Transformation Strategy for Sheet Metal Manufacturing
With the continuous development of the world economy, the personalized characteristics of society's demand for many products have gradually become apparent. In order to further enhance their competitiveness, many companies with prominent positions in the industry tend to engage in their core businesses, such as brand management, product design and marketing network construction, while outsourcing their non-core businesses to professional manufacturers or service providers. By forming stable supply chain relationships with these professional manufacturers or service providers, they can achieve good synergy effects.
In this process, professional manufacturers gradually developed into manufacturing service-oriented enterprises by providing products and services to customers in many different industries and many manufacturing service outsourcing companies were born.
Precision metal structural parts are an indispensable part of many outsourced products. They not only have non-functional functions (such as the external structure of the product) but also have functional functions (such as structural accuracy affecting product accuracy and usage efficiency).
The precision requirements of products have led to further refinement of service outsourcing companies. Professional Precision Manufacturing companies have incomparable technical and cost advantages in the field of professional manufacturing. Manufacturing service outsourcing companies including Foxconn, Flextronics and other manufacturing service outsourcing companies also need to rely on the industry to provide manufacturing products and technical support to improve their overall competitiveness. This further subdivided the international manufacturing outsourcing services to form my country's precision metal manufacturing service industry.
Among them, Precision Sheet Metal manufacturing is a part of the industry that provides a relatively large amount of customer service, and is one of the main businesses of the precision metal manufacturing industry.
Precision sheet metal manufacturing uses CNC technology and sheet metal technology to process metal sheets (usually below 6 mm) through multiple-program cold working processes (including shearing, punching, folding, welding, riveting, assembly, forming, etc.) to form shapes and sizes that meet customer accuracy and functional requirements.
Compared with traditional sheet metal business, precision sheet metal manufacturing has the following characteristics:
Downstream industries have higher requirements for product precision.
Downstream industries of precision sheet metal manufacturing, such as communications, aerospace, solar power generation, semiconductors, etc., are all high-tech industries that have very strict requirements on product precision.
For example, the signal transmitting and receiving functions of the communication base station antenna will be restricted by the precision of the base station antenna sheet metal components: the focusing effect and photoelectric conversion efficiency of the focused solar power generation system also have strict requirements on the precision of the sheet metal components.
For example, when the corresponding power generation wattage of a single solar panel reaches 300 watts, the solar sheet metal back field thickness error is required to be within 0.5%, and it is required to be strong enough not to deform under a high-voltage test of 4,000 volts.
In addition, the downstream industry's high precision requirements for precision sheet metal products are also reflected in the non-functional features of the product, such as color, smoothness of lines and other appearance quality features.
The production process requires high-precision equipment and molds
The production equipment required for the precision manufacturing process is mainly high-end equipment with high automation and refinement such as flexible manufacturing equipment, CNC punch machines, CNC bending machines, friction welding, assembly robots, and welding robots. The automated control system of high-end equipment effectively guarantees the accuracy of sheet metal products.
For example, CNC punch machines can ensure that the forming error of a 1. 1 m x 1. 4 m large plate is within plus or minus 1. 5 mm. Another important factor in ensuring product precision is the accuracy of the mold. The accuracy of the mold required in precision sheet metal manufacturing is generally within wire (0. 01 mm).
The production process is characterized by precise unfolding and processing.
Precision sheet metal equipment such as laser cutting machines and CNC bending machines are widely used in precision sheet metal manufacturing, which has brought about innovative changes in sheet metal processing methods.
Traditional sheet metal processing
In traditional sheet metal processing, the material is first laid out and blanked to the approximate unfolded size, and then bent after leaving a margin for subsequent processing. After bending, the size is corrected, and finally the holes and slots are processed. This process method has low processing efficiency, wastes materials, and the processing quality isn't easy to guarantee.
Precision sheet metal manufacturing process
The precision sheet metal manufacturing process is characterized by precise unfolding processing, which is first pressed into shape. This process has the advantages of high efficiency, good processing quality, and simplified process routes, but it requires high accuracy in the sheet metal unfolding diagram. All shapes, holes and grooves need to be cut out and then bent.
Have high quality requirements for the production environment
Higher production environment quality requirements are an important factor in ensuring the reliability and stability of precision sheet metal manufacturing products.
Since the equipment used in precision sheet metal manufacturing is high-end equipment, there are certain requirements for the ambient temperature. If the temperature is too high or too low, it will affect the working accuracy of the equipment, thereby indirectly affecting the accuracy level of the product.
In addition, in order to ensure the stable operation of final products (communication base stations, power generation systems, etc.), downstream communication equipment manufacturers and solar power generation equipment manufacturers have higher requirements for the carbon emission level of the manufacturing environment of upstream enterprises, the dust content in the air, and the insulation level of equipment surfaces.