How does Jiangsu Tianyuan realize the upgrading leap of intelligent manufacturing?

It is one of the goals of the manufacturing industry for China's intelligent manufacturing to become a global manufacturing. In 2017, at the beginning of intelligent manufacturing in China, a company opened its production line to the United States, producing 80000 pieces per day in 22 seconds. With the help of intelligent automation equipment, Jiangsu Tianyuan Garments achieved a leap in the industry!

01 Problems in the development of Jiangsu Tianyuan

Jiangsu Tianyuan Garment Co., Ltd. was established in 2003. Its parent company, Suzhou Tianyuan, has started the journey of garment processing industry since the 1990s. Now, it has grown into "one of the top 100 enterprises in China's garment industry in 2021", which is a well deserved industry leader.

It has always been the goal of Jiangsu Tianyuan to integrate into the world high-quality textile supply chain with faster speed, lower cost and higher quality. To become an intelligent benchmarking enterprise in the clothing industry, how to embrace digital, automatic and intelligent system equipment? It is a major task for Jiangsu Tianyuan to create its own exclusive intelligent manufacturing integrated solution. After many inquiries and comparisons, Risun Intelligence finally came to the fore. The two sides reached a cooperation agreement in 2016, and successively implemented five intelligence manufacturing plans, working together to create the future.

Jiangsu Tianyuan mainly faces the following problems (core pain points):

• Accelerate product production and improve production capacity;

• Reduce the production costs of the enterprise, and achieve flexibility and production management for business operators;

• Improve product quality and monitor production;

• Create an intelligent benchmarking enterprise in the clothing industry.

02 Solve the core problems and build an intelligent workshop

Since 2016, Risun Intelligence has successively carried out the implementation of intelligent manufacturing integration system solutions for 5 factories related to Jiangsu Tianyuan. In each cooperation, we constantly innovate in the process of running in to try to achieve the optimal solution. The projects we have implemented have won the honorary title of "2017 Textile Industry Practice Intelligent Manufacturing Demonstration Enterprise" jointly awarded by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the Chinese Academy of Engineering, the Chinese Association for Science and Technology, the People's Government of Jiangsu Province, and the China Textile Engineering Society, and become the only enterprise in the clothing processing category that has won this honor.

How to get rid of the problems faced by the garment processing industry, such as low capital and technical barriers, high labor intensity and fierce competition? How to realize the information interconnection of the whole workshop? How does the intelligent suspension system adapt to the production needs of different workshops? From which aspects are cost constraints and specifications carried out?

• Get through the whole production process
  

To play an important role in the digital system, first of all, we need to define the actual needs of the whole plant, and how to solve the core points of the implementation monitoring of the whole process, such as the identification and classification of defects in the production process such as over seaming, chip color difference, needle pitch looseness, etc., the display of big data of the whole plant, the display of team quality information, and the sales information. Detailed database information support is required.

Through the big data system of Risun, the production data in the whole vehicle room of the factory is collected, sorted and calculated uniformly, and a database system is established. Under the control of digital brain, RFID data acquisition and intelligent suspension system, intelligent warehouse system and intelligent sorting system are used to realize the direct connection of digital and intelligent equipment information. Through technical means, we can realize the visual management of the efficiency of the production workshop and deal with the link errors in a timely manner.

Combined with the same set of software configuration and operation interface, the original decentralized system is broken, the operation difficulty of technical operators is reduced, the real-time production data of the whole plant is displayed intuitively and clearly, which is convenient for flexible and lean management and resource scheduling. Thus, it can effectively improve the production efficiency by more than 15% and the delivery speed by less than 4 hours.

• Improve the speed and efficiency of production process

"The risk of innovation failure can be controlled, but the value of successful innovation is immeasurable," said He Yuefei, secretary of the Tianyuan Party Branch. The garment processing industry faces many difficulties. If it wants to stand out in the fierce competition and effectively improve the speed and efficiency in the production process, the "intelligent manufacturing power" should not be underestimated.

Different production links, such as cutting line, storage, sorting, hanging production, automatic screening and matching, product finishing, sorting, and transportation, have the same lifting requirement: speed.

