Guangzhou Mino is a well-known supplier for the planning, design, manufacturing and maintenance of smart production line of car bodies. It has developed a world leading BIW assemblies welding system with full IP right, boasting many global No. 1s in the automotive equipment industry.
Mino’s smart production line incorporates the complete automation solutions from Festo. Mr. Yao Weibin, Chairman of Board of Directors, Mino, gives high praises to Festo, as a “Model of Suppliers”.
Festo is a global leader in automation, and a global market leader in industrial training. Festo provides products and system solutions, including pneumatic drives and electric actuators, valves, servo drives, motion controllers, valve terminals, easy-to-install connection technology, handling and assembly technology, service units, fittings, vacuum technology, position and quality inspection, sensing and control technologies.
Festo provides pneumatic and electric and complete solutions for factory automation and process automation on the Chinese market, mainly serving automotive, electronics and light assembly, food and beverage and packaging, water/waste water treatment and bio/pharma industries. Particularly, for the automotive industry, Festo supplies smart solutions combining pneumatic and electric drive technologies based on the global complete production processes, ensuring the safe, efficient, simple and competent automotive manufacturing.
Proven quality lays the solid foundation
“In the BIW welding shop, due to the extremely tough environment, like high electromagnetic influence caused by welding, flashing welding spatters of high temperature, tight working space for robotics, and frequent change of end-of-arm tools, the equipment and components used in the production line must be of proven quality,” said by Mr. Zhou Xiaowen, Assistant Director of BIW Mechanical Engineering Department, Mino.
Recently, a car manufacturer ran into a trouble caused by flashing communication interruption in valve terminals, which requires manual trouble-shooting while the resulting downtime will cause huge influence. The customer was eagerly looking for a better solution. Mino recommended Festo CPX/VTSA valve terminals in metal housing, which feature excellent resistance to welding spatters and interference. Mr. Zhou Xiaowen added, “The similar issue never arises again. The production stability and productivity has been improved obviously. Consequently, this customer specifies Festo valve terminals as standard in the production line.”
“As the inventor of valve terminals, Festo “hard-core” product quality provides Mino and car manufacturers with stable and efficient security,” explained by Mr. Huang Xinghua, Head of Sales, Automotive Industry, Festo Greater China.
Mr. Zhou Xiaowen further explained, “Apart from valve terminals, Festo provides Mino with a wide variety of pneumatic products, including tubings, fittings, solenoid valves, pneumatic valves, drives, etc. Either for standard components or tailored variants based on the whole product or module, Festo can meet all requirements, with proven quality and high performance/price ratio.”
Lead-time and services secure the sustainable development
Automotive equipment is a complex system engineering. As a system integrator and production line builder, Mino must further ensure timely lead-time and maintenance services, which is dependent on the collaboration with suppliers. Mino finds a way out. On one hand, Mino learns from top suppliers like Festo. On the other hand, Mino also develops suppliers to increase the satisfaction of its customers.
“Festo impresses us with its timely service response, on-time delivery, and top priority of customers. Mino trusts Festo very much,” said by Mr. Wang Yifei, Director of Purchasing, Mino, “Festo’s market services available worldwide give Mino peace of mind in terms of lead-time and aftersales services, fully meeting Mino’s “4.5+1” quick delivery practice (delivery within in 4.5 months, commissioning in 1 month).”
“Festo has won the awards of top suppliers from Mino for many years successively,” said by Mr. Yao Weibin, “Festo is a great model for suppliers. We hope more suppliers can start to implement transition like Festo.” Mr. Yao gave an example: in a project with BMW, due to the delay in design by Mino in Germany, this shortened the manufacturing and purchasing time drastically – only several weeks available, but Festo flexible supply and service system gave Mino great support in timely delivery.
Mr. Huang Xinghua explained, “As the first company organized in an industry segmentation method in the pneumatic industry, Festo has set up automotive industry sales teams worldwide. This industry-segmented organization enables easy integration of global resources, providing customers with all-round support.” For example, via the resources from global account service, Festo can schedule the corresponding training sessions, helping customers to adapt themselves to the latest standards set by top car manufacturers, like Benz, BMW, etc, so that customers can build up their own standards.
Standardization brings about more value
With digital manufacturing technology, Mino is dedicated to creating industry standards and efficient standard solutions. “Mino has the ambition to use our own expertise to create the related standards for some companies, or even the entire industry, so as to facilitate the advancement of digitalization in the field of smart automotive manufacturing in China,” said by Mr. Zhou Xiaowen, “Festo offers products and technology of top German quality, which shows Mino the entry path when Mino is aligning the standards set by the European and American car manufacturers.”
Mr. Zhou Xiaowen added, “Compared with competitors, Mino is unique in the fact that Mino will learn technology advantages from Euro-American, Japanese and Chinese car brands, and large component manufacturers, digest them to form our own comprehensive solutions. On one hand, Mino has developed a series of standard products to meet the increasing requirements for production tempo, automation and flexibility. On the other hand, in terms of mechanics and electrics, Mino has built up our own technology system, and thus able to flexibly adapt ourselves to needs of different customers.”
Non-standard products are characterized by technology of high density, complex and a great number of variants, and small batches, which lead to high cost and slower cycle time. Facing the large market for non-standard products in the automotive industry, how Mino translates the challenges into opportunities. According to the explanation of Mr. Zhou Xiaowen, Mino tackles it in two steps:
1st step: standardize the non-standard products. The whole product and individual components are non-standard products, but many can be standardized by means of breaking down products into modules, and modules into smaller parts, accessories or working steps, thus reducing cost and increasing efficiency.
Mr. Zhou Xiaowen took Festo valve terminal and HIP/RIP as an example. These are customized standard products. As individual products, they are non-standard, but most of them can be standardized after broken down into smaller parts, and only small amount of these are non-standard. Mr. Zhou Xiaowen said, “HIP/RIP is a turn-key project. We only need to provide appropriate requirements for customization. Festo then will quickly respond to them, which provides solid security for our standardization for non-standard products.”
2nd step: Automation. After standardization, here comes the automation design and construction. It would take nearly 1 hour to get it done previously while now it only takes 5 to 10 minutes. Based on software developed by Mino, customers only need to enter some parameters, then get the required products automatically, which is a substantial leap in efficiency.
For the future of the automotive industry, Mr. Yao Weibin is closely watching two trends: Firstly, the digital revolution, in which the conventional hardware manufacturing is being transformed to software and big data services, where the software is the core of the technical barrier; secondly, the new process trends are arising along with the development of technology revolution, material revolution, light-weight technology.
In parallel with this, Mino is evolving from an equipment and production line manufacturer to a technical service provider and is committed to be market leader with hundreds of billions of turnover, empowering the users in the automotive industry. Mino will work with partners, like Festo, to explore cooperation in the field of Industry 4.0 and smart manufacturing, including creating industry-specific standards, promoting digital transition, building up ecology for smart automotive manufacturing, developing business on the global market. For this, Mr. Huang Xinghua said that, as the global strategic partner of Mino in the field of smart automotive equipment, Festo will provide products and services of top-class quality with uniform global standard to ensure Mino will get uniform standard support and seamlessly integrate global development needs when Mino is developing business on the global market.