Manufactured in China: Innovation Around Production

Gigacasting supersized magnesium parts, ultrasonic welding of composite parts, DRI steel with 60% hydrogen, and battery metals processing are examples of innovation around production led by China.

Jul 16, 2023

Shop Talk

Capturing this week's zeitgeist

Josh Schultz’s twitter thread on reindustrializing the US captures many thoughts on the way industry enables economic vitality. None resonated more this week than the tweet below which goes along with this week’s digest. China dominates the world’s production knowledge and it’s led to a number of world firsts.

Meanwhile, Ford and CATL’s Marshall, Michigan megasite continues to face backlash from the community:

Not everyone wants giant projects, even in places that would seem ripe for a factory renaissance. Soon after Ford’s project was announced in February, worried residents jammed town meetings, demanding more details on what was coming. Signs popped up on roadsides that plead: “Stop the Megasite.”

While TSMC Insists Taiwanese Workers Will Not Harm U.S. Jobs At Arizona Plant:

At the time we were told that the additional workers would not impact the thousands of construction workers already builng the $40 billion factory. In recent days multiple sources have come forward to Arizona’s Family telling us they feel the new workers are here to replace them; or as an excuse to cut their pay. Those sources, not willing to go on camera for fear of retribution. Earlier today we reached out for comment to TSMC and to a general contractor for the project. So far neither have responded to our questions.

Assembly Line

This week's most influential Industry 4.0 media

Chinese scientists say supersized magnesium parts pave the way for cheaper, lighter cars

📅 Date: July 7, 2023
✍️ Author: Zhang Tong
🏭 Vertical: Automotive
🏢 Organizations: Chongqing University, Chongqing Millison Technologies, Boao Magnesium Aluminium Manufacturing

Researchers in China say they have developed supersized magnesium alloy auto parts that could significantly reduce the cost of making cars and promote lightweight vehicle designs. The scientists produced the two giant parts – a car body and a battery box cover – from a single mould in one casting. Each part measures over 2.2 square metres (23.7 sq ft) – the first of their size to be made from magnesium alloy, according to a news release from the National Engineering Research Centre for Magnesium Alloys (CCMg) at Chongqing University on June 27.

Chongqing Millison Technologies provided the die casting system used for processing, while Boao Aluminium Manufacturing has experience in developing magnesium alloy dashboard and seat frames. They used high-pressure casting to create the two parts using a technology similar to Tesla’s “gigacasting” process. It involves injecting molten metal into a steel mould and filling it under high pressure before cooling.

Read more at South China Morning Post

Double-Pulse Ultrasonic Welding of Fiber-Reinforced Composite

📅 Date: July 8, 2023
✍️ Author: Qian Zhi
🏢 Organizations: Hunan University of Science and Technology

When welding polymers without an energy director, the energy is not concentrated, and coulombic friction at the faying interface is less than that of a joint with an energy director. As a result, the parts need more time to melt, and overall welding time is longer. However, thermoplastics produce viscoelastic dissipation under ultrasonic welding, which leads to an increase in part temperature with the extension of weld time. When the temperature rises above a certain point, thermal decomposition of the polymer will occur and a porous region will form, which severely deteriorates weld quality.

We have developed an alternative solution, double-pulse ultrasonic welding. In our technique, the first pulse is used to preheat the parts, while the second completes the weld. The first pulse generates heat at the joint interface. The materials at the interface melt first, and the temperature is higher there than in the middle of the workpiece. After cooling for a while, another ultrasonic pulse is applied at the same location to extend the size of the weld. The temperature in the middle of the workpiece is maintained below the decomposition temperature of the plastic by adjusting the weld time and cooling time between the two pulses. As a result, weld quality is improved by increasing energy dissipation at the joint interface while inhibiting thermal decomposition.

