翻译：
Longji Green Energy “Lighthouse factory” : follow the “light” intelligent manufacturing custom demand
Longi Green Energy Jiaxing photovoltaic base. The interviewee is shown in the picture
In late May, Longi Green Energy (601012.SH) located in Jiaxing photovoltaic base, the production workshop showed a busy scene. Under the AI intelligent distribution, the solar cells on the assembly line go through flexible automated production and AI quality inspection and other processes, and finally efficiently complete the end-to-end delivery of component products. Here, a photovoltaic module comes off the line every 18 seconds, and the degree of automation is more than 90%.
The era elements of new energy and intelligent manufacturing are intertwined and integrated, so that the first visitors at the scene deeply perceive the impact of advanced intelligent manufacturing, and witnessed the changes brought by AI intelligence to traditional manufacturing. This photovoltaic production base, Longi Green Energy Jiaxing Photovoltaic Base, is the first “lighthouse factory” in the global photovoltaic industry certified by the World Economic Forum (WEF) in 2023. Being selected as a “Lighthouse Factory” means becoming a demonstrator of “digital manufacturing” and “Industrialization 4.0”.
The “lighthouse factory” represents the trend of the transformation of the new energy industry to intelligent manufacturing. At present, the imbalance between supply and demand in the photovoltaic market is severe, the iteration of superimposed technology is accelerating, and “global manufacturing” has become a trend. When the wave of digitalization and intelligence hit, photovoltaic enterprises represented by Longi Green Energy jumped to the direction of advanced intelligent manufacturing, promoting internal cost reduction and efficiency improvement, expanding brand influence and strengthening industrial cooperation.
Zhang Haimeng, vice president of Longi Green Energy, said in an interview with media reporters: “From traditional manufacturing to intelligent manufacturing, the process is very difficult, to build a ‘lighthouse factory’ is not to become the industry ‘the first person to eat crabs’, but the photovoltaic industry needs a lighthouse, the need for real intelligent manufacturing.” Therefore, we forged the Longi smart manufacturing model, used digital to enable lean manufacturing, restructured production relations, and guaranteed higher product quality, more efficient delivery services and more agile smart manufacturing capabilities.”
First, from manufacturing to intelligent manufacturing
Wearing a dust-free workshop special shoe cover and net hat, the reporter walked into the photovoltaic “lighthouse factory” covering an area of more than 1,300 acres.
There are few workers in the large workshop, but production is orderly. The batteries on the assembly line move quickly and assemble, the driverless AGV logistics vehicles shuttle by from time to time, and the digital large screens hanging on the walls present the equipment, product quality, supply chain, personnel, energy consumption and other data one by one.
Longji green energy people introduce the “black technology” of “Lighthouse factory”. Zhang Yingying/Photography
In this lighthouse factory, Longi Green Energy has adopted new technologies such as industrial Internet, big data, artificial intelligence, and digital twins on a large scale, and successfully implemented more than 30 digital use cases. These include five core “black technologies”, namely, flexible automation enabled by machine vision, whole-process detection and traceability enabled by AI, intelligent management of order production and delivery cycle, battery resource matching and dynamic correction enabled by AI algorithm, and intelligent human management.
For example, the more flexible and automated production ensures the standardization of all aspects of the component production process and fully meets the needs of customized scenarios. Hu Zhifeng, head of the Jingyi Manufacturing Department of Longi Green Energy Component Manufacturing Center, introduced: “We have designed the flexible automation of artificial intelligence and machine vision, and the equipment is flexible and compatible with a variety of product models and sizes, which can realize the fast switching of the production line and meet the personalized needs of customers.”
”Smarter workforce planning ensures efficient output.” Hu Zhifeng, for example, said that in Zhejiang Province, where labor costs are high, through human career life cycle planning and performance management, the match between daily and weekly order demand and labor scheduling is optimized, so as to find the best balance between labor and output benefits.
The AI-enabled full-process visual inspection and accurate traceability technology also makes product quality more guaranteed. A Longi Green Energy employee explained to reporters: “The company’s first real-time AI accurate traceability technology based on image features, through the introduction of real-time AI string traceability model, can achieve the rapid and accurate identification of 12 battery string anomalies and their source machines every 18 seconds, thus solving the industry problem that traditional bar code traceability is not applicable in the production process of photovoltaic modules and the virtual code traceability accuracy is low.”
The combination of artificial intelligence, big data, cloud platform and industrial mechanism has contributed to the core competitive elements of Longi intelligent manufacturing, and is also the core value proposition of Longi Intelligent Manufacturing.
Hu Zhifeng said that in the process of building the “lighthouse factory”, Longi Green can be results-oriented, cost reduction and efficiency as guidance, and help manufacturing jump. After the implementation of the “Lighthouse Factory” project, the product quality reliability has been improved by 43%, the product production and delivery cycle has been shortened by 84%, the overall unit energy consumption of the production base has been reduced by 20%, and the unit hourly output has been increased by 35%.
Second, not only enable BC technology iteration
Longi Green Energy Jiaxing base was built in 2020, mainly producing BC series high-efficiency solar modules. The existing Jiaxing phase I, II and III factories have 51 intelligent production lines, and the overall component production capacity exceeds 35GW. It can be said that Longi Green Energy’s digital transformation and upgrading has laid a cornerstone for the company’s BC technology products that are being iterated and upgraded.
