NHI Headlines
NHI Has Made New Breakthrough in Design and R&D Through “Standardization, Modularization and Parameterization”
Recently, NHI under Fangda Group has completed standardization, modularization and parameterization of common parts for belt conveyor in design and R&D, which was applied for the first time in China. This was another milestone of scientific and technological development achievement after the mixed ownership reform of NHI.
Scientific and Technological Development Ushered in New Opportunities Through Mixed Ownership Reform
After the mixed ownership reform, under the great support from Fangda Group, NHI continued to increase investment in technology updating and reform for the traditional products and design and R&D for new products. NHI had invested 13.65million yuan in the new graphics workstations and servers, and purchased 254 computers and updated 9 design softwares, which opened new path for products design from 2D graphic design to 3D design in modularization, parameterization and networking.
At the same time, the income distribution was inclined to the product design and R&D team, and an incentive mechanism was introduced in product design and R&D. Good design and R&D conditions, respect for knowledge and creation, and favorable treatment had stimulated the enthusiasm of technical personnel to design and develop new products. The upgrade of traditional products and acceleration of R&D in new products had gained fruitful results.
Aiming at Science, Technology and R&D, Breaking the Bottleneck of Restriction
As belt conveyor and its components featured in non-standard and customer-made, the designs were different by different engineers. The traditional design software and design process were relatively simple and time-consuming, and the speed of responding to customer needs was limited. It was difficult to meet the personalized needs of customers, which seriously restricted the development of enterprise core technology.
The realization of “standardization, modularization and parameterization” of common parts for belt conveyor could greatly reduce the repeated work by engineers, improve the design quality with the improved efficiency by over 30%, and shorten the time of technical preparation. Meanwhile, prompt response to customer’s personalized requirements could be achieved. In phase of design proposal, multiple design schemes could be finished promptly for purpose of seeking for the best solution by comparison.
The “standardization, modularization and parameterization" in design and R&D of common parts for belt conveyor is the future direction of digital development of belt conveyor products, and provides data support for the product information management, which will certainly lead the technical development of belt conveyor industry and enhance NHI’s competitiveness in this product market.
It was because NHI had found the importance and urgency of the "standardization, modularization and parameterization" in design and R&D of the common parts for the belt conveyor that NHI had decided to take it as the key project of scientific and technological development.
Presenting the Strength in Technology and R&D by Solving Key Problems and Innovation
It was the conveyor equipment R&D Institute team of NHI to undertake the task of "standardization, modularization and parameterization" in design and development of common parts for belt conveyor. With the personal technical advantages and strength by teamwork, they had realized five major innovations in standardization, modularization, parametric architecture and workflow. That is: relying on SolidWorks design platform to innovate 3D parametric design and R&D, improving development efficiency and subsequent use efficiency; innovating standardized model structure, upgrading and refining the product standard structure from the past qualitative description to quantitative structure solidification, which is conducive to the promotion of model standard structure; innovating the compilation of serialization and modularization manual to improve the product generalization and standard. The standardization level is conducive to reducing the cost of product and component design, process, manufacturing and procurement, and shortening the design and manufacturing preparation cycle; innovating and developing a three-dimensional platform with strong applicability and combining with the existing PLM system to meet the conversion of three-dimensional data and two-dimensional drawings and the input and output of product BOM; innovating and establishing a complete and universal "standardization, modularization and parameterization" in design of universal belt conveyor components with the R&D process, the future model and data can be extended and continuously updated.
The overall data volume of the projects concerning the "standardization, modularization and parameterization" in design and development of common parts for belt conveyor was about 400,000 pieces, and the logic code was about 100,000 pieces, with more than 3000 kinds of parametric models. Through the joint efforts of the research team, the parametric research and development of three-dimensional model and typical structure of common parts for belt conveyor, such as pulley group, idler group, idler, head frame, tail frame, take-up device, etc., had been completed. Among them, the roller group had successfully passed the whole process trial of design, standardization, process and PLM.
NHI’s realization of first application in standardization, modularization and parameterization of common parts for belt conveyor in China, has become an important support for creating new economic growth point, which undoubtedly has huge social and economic benefits.