Faced with the global trend of accelerating transformation of new energy vehicles, automakers urgently need to consider a new way of working. Sinotruk seized the opportunity and actively explored industrial digitalization and automation with the support of ABB’s world-leading intelligent manufacturing technology, and successfully won the “double first” in sales and market share of domestic heavy-duty truck companies in 2022.

Sinotruk’s “Intelligent Networked (New Energy) Heavy-Duty Truck Project”, namely Sinotruk Laiwu Smart Factory, is a digital “lighthouse factory” built by Sinotruk after its restructuring and reform, and it is also the most digitalized factory in Sinotruk Group today. ABB provided a total of 111 robots, a series of digital products and flexible solutions for its welding workshop, creating Sinotruk’s first automated production line for the “Yellow River” series of a new generation of high-end logistics traction heavy-duty trucks.

The complete welding solution provided by ABB for Sinotruk Laiwu Smart Factory uses IRB 6700 and IRB 7600 robots, covering the entire process of the welding factory, involving material preparation, floor line, side line, main line, door line and adjustment line areas, and high-precision welding ensures production quality. At the same time, ABB FlexTrack seven-axis guide rails are widely used, which greatly improves the body transmission speed with its excellent motion performance.

In the early planning stage of the project, after continuous polishing and testing, ABB and Sinotruk Group finally unanimously decided to innovatively use the ABB FlexProd production line layout solution in some workstations: split the traditional long-line production architecture of the car factory and deploy dedicated modular units. Using this cutting-edge car factory layout concept, Sinotruk Laiwu Smart Factory can replace or adjust a single workstation at any time to avoid production interruption problems. At the same time, with flexible AGV logistics, it replaces manual loading and unloading links, enabling production processes to be more flexible and productive.

In addition, ABB also provides the ModulFlex automatic fixture switching library for the production line, which supports multi-model switching without affecting the production rhythm; with ABB FlexPLP flexible programmable linear positioner, it greatly improves the accuracy of body positioning and welding quality. Today, the welding production line provided by ABB for Sinotruk Laiwu Smart Factory mainly produces heavy-duty truck products such as the Yellow River series and the Howo TX series, with an annual output of up to 50,000 vehicles.

The first cooperation between ABB Robotics and Sinotruk can be traced back to 2010. At that time, ABB built the group’s first body-in-white welding production line for Sinotruk. With more than ten years of cooperation, ABB will continue to help Sinotruk achieve continuous transformation and upgrading from traditional vehicle products to new energy, intelligent networked green products through leading automation technology and solutions in the future, further consolidate Sinotruk Group’s position as a leader in cutting-edge technology for China’s heavy-duty vehicles, and work together to create a bright business card for Chinese commercial vehicles to go global.

China National Heavy Duty Truck Group Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as “Sinotruk”) was founded in 1930 and owns a full range of well-known commercial vehicle brands such as Yellow River, Shandeka, and Howo. Products are exported to more than 110 countries and regions, and have maintained the top export position in the national heavy-duty truck industry for 18 consecutive years. Since undergoing restructuring and reform in 2018, Sinotruk has accelerated its pace of independent innovation and has strongly jumped to the “double first” in sales volume and market share in China’s heavy-duty truck industry in 2022.
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