Wuzhong Instrument: The story of intelligent manufacturing of "China's first control valve".

Scientific and technological innovation, Wuzhong Instrument has gone through a road of deep integration of informatization and industrialization.

"There are too many foreign 'stuck neck' technical products. The control valve industry is all-inclusive, with 100,000 varieties and specifications, more than 1 million parts, and more than 5,000 quality control points. The commercial software that can be bought can't be used, the plates that graft other people's plates can't be connected, and you can't grit your teeth to develop the industry 4.0 that is born and native, okay? Unexpectedly, Ma Yushan, a deputy to the National People's Congress and chairman of Wuzhong Instrument Co., Ltd., saw reporters and asked questions continuously.

Wuzhong Instrument: The story of intelligent manufacturing of "China's first control valve".

　　Challenge the impossible

If the application of the first set of olefins is a leap in the quality of Wuzhong instrument, then it is impossible to fill the gap in the domestic deep-sea oil and gas control valve project.

Ma Yushan went on to say: "In the deep-sea oil production project, China did not even have equipment for 500 meters at that time. In order to realize the localization of underwater ball valves for deep-sea oil projects, Wuzhong Instrument began to lay out as early as the 'Twelfth Five-Year Plan' period, and after ten years of research and development, it finally passed the acceptance of CNOOC experts on December 18, 2020. ”

Ten years of sharpening a sword! It's not just about ability, it's about endurance. Ball valves are used in underwater applications, the most important thing is the tightness, neither leakage nor internal leakage, and the underwater pressure is high, which is difficult to do. Not only that, but the cost of underwater salvage is more expensive than the ball valve itself, so the service life of the ball valve must reach 30 years.

How to overcome the difficulty of international cutting-edge technology of sealing? It is necessary to innovate in terms of materials, performance and structure. In terms of materials, Wuzhong Instrument adopts a material modification heat treatment process to strengthen the hardness. In terms of structure, to achieve the most perfect roundness, the United States error is 0.0005 mm, and the Wuzhong meter reaches 0.0001 mm.

"In order to operate underwater 400 times per minute, withstand 40 megapascals of internal pressure, and still maintain tightness, it takes tens of thousands of experiments to detect why the valve can meet the standard. However, the situation at that time was that there were no such products in China, and no foreign products had been seen, so we designed a set of experimental devices according to the functional requirements that the ball valve needed to meet when working underwater. Make a hyperbaric chamber, use pressure to simulate the underwater pressure, and establish an ROV interface with the underwater robot. When it comes to the R&D process, Ma Yushan is full of passion.

In the past ten years of research and development of deep-sea oil ball valves, as long as one index cannot be reached, it is necessary to start all over again, and if any of the 14 experiments fails, it will be dismantled. A ball valve of 6-7 tons was repeatedly assembled and disassembled more than 30 times, which made the workers tired.

Smart Manufacturing 4.0

"At present, there is a cognitive misunderstanding, as if they have done automation and informatization, and they think that they have done a good job in Industry 4.0, but in fact, they have only done a single item. It must be promoted from a comprehensive and multi-level level, and the comprehensive development of each section, and the enterprise must talk about comprehensive capabilities, and it is not possible to lack any link. It can't be said that there is an unmanned factory, it is Industry 4.0, it is only the category of automation. It is not easy to overcome technical difficulties, and efficient management also requires hard work. Chang Zhandong, chief engineer of Wuzhong Instrument, talked about the industry 4.0 he understands and has been committed to building.

Industry 4.0 cannot rely solely on software, it must be a combination of software and hardware, as well as management and products. On the road to the development of Industry 4.0, Wuzhong Instrument has been advancing to the "five dimensions and eight modernizations". Five dimensions, namely technology, management, equipment, materials, and manufacturing. Eight modernizations, namely automation, digitalization, informatization, lean, networking, flexibility, visualization, and intelligence.

"Why did some domestic experts say a few years ago that it is a dead end for enterprises not to engage in informatization, and it is still a dead end if they don't do well?" The more Chang Zhandong talks, the more interested he becomes.

In this regard, Wu Zhong's instrument is not without detours. In the past, I have also used Germany and domestic software, not only the effect is not ideal, but also due to the many approval nodes, cumbersome procedures, lack of basic data of the enterprise itself and other problems restricting the development of the enterprise. The key is that these software not only can not achieve flat management, but also can not be changed, any software will cost tens of millions, and the money thrown into it will not see the benefits.

In desperation, Wu Zhong gritted his teeth and decided to do it himself. They integrate their own computer team, based on the production characteristics of the company's own products, repeatedly explore and develop software that adapts to the production process, and build an industrial Internet platform. "Now we use the software developed by our own team to manage, and the management benefits can be seen by peers, and Chongqing Chuanyi has come to visit several times. Our software team not only serves us, but also provides technical services to the market. ”

Li Jun, director of the control valve workshop, has worked in Wuzhong Instrument for more than 20 years and has experienced almost all technical reforms, and he knows the situation very well at that time: "When I first started the software in 2006, due to unskilled operation, a new employee entered the wrong program, resulting in scrapping parts. Each machine needs dozens of parts in more than a dozen processes, and if one part has a problem, the whole machine will not be able to be delivered on time. After half a year, the workshop fully mastered this set of procedures. Until now, we have been holding morning meetings every day and training for 4 hours at the end of each week to ensure that we are proficient in running all the programs. ”

After several years of development and construction, Wuzhong Instrument's Industry 4.0 has shown its effectiveness, not only peer visits, experts have commented: Wuzhong Instrument is truly integrated into all work, the whole system, the whole process, full coverage, and continuous upgrading. It can be said that Wuzhong Instrument has found its own native Industry 4.0 path.

Ma Yushan finally said that intelligent manufacturing is not only the change of production facilities, but more importantly, the change of production organization and management mode. The intelligent manufacturing methods adopted by Wuzhong Instrument are mainly summarized as: to improve quality and efficiency as the goal, to carry out business process reengineering, based on data, through the networking of underlying equipment, the data of the business process, the integration of design and manufacturing, the digitization of testing, logistics automation, manufacturing flexibility, intelligent management and control, and lean management to realize the refinement of the business management process, and also realize the synchronization of the business execution process.

Wuzhong Instrument continues to innovate and continuously strengthen endogenous power, from a small factory with a horseshoe to a domestic industry giant. Wu Zhong used its development process to expound such a simple but not easy to do. With refined management, intelligent manufacturing process, and team spirit from top to bottom, the pace of high-quality development of Wuzhong Instrument will not stop, and the pace of continuing to challenge the impossible will not stop......

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