|
Country |
Industry | Solution |
| China | New Energy | PS+AMR |
Under the global trend of upgrading fule vehicle to electric vehicle, the penetration rate of new energy vehicles continues to increase, and the demand for driving power batteries and anode materials maintains rapid growth. According to statistics, global anode material output in 2023 is 1.76 million tons, with a year-on-year growth rate of 20%.
Discover How this global leading anode material manufacturer redefine it's supply chain and meet the rocketing market demand with the help of automation solution from MEGVII.
About Zichen Technology
Zichen has always been an industry leader in the field of artificial graphite anode materials, ranking among the top three in the world in sales and volumes. The artificial graphite anode material independently developed by the company has obvious advantages over other artificial graphite anode materials in terms of cycle life, charge and discharge rate, high and low temperature storage, etc., and is widely used in consumer electronics, power batteries and other fields. At present, the main customers of Zichen Technology are domestic and foreign leading battery companies, such as LG, Samsung SDI, SK, ATL, CATL, BYD, etc.
Zichen Technology's business has grown rapidly in recent years, at the same time facing big challenges from the mismatch of business increase and outdated infrastructure. In order to reduce the risks and costs of the supply chain, In 2021, Zichen Technology decided to automate and intelligently upgrade the warehouse located in Liyang city.
The Challenges
The rapidly increase business outgrows its existed facility
As a early embracer of automation, Zichen had already run stacker crane AS/RS in its warehouse for a long time, which lacked the stability, flexibility and scalability, and cannot satisfied its booming business anymore.
"We truly feel the value of automation and intelligent upgrades, which can effectively help enterprises reduce costs, increase efficiency, save energy and reduce emissions. We are very willing to embrace new technologies of automation and intelligence, play a demonstration and leading role in the rapidly developing lithium battery industry, and promote industry innovation."
Mingzhe Nan
General Manager of Zichen Liyang
Low employee satisfaction in a poor air quality warehouse
Graphite material is stored in jumbo bag and prone to leakage, causing a very dusty warehouse environment which is not friendly to the operators working in the space. Running a fully automated and independent warehouse, and separate the operator from the dusty environment has always been essential to them.
The Dusty Environment Embarrass the Running of Automation
Graphite material is conductive, and as a nano-scale material, it is not only unfriendly to the human, but also there is a risk of entering the robot, which poses higher challenges to the planning of the entire solution and the selection of intelligent equipment.
Time is too precious to be wasted
The ever-changing market piled pressure on the capacity of warehouse every moment at that time. Zichen was expecting to have the system go live in a short time.
Partner with MEGVII
| 268P/H | 20000P | 15M | 50 | 34 |
| Pallet Movements | Pallet Storage | Storage Height |
Shuttles |
AMRs |
20000 pallet storage locations and the capacity of 268 pallet movements each hour are achieved by MEGVII PS+AMR solution in this warehouse, which can not be satisfied by expanding its existed stacker crane AS/RS system. After comparing to the solutions, Zichen are totally convinced by the flexibility, scalability and stability of this more advanced system.
With Deeper storage lane, the MEGVII 3D shuttle system can achieve higher storage density at same limited footprint, in other words, the 3D shuttle can utilize the space more effectively than its existed stacker crane system.
The shuttles can literally reach to each corner of the racking system without physical limitation by running lanes and interference by other shuttles, under the management of MEGVII intelligent software. This flexibility allows Zichen to add number of shuttles as much as they want, in order to satisfy the matching throughput, no matter it is low or high.
The easy scalable feature of 3D shuttle has assured Zichen the future extension of system could be conducted effortlessly.
In the system designed by megvii for Zichen warehouse, pallets are transported by a fleet of 18 slam navigation AMRs from receiving area to 3D shuttle storage system. After the pallet code is recognized and the quality of pallet is approved, the storage location of the pallet will be allocated by WES and AMR will be indicated to pick up the pallet and transport to the inbound docking point with shuttle, afterwards shuttle will deposite the pallet to the designated location. On the other side, after taking over from shuttle system, the pallets fed to the workshops from warehouse are transported by another fleet of 16 QR code navigation AMRs, through long distance corridors. This kind of relay race fulfilled by shuttle together with AMR set free the operators from the dusty warehouse environment and enhance the satisfication to next level.
In order to address the threats from conductive floating particles in the air, MEGVII tailored sealed anti conduction model based on standard shuttle, which perfectly resolved the problem.
Great Social Influence
This project was interviewed by CCTV and reported by mainstream news media such as Sohu.com, ifeng.com, Tencent, Sina, etc.
The implementation and application of Megvii AI+Robot solution has played a positive role in reducing costs, increasing efficiency and improving productivity in the new energy industry, and has also brought huge brand effects to Zichen Technology.
Benefits of Adopting MEGVII Solutions
1. Increasing storage density meanwhile leave the space for future expansion.
2. Achieving 268 movements within an hour without sacrificing space from additional lane.
3. Having a efficient, accurate and streamlined handling flow between the warehouse and workshops.
4. Improving employee satisfication