HBIS is producing DRI by using more than 60% of hydrogen

📅 Date: May 29, 2023
🏭 Vertical: Primary Metal

Chinese HBZX High Tech, part of Hebei Iron & Steel Group – HBIS, is the first worldwide steelmaker producing DRI using more than 60% Hydrogen in the feed gas mix, on industrial basis. This happened at the HBZX plant, in Xuan Hua, Zhangjiakou, Hebei province, where a new, 600,000 tpy, Zero Reformer, ENERGIRON® direct reduction plant has been supplied and achieved continuous, stable, and safely production with outstanding quality.

This is an outstanding achievement, since the plant is the first hydrogen-enriched gas-powered DRI industrial production facility in the world and represents a significant accomplishment for the Chinese steel industry, being also the first green gas-based DRI plant in the country, paving the way to the transition from the carbon-based BF route to gas-based DRI technology and electric steelmaking.

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How SCARA, Six-Axis, and Cartesian Pick-And-Place Robotics Optimize and Streamline Electronics Manufacturing Processes

📅 Date: July 12, 2023
✍️ Author: Lisa Eitel
🔖 Topics: Industrial Robot
🏭 Vertical: Computer and Electronic, Semiconductor

Hastening the adoption of robotics in semiconductor manufacture are burgeoning classes of six-axis robots, selective compliance assembly robot arms (SCARAs), cartesian machinery, and collaborative robots featuring reconfigurable or modular hardware as well as unifying software to greatly simplify implementation. These robots and their supplemental equipment must be designed, rated, and installed for cleanroom settings or else risk contaminating delicate wafers with impurities. Requirements are defined by ISO 14644-1:2015, which classifies cleanroom air cleanliness by particle concentration.

Advanced cleanroom-rated robotic end-of-arm tooling (EoAT or end effectors) such as grippers are core to semiconductor production. Here, EOATs must have high dynamics and the ability to execute tracing, placing, and assembling with exacting precision. In some cases, EoAT force feedback or machine vision boosts parts-handling accuracy by imparting adaptive capabilities — so pick-and-place routines are quickly executed even if there’s some variability in workpiece positions, for example. Such sensor and feedback advancements can sometimes render the complicated electronics-handling fixtures of legacy solutions unnecessary.

Lift: Advanced, automated metal forming, controls, training, optimization

📅 Date: July 14, 2023
✍️ Author: Mark T Hoske

Advanced manufacturing techniques are advancing and on display at Lift in Detroit. Lift is operated by the American Lightweight Materials Manufacturing Innovation Institute (ALMMII). Lift is a public-private partnership among the U.S. Department of Defense, industry and academia, and it is part of the national network of manufacturing innovation institutes. Major participants in the Lift facility include Hexagon, Kearney, Siemens, U.S. Department of Defense and Department of Commerce.

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Facing a Battle for Armored Steel, This Tank Maker Bought the Factory

📅 Date: July 11, 2023
✍️ Author: Alistar MacDonald
🏭 Vertical: Defense

Threatened with a shortage of the hardened steel used to make parts of its tanks, one arms company went on the offensive: It bought a 200-year-old steel foundry to ensure supply.Now, the 1,500-degree-Celsius molten metal pouring out of a giant ladle here will be used to make parts for KNDS’s Leopard 2 tanks and other armored vehicles that are currently playing a starring role on Ukrainian battlefields.

Securing specialty metals is one of several supply-chain challenges facing the sector, where shortages of chips, rocket engines and other components have hindered efforts to arm Ukraine and replenish supplies sent there. Seeking to secure enough supplies of cast-steel parts to feed an increase in production, KNDS bought an 80% controlling stake in a German steel foundry earlier this year.

Ballistic steel is hardened by adding a mix of metal alloys and then treating it with high temperatures. One grade of steel produced by the foundry is around twice as strong as steel typically used in construction, Steinheider said.

