The global fourth industrial revolution in smart manufacturing and automation requires intelligent solutions. On Wednesday (Aug. 18), German engineering giant Siemens started a month-long Digital Enterprise Virtual Expo. The expo specially showcases a collaboration project between Siemens and King Steel, Taiwan’s leading producer of shoe-making machinery. The expo demonstration how the project used full-spectrum digital solutions to assist companies in implementing a successful digital transformation of their manufacturing processes.
King Steel manufacturing machinery use Siemens SIMATIC controllers integrated with Siemens Digital Twin digitization solutions to accelerate the development of new machines and more efficient management of component wastage. Siemens and King Steel, two powerhouses within their respective industries, are joining hands and making great strides toward decoding the fourth industrial revolution.
Siemens continues to promote digital industries in Taiwan, this year signing a memorandum of agreement to collaborate with King Steel in the development of key fourth industrial revolution applications for the manufacturing industry.
Photo courtesy of Siemens/King Steel
Siemens Taiwan’s general manager of digital industry, Tino Hildebrand, said: “Taiwan is a world-class center for shoe manufacturing and Siemens is fortunate to have the opportunity to work closely with top manufacturer King Steel to introduce Siemens’ full-spectrum digitalization solutions. Siemens is assisting King Steel to upgrade its shoe machinery design and manufacturing to help drive forward industrial productivity, improve flexibility, realize digital transformation within a fast-changing global market.”?
According to Jim Chen (陳璟浩), special assistant to King Steel chairman, “As we enter a post-COVID-19 era, many of our customers are facing staff shortage problems, particularly involving the production process of rubber soles, which is quite complex.
In the past, one piece of equipment would require between four and six people to operate it, consuming both time and labor cost.
Photo courtesy of Siemens/King Steel
By teaming up with Siemens and employing its highly-efficient SIMATIC S7 series of controllers and integrating this with Siemens digital software, we have been able to significantly increase the production efficiency of our equipment, reducing labor intensity by as much as 80 to 90 percent.
Additionally, during the early stages of the equipment’s development, Siemens’ Digital Twin solution — abbreviated to NX MCD — allows for pre-production virtual reality simulated testing. This greatly shortens the product development timeline and allows King Steel to produce bespoke digital transformation platforms for its customers.
The successful collaboration between King Steel is an important milestone, providing a basis for future cooperation between the two companies, facilitating rapid research and development and producing a competitive edge for King Steel.
Photo courtesy of Siemens/King Steel
For more than 40 years, King Steel has placed an important emphasis on research and development as well as innovation. Responding to industry requirements for digital transformation and smart manufacturing, King Steel has partnered with Siemens to develop a new generation of smart machinery with leading industries in mechatronics, open communication and integrated virtual reality.
Siemens provides a comprehensive integrated automation platform, called the TIA Portal, which pairs the high-performance SIMATIC S7-1500 controller with Digital Twin integrated virtual reality solutions, which also incorporates motor components on the same platform. The fully-integrated mechatronic platform achieves the aim of improving the efficiency of high-end manufacturing machinery research and development.
Siemens emphasizes that its SIMATIC S7-1500 high-performance controller has excellent system functions, an extremely short response time, and the best and safest technical integration.
Paired with the Digital Twin solution and NX MCD mechatronics conceptual design, which incorporates CAD 3D modeling, digital modeling of equipment and machinery can be generated. This allows for simulation testing and adjustments to be carried out during the early stage of the development and procurement, greatly reducing the development time of new machinery and equipment, and saving on development costs.
King Steel is leading position as a world-class producer of shoe-making machinery and equipment has working with Siemens to develop and integrate the latest technologies. Through seamless connection of digital software and hardware, and the use of big data, King Steel has been able to streamline the development process and shorten time-to-market.
As the industry marches on towards the goal of factory automation, King Steel is well-placed to meet the goals of automated smart production and remote, real-time management that its customers demand; helping its clients build smart factories for the future and enhance their international competitiveness.
For more information on the Digital Enterprise Virtual Expo, which runs through to Sep. 17, please visit: https://www.siemensdi.com.tw
SPEED OF LIGHT: US lawmakers urged the commerce department to examine the national security threats from China’s development of silicon photonics technology US President Joe Biden’s administration on Monday said it is finalizing rules that would limit US investments in artificial intelligence (AI) and other technology sectors in China that could threaten US national security. The rules, which were proposed in June by the US Department of the Treasury, were directed by an executive order signed by Biden in August last year covering three key sectors: semiconductors and microelectronics, quantum information technologies and certain AI systems. The rules are to take effect on Jan. 2 next year and would be overseen by the Treasury’s newly created Office of Global Transactions. The Treasury said the “narrow
SPECULATION: The central bank cut the loan-to-value ratio for mortgages on second homes by 10 percent and denied grace periods to prevent a real-estate bubble The central bank’s board members in September agreed to tighten lending terms to induce a soft landing in the housing market, although some raised doubts that they would achieve the intended effect, the meeting’s minutes released yesterday showed. The central bank on Sept. 18 introduced harsher loan restrictions for mortgages across Taiwan in the hope of curbing housing speculation and hoarding that could create a bubble and threaten the financial system’s stability. Toward the aim, it cut the loan-to-value ratio by 10 percent for second and subsequent home mortgages and denied grace periods for first mortgages if applicants already owned other residential
EXPORT CONTROLS: US lawmakers have grown more concerned that the US Department of Commerce might not be aggressively enforcing its chip restrictions The US on Friday said it imposed a US$500,000 penalty on New York-based GlobalFoundries Inc, the world’s third-largest contract chipmaker, for shipping chips without authorization to an affiliate of blacklisted Chinese chipmaker Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp (SMIC, 中芯). The US Department of Commerce in a statement said GlobalFoundries sent 74 shipments worth US$17.1 million to SJ Semiconductor Corp (盛合晶微半導體), an affiliate of SMIC, without seeking a license. Both SMIC and SJ Semiconductor were added to the department’s trade restriction Entity List in 2020 over SMIC’s alleged ties to the Chinese military-industrial complex. SMIC has denied wrongdoing. Exports to firms on the list
TECHNOLOGY EXIT: The selling of Apple stock might be related to the death of Berkshire vice chairman Charlie Munger last year, an analyst said Billionaire Warren Buffett is now sitting on more than US$325 billion in cash after continuing to unload billions of US dollars worth of Apple Inc and Bank of America Corp shares this year and continuing to collect a steady stream of profits from all of Berkshire Hathaway Inc’s assorted businesses without finding any major acquisitions. Berkshire on Saturday said it sold off about 100 million more Apple shares in the third quarter after halving its massive investment in the iPhone maker the previous quarter. The remaining stake of about 300 million shares was valued at US$69.9 billion at the end of
RSS