Electric Vehicle demand is through the roof. Recent studies show that in the next 20 years, around 50% of the cars will be electric vehicles, with any given car containing about 1,000 batteries. More than a dozen different countries have legislative incentives and targets for Electric Vehicle adoption Innovation is needed to meet the requirements of the EV and Battery Cell manufacturing markets during this period of exceptional growth.
To meet this demand, manufacturers must drive integration and create differentiation throughout their entire manufacturing process. But it’s not that simple. You are faced with a myriad of challenges such as reducing downtime while improving yield, enabling flexible manufacturing, leveraging digital engineering, and providing operational expense savings. Does this sound all too familiar? The good news is, there is a solution.
Positioned for Success
In many automotive plants today, inefficient transfer systems are a major obstacle to improving performance. This makes the business case for moving beyond reliance on traditional conveyance more compelling than ever. The need for ramped-up EV & Battery production is driving the investment and adoption of independent cart technology (ICT).
Companies are using ICT to improve efficiency, and output while transforming their process. ICT uses magnets rather than mechanical gearing to precisely control motion with frictionless propulsion, because they have no contacting or wear components, maintenance is minimal. This reduction in failures and maintenance leads to an improvement in uptime and yield.
ICT transforms the process capability by giving you more control. ICT provides direct control of the products position, velocity, and acceleration, whereas traditional conveyance indirectly influences the product, while directly controlling the conveyor. This enables features like automatic collision avoidance, asynchronous motion, and fire and forget programming. None of which is possible with traditional conveyance. These capabilities allow you to rethink what is possible and improve the process flow.
Smart conveyance provides value by combining several features into one platform, boosting performance and productivity over traditional conveyance. Linear motor technology powers the MagneMotion Independent Cart Technology platform. The result is a servo system that gives you individual product control, programmable position, speed, and acceleration, and it’s highly flexible in terms of scalability and process flows. This now makes it possible to achieve the fast, adaptable, and customized operations that the market demands.
In EV and Battery assembly, ICT provides an essential piece of your new factory workflow. Whether it’s drivetrain manufacturing and assembly, electric motor manufacturing and assembly, battery cell manufacturing, or factory floor transport, ICT brings applicable benefits by using a cart-controlled environment over a station-controlled environment. But how does ICT solve current scaling and innovation needs?
More yield and less downtime
The constant need to do more with less is met with smart manufacturing. Continuous improvement of manufacturing capability is required to maintain profitability and improve inefficient equipment. Manufacturers must remain flexible & to maximize Return on Investment (ROI) many companies are developing smart factories.
With faster material delivery, ICT can optimize the manufacturing process to perform more efficiently. One key aspect is flexible manufacturing. ICT is assembled in a modular fashion, which enables scaling from semi-automatic to fully automatic production. When additional stations are needed, new motors can simply be connected into the existing line, with minimum downtime.
This setup allows for ‘set it and forget it’ asynchronous control of the products. You’re able to remove bottlenecks, buffers, improve the machines’ asset utilization, and focus on value-adding tasks instead of just moving components from station to station.
Simplified Integration
Just as automotive companies are looking to remove barriers to efficiency on the plant floor, they also seek to eliminate them in their digital engineering initiatives. Enter Emulate3D digital twin software. Emulate3D™ allows manufacturers to focus on the production process and forget about the details of conveyance. Snap together the conveying line and the software to automatically generate the PLC code, allowing engineers to test out and validate throughput performance in a virtual setting. The ability to use virtual commissioning reduces the development efforts and helps reach the start of production drastically faster.
Sustained operational savings in your EV and battery production start with the reduction in footprint that ICT offers. This brings more space for value-adding tasks, allow additional space for future growth. The higher speed increases the efficiency of other process equipment, resulting in fewer process stations on your production floor, creating a genuinely cost-effective system. And the reduced footprint also reduces the space needed for a cleanroom environment.
In manufacturing, the longer the system is up and running the more money manufacturers will make. The ability to remove all wear parts, moveable parts, grease, and contaminations significantly benefit EV and Battery manufacturers and can be expanded cost-effectively, thanks to modularity.
