With the promotion of the national “dual carbon” strategy, new energy vehicles have entered a new stage of rapid market-oriented development. “Minimalist manufacturing, extreme manufacturing, and intelligent manufacturing” have become the industry consensus, and TQCM have become the main theme of the industry. As a high-tech company focusing on lithium battery modules and PACK manufacturing systems, intelligent packaging and logistics, as well as automated warehousing and storage, Huashu Jinming held “THE ONE” Module Production Line Technical Press Conference in Changzhou on June 28 with the theme of Line for “Cell”, “Cell” running with the Line.

Mr. Li Hao, Standing Committee member of Wujin District Committee, Deputy Secretary of Party Working Committee and Director of Management Committee of Wujin National High-tech Zone, Mr. Lu Yanyong, deputy director of Management Committee of Wujin National High-tech Zone, Mr. Wang Qun, Chairman of Strategy Committee of Wuhan Huazhong Numerical Control Co., LTD., and Mr. Shen Can, Vice president of Wuhan Huazhong Numerical Control Co., LTD., General manager of Huashu Jinming attended the conference.

“THE ONE” Module Production Line Technology Press Conference was hosted by Gu Guohong, deputy dean of the New Energy Vehicle Specialized and Special New Industry College of Jiangsu University, Ministry of Industry and Information Technology. The events attracted more than 160 senior executives from leading lithium battery companies such as CALB, Yaoneng New Energy, Trinasolar, Ganfeng Lithium, Human Horizons, SVOLT Energy, Xpeng, BYD, and EVE Energy, as well as executives from auto parts companies of Webasto and CONEXAL and so on.

Li Hao, director of Wujin National High-tech Zone where Huashu Jinming was located, delivered a speech and presided over the unveiling ceremony of “THE ONE” module production line. The Consulates General of Indonesia, Uzbekistan, Cambodia and other countries in Shanghai, who are concerned about the development of China’s new energy automobile industry, also sent representatives to visit the Huashu Jinming factory and participated in this technical press conference.

Huashu Jinming “THE ONE” module production line unveiling ceremony

After the press conference, some guests continued to attend the 6th Anniversary Appreciation Banquet of Huashu Jinming.

Huashu Jinming, subsidiary of Huazhong CNC (stock code 300161), is a high-tech enterprise focusing on the R&D of industrial robots and system integration manufacturing. It has world-class research, design and manufacturing capabilities in the fields of new energy vehicle power battery equipment, energy storage system, industrial robots, full-automatic packaging equipment, large logistics systems, and intelligent software. Adheres to “Industry 4.0” orientation, Huashu Jinming is committed to providing global customers with the turnkey solutions for intelligent manufacturing, and it has built intelligent production bases in Changzhou, Jiangsu and Wuhan, Hubei, and established branch companies in Hungary and the United States.

Since its establishment, Huashu Jinming has been working hard in the manufacturing of lithium battery modules and PACKs. With the support of the parent company’s powerful motion control technology, it has been constantly evolving along with the growth of the industry.

Current situation and trigger points of lithium battery module production line: (Taking prismatic module line as an example) 

The lithium battery module cell processing section generally includes: cell feeding, code scanning, OCV testing, NG replacement, cell plasma cleaning, cell coating (or pasting), cell stacking and other key links. 

The original lithium battery module production line works as follows: run – stop – run, and the production takt is generally 18~24PPM (that is, 18~24 cell per minute). With the penetration rate of new energy vehicles getting higher and higher, it has broken through 30% in the first half of this year. The power battery demand is striding into the TWh level, which is ushering in the era of large manufacturing, and the industry generally takes the production takt to reach 24PPM~60PPM as the pursuit aim. However, the existing takt improvement is simply duplicating a large number of the same equipment and connecting the complex line body, which has higher cost, reduced stability and limited efficiency. Moreover, it is more inconsistent with the current status of the average 12-24 months changeover in the lithium battery industry, which is a natural contradiction.

The technical progress of THE ONE:

In order to solve the needs of increasing the production speed and efficiency of lithium battery module lines, and reduce the TCO cost (Total cost of Ownership) of equipment in the era of mass manufacturing, Huashu Jinming faced:
1. The current high speed is a result of a large number of equipment piled up, and the production line is constantly adding, with higher cost and low stability.
2. In response to the two major industry trigger points of the frequent changeover requirements of the lithium battery industry of 12-24 months on average, Huashu Jinming creatively proposed “THE ONE” module production line solution. At present, the production takt of large cylindrical battery can reach 100-400PPM, and prismatic aluminum battery can achieve 20-60PPM, and the pouch battery can achieve 30-50PPM, and the production efficiency can be increased by 3-4 times.

Six advantages of the cell processing section of “THE ONE” module production line:

1, Flexible combination, one-time hardware investment decreased by 10-15%
2. Multi-SKU production
3. No tooling plate design, and the post-stack section can flexibly configure the process requirements
4, the footprint is reduced by 15-40%
5. Very low hardware changeover investment
6. Simple structure, unitization and standardization

Five advantages of the assembly section of “THE ONE” module production line:

1.Non-rigid connection, the production sequence between each process station can be adjusted
2.The high-speed movement of the RGV vehicle can meet the high-takt requirements of the module production line
3.Balance the fluctuations of production capacity of each process station, improve the operation rate and work station balance
4. Easy to disassemble and maintenance, fast and convenient to changeover, low hardware and time cost
5. Very easy to achieve standardization

Manufacturing and delivery of “THE ONE” module production line

“THE ONE” module production line is divided into 4680 large cylindrical module, prismatic module, and pouch module according to the needs of the lithium battery cell, covering all lithium battery types.

Delivery schedule for “THE ONE” module production line:
In the fourth quarter of 2022, the cell processing section of large cylindrical battery line has been delivered to customers
In the second quarter of 2023, the (cell processing section) of prismatic battery module line has been be delivered to customers
In the third quarter of 2023, the complete “THE ONE” pouch battery line will be delivered to customers
In the fourth quarter of 2023, the complete “THE ONE” prismatic battery line will start to be delivered to customers
In the first quarter of 2024, we will turn all the module lines into THE ONE module line.

Large-scale manufacturing capacity is the core and most basic competitiveness of the current battery industry. It is a feasible approach to introduce mature large-scale manufacturing technologies from other industries into the lithium battery manufacturing system. The practice of Huashu Jinming is in the forefront of lithium battery module equipment enterprises!