Risun intelligent suspension system is directly connected to the database. Combining the actual plant structure and production capacity requirements of Jiangsu Tianyuan, flexible wiring is carried out. The defects of the traditional chain structure are abandoned. Long distance, span transmission is adopted. The maximum transmission length of a single line can reach 300 meters. At the same time, it can realize the assembly line operation with multiple orders and high production capacity, eliminate or significantly reduce the backlog of WIP and the dwell time.

According to the difference of the required process and equipment, they will enter different production lines. Identify according to the RFID bound on the coat hanger, and the system will automatically screen and pair to the same station for combination, so as to realize automatic pairing production. 

By comprehensively improving the conveying speed, the peak flow can reach 3500 pieces/hour (the peak flow of traditional chain transmission is about 600 pieces/hour). Compared with the traditional mode, the transmission efficiency is improved by more than 5 times, and the capacity is increased by at least 20-30%. In the whole process, if there are problems such as defective products, wrong raw material cutting, color code number, etc., the piece can return to the defective station at any time to greatly reduce the rate of defective products and ensure product quality.

In 2017, as the largest supplier of Adidas in China, Jiangsu Tianyuan invested in building a factory in the United States and introduced 21 fully automatic production lines. When the system is fully operational, it can produce one T-shirt in 22 seconds, with a daily output of 80000. Each workstation on a fully automatic T-shirt production line is very clear, simple and efficient. In one production line, only one worker is required to operate independently. Risun Intelligence carries out the whole plant planning of intelligent suspension system and intelligent material sorting system for Tianyuan in American. Due to the reduction of operators, the manufacturing cost has also decreased significantly, which is about 33 cents. This means that even the cheapest labor market in the world cannot compete with it, and fully automated production is truly realized. 

For Jiangsu Tianyuan, the large-scale production capacity means that the daily sorting flow will be measured in tens of thousands. Such workload will not be realized only by traditional human transportation.

After understanding the actual needs of each factory in Jiangsu Tianyuan, our team carried out a detailed design of the logistics sorting system according to the factory’s actual capacity, estimated capacity and the whole plant planning. Finally, we integrated the original three warehouses of knitting, woven and down jacket, saving nearly 20000 square meters. The modern three-dimensional warehouse with a height of 7.5 meters has about 360000 sets of clothing stored in it, and the number of warehouse staff has also been reduced from 60 to 7!

In the intelligent sorting logistics system of the whole plant, it not only includes a powerful intelligent three-dimensional storage system, but also is equipped with many automatic equipment, such as sorters, belt conveyors, sealers, weighing and labeling machines, roller conveyor lines, transfer machines, etc., which are integrated into the intelligent system in a unified way, combined with the access mode of multi floor warehouses, to speed up the distribution and disassembly of required goods.

As the center of product turnover scheduling, the combination of highly digitized and automated modern warehouse technology has effectively improved the efficiency and accuracy of product storage and retrieval.

Effect data:

• Comprehensively improve the transmission speed, and the peak flow can reach 3500 pieces/hour (the peak flow of traditional chain transmission is about 600 pieces/hour). Compared with the traditional mode, the transmission efficiency is improved by more than 5 times, and the capacity is increased by at least 20-30%;

• The saving area is nearly 20000 square meters, the storage capacity is 360000 sets, and the number of warehouse personnel is sharply reduced from 60 to 7.

03 Win-win and create the future with customers

Jiangsu Tianyuan Garment has turned the enterprise track from labor-intensive to innovative and lean manufacturing development, and strives to climb to the middle and high end of the value chain around innovation and intelligent manufacturing. Risun Intelligence has the honor to work with Jiangsu Tianyuan to provide it with intelligent intelligent manufacturing integrated system solutions within 6 years, to achieve digitalization, automation and intelligence of production, effectively improve productivity, continue to develop and innovate, and create new achievements!

We are grateful for the trust of Jiangsu Tianyuan, and we sincerely wish the cause can reach another peak!

It is a great honor to have been with us for 6 years. In the future service, Risun Intelligence will make concerted efforts to help customers grow, win together with customers and create a better future with excellent technology and quality service!