BC technology is the key direction of Longi Green Energy layout in the next few years. According to the planning for the next three years, Longi Green Energy’s annual production capacity of BC batteries will reach 100GW, and the annual production capacity of single crystal components will reach 150GW.
With the blessings of wisdom, Longi Green Energy’s BC products will undoubtedly move to a new level in cost reduction, efficiency improvement and quality improvement. But for companies, there are deeper considerations in building a “lighthouse factory.”
Zhang Haimeng said: “In the past quite a long time, Longi has been thinking and practicing a problem, that is, how to improve the photoelectric conversion efficiency through technology research and development, to solve the biggest pain point of photovoltaic power generation, simply put, ‘practice internal work’.” Today, after years of efforts, the photoelectric conversion efficiency has been approaching the theoretical limit. The next step is how to make better components and better meet the diversified needs of customers, which is the space for Longi’s efforts.”
Zhang Haimeng further explained: “Longi not only needs to improve the power generation efficiency of products from the research and development side, but also needs to make the manufacturing process more efficient, meet the diversified requirements of customers, faster delivery to customers, and flexible automated production of customized products for different scenarios, which is one of our driving points.”
In the “Lighthouse factory” experience center, the reporter saw a number of BC products on display. This is also a number of new scenario-based components that have been released since Longi Green Energy officially announced BC technology in September last year. Whether it is ash resistance or heat and humidity resistance, the aim is to meet the customized needs of customers through differentiated innovation.
Hu also revealed that the newly launched Hi-MO X6 Max components will be officially launched in Longi “Lighthouse factory” in the near future. With digital and intelligent means, improve product quality and reduce energy consumption.
Another starting point of Longi Green Energy is to ensure global manufacturing capabilities and ensure high quality manufacturing levels.
In the “global selling” to “global manufacturing” trade environment, photovoltaic companies set up factories overseas, close to the end market production has become the direction. “When there are more and more component production bases, how to ensure the consistency of the product production process, how to ensure that no matter which corner of the earth production, how large the scale, regardless of the level of workers or geographical location and other factors, the output of the same high quality and high level of products, this is also a starting point for us,” said Zhang Haimeng.
McKinsey global director partner Wang Xiaofan also said: “Due to the different cultural background, industrial workers ability, many photovoltaic companies to set up factories overseas will be more difficult, if a mature digital performance management system, it can better help enterprises to improve daily management efficiency, reflect operational benefits.”
Third, leading the industry upgrading and transformation
It has to be mentioned that an industry background of the upgrade of Longji intelligent manufacturing is that the photovoltaic market is in a stage of supply and demand mismatch, homogenization competition is intensifying, and a new situation of high-quality development is urgently needed.
Hu Zhifeng said that since 2021, the competition in the photovoltaic industry has further intensified, especially since the second half of last year, the industry competition has entered the white heat, and the cluster scale effect and digital transformation have become the only way.
”Due to the serious imbalance between supply and demand, the superposition of deep internal volume competition, product prices are falling rapidly, and the whole industry chain will suffer losses in the first quarter of 2024.” Lu Fang, secretary-general of the photovoltaic Committee of the China Green Supply Chain Alliance, believes that the photovoltaic “lighthouse factory” is very significant for Longi or for the entire Chinese photovoltaic industry, especially for the recent reshaping and layout of the photovoltaic industry chain on a global scale.
Wang Xiaofan said that Longi Green Energy believes that digital transformation and upgrading can help enterprises consolidate their leading position in the homogenized competition, and deepen and increase the competitiveness moat; It is believed that building a lighthouse can accelerate the transformation of the entire enterprise or even the entire industry to better cope with the uncertainties brought by accelerating climate change, technology iteration, supply chain security, geography and other factors.
According to reports, Longi Green Energy promoted comprehensive digital transformation in Jiaxing base, and achieved a substantial improvement in core operating indicators and corresponding financial benefits in just over a year. Wang Xiaofan said: “The investment of lighthouse enterprises is not a ‘face project’, but the value benefit generated by ‘fast, accurate and merciless’, lighthouse enterprises will generally achieve 2-3 times the return on investment within three years.”
Not only that, the “lighthouse factory” of Longi Green Energy Jiaxing base has also accelerated the digital transformation of the entire company, including midstream batteries and upstream silicon wafers, and even the digital transformation of the entire photovoltaic industry.
During the reporter’s visit to the “light tower factory”, Longi Green Energy announced the launch of the “lighthouse plan”, which will continue to expand the agile intelligent manufacturing model of Longi Jiaxing “lighthouse factory” rapidly and horizontally, and promote it to more manufacturing bases, so as to achieve an all-round improvement of production intelligent manufacturing capacity and establish a digital intelligent model for the high-quality development of the photovoltaic industry.
Wang Xiaofan said that extending from a single base in the downstream to multiple bases, while promoting digital transformation to more bases in the middle stream and upstream, not only can the benefits be doubled, but also can capture greater synergies with the help of the upstream and downstream effects of the industrial chain and the scale effect of the platform, thus accelerating the overall change and improvement of the industrial chain. At the same time, the transformation and improvement from digital expansion to digital + sustainable transformation can also find opportunities and investment use cases from more dimensions to expand the impact. In addition, it can also stimulate customers and supply chains to carry out digital transformation, and achieve industry-wide transformation and symbiotic growth.
更多灯塔工厂、黑灯工厂、未来工厂、智能制造等相关案例资料可扫码获取