Phase partition and online monitoring for batch processes based on Harris hawks optimization

📅 Date: July 12, 2023
✍️ Authors: Shumei Zhang, Xiaoli Bao
🏢 Organizations: Tianjin University

Most industrial batch processes exhibit significantly different characteristics at different manufacturing steps, and it is advantageous to partition batch processes reasonably and establish phase models separately for online monitoring. In the present work, a novel phase partition method is developed based on Harris hawks optimization (HHO) with hard sequentiality constraint, which seeks for the optimal phase partition results under the specific target phase number in inner loop and automatically determines the optimal phase number in outer loop by making a trade-off between modeling complexity and partition performance. First, a new definition of the sum of quadratic error (SQE) is designed as the fitness function to evaluate the within-phase compactness, which makes the time-slice matrices with similar process variable correlations stay in the same phase. Then, an optimization refinement scheme (ORS) is developed to find the potential local minimum of the SQE by inspecting and reallocating the phase-adjacent samples. Afterwards, the percentage of performance improvement indicator (PPII) is proposed to determine the optimal phase numbers by quantifying the improvement of minimum SQE. For each subphase, canonical variate analysis (CVA) is performed to build statistical models for dynamic process monitoring. The effectiveness of the proposed method is illustrated by a numerical example with some outliers and an injection molding process.

Read more at Control Engineering Practice

Capital Investment

Major factory investments and commissions

🏭🇺🇸 Germany’s chemical groups look outside Europe to build new plants

📅 Date: July 9, 2023
✍️ Author: Patricia Nilsson

“Investments in new plants and new technologies are flooding out of Germany,” said Michael Vassiliadis, chair of Germany’s union for the chemical and energy industries IG BCE, adding that the trend had been accelerated “since the problem with energy”.

Vassiliadis, who in his role as union leader sits on the supervisory board of BASF, said the German chemical group is a striking example of a company investing in state of the art technology in China. The world’s largest chemical company is currently building a €10bn petrochemicals complex in Zhanjiang. Modelled on the German group’s headquarters in Ludwigshafen, it will be equipped with “cutting-edge technologies” and the “highest sustainability standards”. The company has meanwhile warned that it will “permanently” downsize its operations in Europe.

🏭🇺🇸 Kraft Heinz Invests $400M to Build One of the Largest Automated CPG Distribution Centers in North America

📅 Date: July 13, 2023

The Kraft Heinz Company (Nasdaq: KHC) (“Kraft Heinz” or the “Company”) announced a more than $400 million investment to build one of the largest automated CPG distribution centers in North America. Located in DeKalb, Ill., the 775,000 square-foot national distribution facility will feature state-of-the-art automation technology and national railway access, enabling Kraft Heinz to drive greater supply chain efficiencies and distribute its products to retail and foodservice customers faster than ever. The facility is expected to bring more than 150 jobs to the region.

The facility’s design includes a 24/7 automated storage and retrieval system with the ability to drive twice the volume for Kraft Heinz customers, distributing more than 60 percent of the Company’s foodservice business and approximately 30 percent of all dry goods. It is also expected to contribute to Kraft Heinz’s ability to achieve its broader ESG ambitions to reduce its operational environmental footprint through the implementation of sustainable technology and solutions to reduce the waste produced at the facility and minimize its overall environmental impact.

🏭🇺🇸 LS ELECTRIC Sets Up First North American Production Base in Texas

📅 Date: July 10, 2023

LS ELECTRIC is establishing its first North American production base in the state of Texas in the U.S. This move comes as demand for distribution systems, an essential power infrastructure for factories, is rapidly increasing. This is due to Korean companies in the semiconductor, automobile, secondary battery, and home appliances sectors collectively building production plants in the U.S. amid escalating U.S.-China tensions.

The distance between the factory site purchased by LS ELECTRIC this time and the Samsung Electronics Foundry factory in Taylor, Texas, which is currently under construction, is only about 55 km. LS Electric had previously signed a contract in November last year to supply a distribution system worth 174.6 billion won (US$134.0 million) to Samsung Electronics’ Taylor factory.

🏭🇩🇪 Rheinmetall plans to build F-35 fuselage factory in Weeze

📅 Date: July 3, 2023

The new plant is due to produce at least 400 F-35A fuselage sections for the air forces of Germany and other friendly nations. An integrated technology group, Rheinmetall will be drawing here on its extensive experience in fabricating sophisticated components as well as in the aviation domain. Production is expected to commence in 2025.

