What does smart manufacturing mean for tools?

What does smart manufacturing mean for tools? Smart manufacturing means that in the machining process, intelligent machines and our human experts are responsible for processing such as machine tools, fixtures, workpieces, machining allowances, precision and surface quality requirements, cutting Analyze, reason, and judge various conditions such as liquid and so on, so as to reasonably select the tool suitable for this processing task. Various accessories such as tools, lubricants, etc., and intelligently select the appropriate initial processing speed and other processing specifications, decide what processing strategy to use, and even judge whether such processing parameters and processing strategies are reasonable, know whether chip removal is normal, and predict Wear patterns and approximate tool failure timing, and timely issue tool change commands to the machine tool or system to maintain economical and safe operation of cutting operations.

To achieve such intelligent manufacturing of knives for knife selection is actually not easy. Since there are many possibilities for machine tools, fixtures, workpieces (including material and heat treatment, shape, rigidity) and other conditions, and their combinations are ever-changing, the ideal processing conditions may be provided by many manufacturers to provide their own cloud data for calculation. Analysis, but this method will involve the trade secrets of various manufacturers, and I am afraid that it is still difficult to achieve, so such cloud computing intelligence can only be assumptions and reverie. According to the recommendation of foreign high-end tool manufacturers, the rigidity of the process system composed of machine tool fixtures and other components must be an important factor in the selection of tools, and various elements of the tool itself must also be taken into account (this is used for intelligent manufacturing The knife presented a challenge.

We can see how our experts choose knives now. Most of them feel the vibration of the machine tool and listen to the sound of cutting by sticking their hands on the machine tool, observe the state of the chips, and make a basic judgment on the processing state in combination with other conditions observed. I think a similar method will be used for the selection of tools in the future. To solve the problem with intelligent equipment, just like the driverless cars that are currently being developed in many automobile factories, multiple sensors are installed on the machine tool to sense the running state of the machine tool during cutting, so as to help us select the tool more correctly. Of course, there is still a long way to go to get to this point.

But these are only peripheral conditions. For our tool industry, we need to know which occasions our tools are suitable for use, which occasions require what kind of changes to our tools, and what processing parameters and processing strategies our tools use under various conditions (such as How to use the best accuracy, how to use the best life, how to use the best stability, etc.). These are the aspects that our domestic tool dealers are extremely lacking. What we lack is the concept of serving customers.

Many of our domestic enterprises are very lacking in service concepts. A few years ago, I communicated with the director of a domestic twist drill professional manufacturer, and discussed with him the problem of providing services to users. What I didn't expect was that he asked me blankly, saying that we mainly produce one type of twist drill. , It seems that users have never asked for what kind of service, what kind of service can we provide customers? At that time, I felt a little helpless and sighed. I remember I was saying can we recommend some cutting parameters to the user? For example, how should steel be cut? How should cast iron be cut? How should blind holes be cut? How? I communicated with another domestic tool manufacturer this month, and also mentioned that our products are relatively simple, especially twist drills, almost all of which have a helix angle of 30 degrees and a top angle of 118 degrees. Therefore, the price war will be quite fierce (it is said that the output value of the professional twist drill manufacturers mentioned above dropped by nearly half year-on-year in 2015). I would like to ask the domestic manufacturers of twist drills and taps (these two types may be the largest varieties in the market for a single variety), whether they can make some changes for the steel and cast iron parts, through holes and blind holes, which have the largest processing volume. Is the product more suitable for the needs of the market? I think these varieties with a large amount of use, even if they are divided into several main application needs, they will still belong to a large-scale and wide-ranging product, and there should be no problem with the economics of manufacturing. We have more varieties and specifications, and have more professional and rich processing experience, so we can better meet the needs of intelligent manufacturing.

To complete product diversification, it is necessary to go to customers more to understand the actual and future processing needs of customers, such as what kind of machine tool is being used now, such as rigidity, speed range, power, and function of the machine tool ( For example, does the machine tool support rigid tapping), etc.; for example, what is the material of the workpiece, how is the heat treatment, and the allowance for most applications. On these occasions, what kind of knives are they using now, which knives are more suitable, why, etc. Lao Yang believes that we used to talk about cutting databases, which were mainly done by research institutes and universities. However, such a database is based on funding and experimental conditions, and can cover relatively few processing conditions. Today, if we introduce the concept of big data, and many users upload their own processing data to the processing database, it will be much easier to find suitable processing parameters.