In recent years, China's auto brands have made great progress. Although it is still difficult to get rid of the limitations of market positioning and technical limitations of product manufacturing, brands seem to have gradually explored their own product routes. Despite this, we are still in a big car manufacturing country rather than a car powerhouse. Among them, China auto parts suppliers have not formed core competitiveness, which may be one of the main reasons.
At present, China's auto parts industry production process, manufacturing standards can not meet most of the requirements of automakers, core technology is almost monopolized by multinational companies, and it seems that technological innovation is still far away. And can the 3D printing technology that has warmed up globally and entered the fast lane recently brought new changes to the innovation of Chinese auto parts?
Simplicity 3D printing
Nowadays, the hot 3D printing technology is summarized by Gartner, the world's first information technology research and analysis organization, as one of the top ten strategic technology trends in 2014, and is regarded by the British "Economist" as "with other digital production models." Promote the realization of the third industrial revolution." In the United States, the 3D Printing National Innovation Center is being planned, and China has also ushered in a policy dividend. The Ministry of Science and Technology has included 3D printing in the 863 Plan and established the world's first 3D printing industry alliance.
At present, 3D printing products are endless, involving crafts, human organs, aircraft and auto parts. The world's first 3D printing car, the Urbane2, has only about 50 parts, and a standard car requires tens of thousands of parts. This minimalist technology brings a new production concept.
The popularity of 3D printing technology stems from the fact that its technology meets the needs of industrial production changes, and it is developing in a fast and low-cost direction. On the other hand, it comes from its cross-domain production mode, which can be used in many fields and can effectively be large. Scale production and hand production are integrated, which is a destructive innovation for traditional mold production.
The impact of 3D printing technology on the auto parts industry may be more durable and far-reaching. The above mentioned 3D printing car Urbee2, all external components including glass panels are printed by 3D technology. At first glance, the use of 3D printing technology has greatly reduced the number of auto parts, the essence In addition, 3D printing technology can promote the innovation capability of the auto parts industry.
Start with sample production of parts
The advantages of 3D printing technology are the ability to quickly change design errors, increase productivity, and reduce development costs. Compared with the traditional mold development, as well as complex processes such as forging and casting, the intermediate links are simplified, thereby reducing the consumption of manpower and material resources and shortening the development cycle. Compared with the current development cycle of domestic parts for more than 45 days, 3D printing technology only requires 1 to 7 days of development cycle depending on the complexity of components, and has outstanding advantages in the manufacture of complex parts.
For independent brand suppliers, the trial production of parts and components is a test field that component manufacturers attach great importance to. If the sample production process adopts the traditional manufacturing process, it is often necessary to develop many molds and produce them through complicated processes, thereby greatly increasing the cost of sample trial production. The application of 3D printing technology may be able to make up for these shortcomings. Ford is said to have 3D printing technology involved in parts development and manufacturing, and has developed 3D sand printing, which enables the production of a range of measurable testable parts to choose from. Until the best parts are selected, they are paired with the off-line models.
Infiltration car customization
With the development of emerging information technologies such as mobile Internet and cloud computing, the personal experience is becoming more and more diversified. People's pursuit of a free experience that is not constrained by the external environment is more intense, and their individualized needs are increasingly obvious.
This demand is also urging changes in social production and manufacturing models. The significance of 3D printing technology is to enable people to integrate the digital world with real-world production, seamlessly connecting product manufacturing and personal needs. For example, some time ago, Motorola and 3D printing manufacturer 3DSystem developed the 3D printing production platform project ARA, which blew the horn of the open source mobile phone hardware system. The main purpose of this project is to produce personalized customized mobile phones for users. Choose different hardware to assemble a personalized device like a PC.
Of course, it’s not just mobile phones, but the personalization brought by the Internet also urges the arrival of auto personality customization. With the acceleration of the frequency of car replacement and the need for people's choice of car functions, the car may be able to achieve deeper personalization in the near future, rather than the current simple appearance.
Among the custom car sales methods, the biggest problem is that personalization will prolong the efficiency of the production process and bring scale to production. At this point, the application of 3D printing technology may bring more imagination. People can get their favorite car parts on the hardware platform such as ARA, such as car bumpers, rearview mirrors and other internal and external accessories to assemble their own customized cars. Furthermore, parts manufactured using 3D printing technology can also reduce maintenance costs, print out damaged and scarce parts, and reduce inventory costs.
Of course, due to restrictions on printed materials and other reasons, the current 3D printing technology is still in its infancy, and it is still far away from scale production. However, the advent of various 3D printing products represented by the 3D printing car Urbee2 means that globally, 3D printing technology has moved away from the concept of hype to an industry and even reconstruct the automobile manufacturing mode. This should be a good carrier for future innovation of independent brands. Therefore, auto parts manufacturers should start from the moment and make good use of this forward-looking technology to form a parallel complementary relationship with traditional manufacturing before mass production, and accumulate experience for large-scale customized production in the future.
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