Featuring state-of-the-art technology, the planned factory will be operated through Rheinmetall Aviation Services GmbH. It will have feature 60,000 square metres of floorspace. Over 400 highly skilled men and women will crew the ultramodern assembly line. In addition, the plant will include logistics and warehouse facilities, research and test centres, classrooms and quality control units.

Business Transactions

This week's top funding events, acquisitions, and partnerships across industrial value chains

Big Automakers Grab $1 Billion Deal for Urgently Needed Battery Metals

📅 Date: July 12, 2023
✍️ Author: Amirth Ramkumar
🔖 Topics: Funding Event
🏢 Organizations: Volkswagen, Stellantis, Glencore

Volkswagen and Jeep maker Stellantis are each committing $100 million in a complicated transaction that will create a publicly traded mining company producing nickel and copper from two Brazilian mines that run on hydropower.

They are joining with a special-purpose acquisition company run by a well-known mining executive who hopes to do more deals to build a large battery-metals company. Mining giant Glencore is also putting in $100 million and has agreed to turn the nickel and copper from the mines into battery-grade material at processing facilities in Western Europe and North America that would qualify for subsidies in the U.S. and Europe.

Meyer Burger secures €200 million from EU Innovation Fund among others

📅 Date: July 14, 2023
✍️ Author: Simon Yuen

The European Commission (EC) has granted €3.6 billion (US$4.04 billion) to 41 large-scale clean tech projects via the EU Innovation Fund, including three PV modules projects under the clean tech manufacturing category.

PV module manufacturer Meyer Burger’s project HOPE (High-efficiency Onshore PV module production in Europe) obtained €200 million from the fund. The project will involve constructing an additional 3.5GW of production capacity for solar cells and solar modules by Meyer Burger in Germany and probably in Spain. According to the EC, this project will introduce new innovative heterojunction (HJT) technology, producing PV modules that can last longer with higher efficiency.

Norwegian solar company NorSun also secured €54 million for a 3GW expansion of current ingot and wafer capacity in Årdal, Vestland. This would quadruple the company’s current capacity, while the EC said the wafers produced by NorSun have much lower environmental impact and resource consumption.

Swedish solar company Midsummer received a grant of over €32 million for a new 200MW plant to produce CIGS (copper indium gallium selenide) thin film solar cells. Its scalability and the potential to reduce greenhouse gas emissions were crucial to obtaining the fund, while the lightweight CIGS thin-film solar panels can be installed on low-bearing rooftops.

FREYR Battery Awarded €100 Million EU Innovation Fund Grant

📅 Date: July 13, 2023
🏢 Organizations: FREYR

FREYR Battery, a developer of clean, next-generation battery cell production capacity, has announced that the company has been awarded a €100 million grant from the European Union to support development of FREYR’s Giga Arctic project in Norway. The grant will be funded through the EU’s Innovation Fund as part of the EU’s efforts to promote localized production of battery solutions.

Giga Arctic, which has been under development since FREYR’s Board of Directors sanctioned the start of construction in June 2022, is designed to be a 29 GWh nameplate capacity facility based on the 24M Technologies SemiSolidTM manufacturing platform and powered with 100% renewable hydroelectricity.

Rocsys Secures $36M to Redefine the EV Charging Experience with Autonomous Charging, Powered by AI and Robotics

📅 Date: July 11, 2023

Rocsys, the leading provider of autonomous charging solutions for electric transportation, today announced a $36 million Series A funding round. Led by SEB Greentech Venture Capital, the round also includes participation from Graduate Entrepreneur, the European Investment Bank, and returning investor Forward.One. With this latest investment, which includes a roughly equal split of debt and equity financing, Rocsys will expand the capabilities of its platform as it rapidly scales its presence in the United States and Europe.

Orennia Raises US$25 Million in Series B Financing to Expand Cutting-Edge Energy Transition Analytics Platform

📅 Date: July 11, 2023

Orennia Inc. today announced the completion of its Series B financing, raising US$25 million to accelerate the growth of its best-in-class data and analytics platform. The investment highlights Orennia’s differentiated solution for the energy transition with insights across the renewables, storage, clean fuels and decarbonization sectors. Orennia helps increase returns for the most sophisticated developers, investors, bankers and corporations by providing up-to-date and reliable energy transition analytics.

