full-process information such as raw material batch, production parameters and test results, to realize traceability from raw material entry to finished product delivery, accurately matching the digital management requirements of leading new energy vehicle enterprises.
04
Localized Services
Adopt a modular installation and transformation method, the docking transformation of new equipment with the original production lines can be completed with only 1 day of shutdown for a single line, minimizing the impact on the enterprise’s normal mass production; carry out 3 days of special practical training for the operators of the core production lines, uniformly explaining core skills such as parameter retrieval, daily calibration and simple fault troubleshooting of the single model equipment, ensuring that workers can quickly master and proficiently operate the equipment; rely on local service outlets in Zhejiang to provide 24-hour technical consultation response, and technicians can arrive at the scene to solve conventional faults within 2 hours; meanwhile, provide 1 year of equipment warranty and 2 free equipment inspections and precision calibration services every year to ensure the long-term stable operation of the core production lines.
Core Achievements of Project Implementation
Precision manufacturing capability meets the standard, successfully entering the supply chain of leading new energy vehicles
Through the dual optimization of single model core equipment and processes, the dimensional tolerance of shock absorber buffer blocks in the 2 core production lines is stably controlled within ±0.3mm across the board, the uniformity of foaming density is increased by 40%, and core performances such as rebound rate and aging resistance fully meet the high-end standards of leading new energy vehicle enterprises; the defective rate of high-end customized buffer blocks in the core production lines is reduced from 5.2% to 2%, cutting the annual cost and loss by more than 4.2 million RMB. The enterprise successfully passed the first-tier supplier audit of leading new energy vehicle enterprises, won an annual long-term order of 2 million shock absorber buffer blocks, and the proportion of high-end orders increased from 12% to 45%.
Substantial improvement of core production line efficiency, significant enhancement of the enterprise's overall delivery capacity
Integrated automated operation eliminates the efficiency loss of manual process connection, the daily output of a single core dedicated production line for shock absorber buffer blocks is increased from 12,000 units to 20,000 units, with a single line efficiency increase of 67%, and the annual capacity of the 2 core production lines is increased to 1.44 million units; one-click parameter preset shortens the product switching time to less than 30 minutes, the operation rate of core production lines is increased to more than 95%, the delivery cycle of the enterprise’s high-end orders is shortened from 15 days to 8 days, and the delivery punctuality rate reaches more than 98%, fully meeting the delivery requirements of high-end automobile enterprises. At the same time, taking the core production lines as a benchmark, it drives the process optimization of other production lines of the enterprise, and the overall annual capacity of shock absorber buffer blocks is increased by 30%.
Significant reduction in comprehensive costs, high returns achieved through single model upgrading
Automated equipment reduces manual auxiliary operations, the number of operators of the 2 core production lines is streamlined from 5 to 2 per line. Referring to the annual salary standard of front-line workers in Taizhou’s auto parts industry, the annual labor cost is saved by more than 840,000 RMB; precise pouring of equipment and process optimization reduce the raw material loss rate of the core production lines from 7.2% to 3%, saving more than 1.5 million RMB in raw material costs annually for the 2 lines; after energy consumption optimization, the core production lines save more than 520,000 RMB in electricity fees annually, with a total annual comprehensive cost reduction of more than 2.86 million RMB from the three above aspects. The total project investment is 3.6 million RMB (single model equipment + supporting transformation for 2 core production lines), without additional investment in multiple models of equipment, and the investment payback period is only 1.2 years, achieving an upgrade effect of low cost and high return.
Upgraded digital and compliance capabilities, becoming an upgrade benchmark for regional parts enterprises
The environmental emissions of the 2 core production lines have met the standards stably for a long time, digital management has realized unified collection, real-time monitoring and full-process traceability of production data, the overall management efficiency of the enterprise has been improved by 30%, and it has successfully passed various high-end supplier audits; relying on the intelligent transformation effect of single model, high adaptability, low cost and quick implementation, the enterprise has been successfully rated as a demonstration project of “Intelligent Transformation and Digital Upgrading” in Taizhou and obtained special government subsidies, becoming a benchmark for small and medium-sized automotive parts manufacturers in the region to focus on core production lines and carry out phased upgrading.