French plastic recycling robotics company b:bot raises €20 million to double its robot network and accelerate international expansion

📅 Date: July 10, 2023
✍️ Author: Fiona Alston

French plastic recycling robotics company b:bot takes plastic bottles and shreds them on site, taking more lorries off the road and making 100% of the bottles offered recyclable. The robots are for public use, situated on the side of roads and in the likes of shopping centres and restaurant areas - users can either chose to take a cash reward for recycling or donate it as they watch their bottle turn to glitter. The mix of robotics and AI reduces the volume of plastic by 90% - ‘its value is tripled, eight recycling steps are eliminated and the carbon footprint of the process is reduced dramatically, all in a few seconds’.

The start-up has raised €20 million from Eiffel Investment Group and the group’s long-standing shareholder Crédit Agricole Normandie-Seine Participations. Plans are to double the size of the robot workforce by the end of this year, expand into new markets and to take on the recycling of cans next.

Dutch-based Arceon raises €350K to further develop heat-resistant aerospace materials

📅 Date: July 11, 2023
✍️ Author: Vishal Singh

Delft-based Arceon, a company developing Advanced Ceramic Matrix Composites (ArCMC) to improve materials and structures, announced on Friday, July 7, that it has raised €350K in a fresh round of funding. The investment came from Early Phase Financing powered by UNIIQ.

Arceon claims it will use the funds to expand the development and marketing of its heat-resistant materials. In combination with a number of pilot and launch clients, Arceon mentions it will commercialise a number of early products.

Performance Livestock Analytics Secures Investment from Builders VC, Separates from Zoetis

📅 Date: July 10, 2023
🏢 Organizations: Performance Livestock Analytics, Zoetis

Performance Livestock Analytics (PLA), a leader in data analytics solutions for livestock producers, is excited to announce its separation from Zoetis. The newly independent PLA business is led by its original founders, Dane Kuper and Dustin Balsley, and with financial investment from Builders VC. The strategic decision for PLA to separate from Zoetis is a result of PLA’s growth and increasing market demand for its cutting-edge digital solutions. The separation will provide PLA with increased agility and autonomy to respond to market dynamics and customer needs.

Builders VC’s investment will fuel PLA’s expansion plans, including further product development, expanding market reach and scaling operations to support growing customer demand.

3D Systems & Oerlikon Enter Collaboration Agreement to Scale, Accelerate Metal Additive Manufacturing

📅 Date: July 13, 2023
🔖 Topics: Partnership
🏢 Organizations: 3D Systems, Oerlikon

3D Systems (NYSE:DDD) and Oerlikon AM announced the companies have entered a collaboration agreement to further scale metal additive manufacturing. Combining both organizations’ deep process and applications expertise with 3D Systems’ Direct Metal Printing platform and Oerlikon AM’s surface engineering capabilities will enable a faster path to market for applications in high-criticality industries such as semiconductor and aerospace. As part of this agreement, Oerlikon AM is acquiring its fourth 3D Systems DMP Factory 500 system, the first Oerlikon AM is adding in the U.S., to be part of the manufacturing workflow in its North Carolina facility. This will help expand Oerlikon’s end-to-end supply chain solution for high-precision, complex aluminum components for the U.S. market.

proteanTecs and Teradyne Partner to Bring Machine Learning-driven Telemetry to SoC Testing

📅 Date: July 11, 2023
🏢 Organizations: proteanTecs, Teradyne

proteanTecs, a global leader of deep data analytics for advanced electronics, and Teradyne (NASDAQ:TER), a leading supplier of automated test solutions, announced their strategic partnership to enhance semiconductor test and debug processes for advanced system-on-chips (SoCs). By connecting proteanTecs’ on-chip agent data and analytics software with Teradyne’s test programs, customers benefit from a new level of device visibility where they need it most — on the tester, for inline and real-time decisions.

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