Compared with die forging hammer and hot die forging press, spiral press has the advantages of wide process adaptation, high cost performance, simple structure, convenient use and maintenance. The electric screw press and friction, hydraulic, high energy and other forms of screw press compared, but also has the running noise is smaller, the transmission chain is shorter, the striking efficiency is higher, and can accurately and stably control its striking energy and other outstanding characteristics, so it is the production of precision forging parts of a new, universal core forming equipment, is the replacement of screw press products. In this issue, the reporter of Forging and Stamping magazine had the honor to interview Mr. Feng Yi, general manager of Wuhan Newwish Technology Co., LTD. (hereinafter referred to as "Newwish"), a leading enterprise in the production of electric screw presses in China, and asked him to tell us about the innovation road of  electric screw press from Newwish.

chool and enterprise joint, innovation and hard work

Founded in 1993 by the State Key Laboratory of Material Forming and Mold Technology of Huazhong University of Science and Technology and Hubei Advanced Forming Technology and Equipment Engineering Technology Research Center, the founder was Professor Huang Shuhuai, former president of Huazhong University of Science and Technology. Is a national high-tech enterprise specializing in the development, manufacturing, sales and technical services of new forging equipment and its automation technology and complete sets of equipment, focusing on the research and development, design and manufacturing of new precision forging equipment such as fast forging hydraulic press computer control technology and electric screw press. Products are widely used in automobile, construction machinery, agricultural machinery, household appliances, hardware tools, national defense, aerospace and other fields.

The company has more than 130 employees, of which college degree or above accounted for more than 70% of the total number of employees. Adhering to the corporate culture of "career, innovation, hard work, collaboration", at least 5% of sales revenue is invested as research and development funds every year. In 2016, the R&D Center was recognized as Wuhan Enterprise Research and Development Center by Wuhan Science and Technology Bureau; In 2018, the company's technology center was rated as Hubei Province Enterprise Technology Center; In 2019, the company was named the hidden champion of Hubei Province pillar industry segmentation field and Hubei Province service-oriented manufacturing demonstration enterprise.

In 2020, the company won the first prize of Science and Technology Progress of China Machinery Industry, the first prize of Science and Technology Progress of Hubei Province, and the independent research and development and application of key technologies of intelligent hot die forging production line were selected as the top ten scientific and technological progress of intelligent manufacturing in China in 2020.

While continuously strengthening our capacity for independent innovation, we adhere to the path of combining production, learning and research. It has jointly established "Advanced Forming Technology and Equipment Engineering Technology Research Center", "Rapid Prototyping Technology Productivity Promotion Center", "National and Local Joint Engineering Laboratory of Digital Material Processing Technology and Equipment (Hubei)" and "Intelligent Plastic Forming Technology and Equipment Innovation Research and Development Center" with Huazhong University of Science and Technology.

Make steady progress and bring forth the new

"From 1993 to 2001, we carried out horizontal joint technology development and transfer with enterprises, and successively developed high-efficiency hydraulic screw press, new friction press and fast forging hydraulic press based on computer control.

"From 2002 to 2003, we investigated the latest international research progress, started the research and development of the second generation of domestic electric screw press, and produced the first domestic prototype in 2003, filling the domestic gap."

"From 2004 to 2005, after long-term testing, improvement and improvement, through difficult marketing, the first commercial product of electric screw press was sold in 2005, using direct torque control technology (DTC) to control high-performance AC variable frequency motor drive program, advanced and mature technology, high-end and reliable configuration." The driving scheme is the core key technology of the electric screw press, which is very important.

"From 2006 to 2015, we successfully developed a series of specifications from 160 tons to 4,000 tons of CNC electric screw press products and obtained market promotion and recognition, and took the lead in establishing several automatic forging production lines for electric screw presses in China."

"From 2016 to the present, we have successfully developed the latest servo direct drive CNC electric screw press with international advanced level (zero transmission, high efficiency and high precision, no movement noise), and achieved the commercialization and promotion of a series of specifications and models from 160 tons to 2500 tons."

"At present, the company's technology center has more than 3,000 square meters of process and equipment laboratory, with intermediate frequency heating furnace, heat treatment furnace, universal material testing machine, impact testing machine, tonnage meter, noise tester, electrical comprehensive tester and other advanced test and testing equipment at home and abroad more than 30 sets."

"Through continuous innovation, we have successfully developed J58K series geared CNC electric screw press and J58ZK series servo direct drive CNC electric screw press, Y68SK series die forging CNC hydraulic servo press and Y68SKP CNC servo hydraulic flat forging machine and other products and won market promotion and praise. At the same time, dozens of fully automated forging production lines and turnkey projects have been established around these core die forging and forming equipment." When talking about the development process of the electric screw press of Newwish Technology, Feng Yi spoke eloquently.

Quality-oriented, customer-oriented

From a macro point of view, China's economy is in the stage of switching from high-speed development to high-quality development, especially overcapacity in the manufacturing industry, oversupply, industrial concentration, industry and customer requirements for product quality and service quality are becoming higher and higher, enterprises want to survive for a long time, maintain core competitiveness, pay attention to quality is the first premise and basic requirements.

For quality management, Feng Yi confidently said: "We are equipment manufacturing enterprises, for customers, the use of equipment experience and after-sales service quality are very important." The company integrates the advanced concept of quality into the corporate culture and values, promotes the construction and development of quality from top to bottom, everyone participates in quality, everyone attaches importance to quality, and makes quality an important element of our product brand. Our company adheres to the requirements of the latest version of ISO: 9001-2015 and fully introduces the quality management system, and has been rated as an excellent standard unit by Fangyuan, an authoritative certification body in China.

"Before each piece of equipment is delivered, we pass a series of strict process control to prevent unqualified products from leaving the factory and ensure that the products delivered to customers are reliable and easy to use. In order to solve the problems in the use of equipment in a timely and effective manner, the quality management system has established a special after-sales service system, and the company has a special after-sales service department. All of our sales and service personnel are selected and experienced employees who are able to determine the causes of after-sales failures and solve the problems in a timely manner to minimize the production shutdown and loss of customers' on-site production lines due to equipment problems. The purpose of the company's after-sales service is two things: first, all after-sales problems, regardless of customer reasons, first to solve the problem; Second, all after-sales problems, no matter how busy the company, priority adjustment of resources."

Intelligent manufacturing is a long way to go

"The intelligent revolution based on the Internet of Things, big data and cloud computing aims to achieve automated and information-based intelligent production, which is also the development goal and direction of 'Made in China 2025'." The automation, intelligent and green manufacturing of equipment manufacturing industry is the development direction and trend of various enterprises, and the automation, energy saving, material saving and environmental protection requirements of die forging equipment and its production line have been the consensus of the industry in recent years.

"Our company is built around this development trend to build its own development strategy, since 2016, from a single electric screw press equipment manufacturer to upgrade to a total solution provider, to provide customers with core die forging forming equipment + die process + automation + information + intelligent whole line solutions."

"In terms of core die forging forming equipment, we have successfully developed and launched gear driven and servo direct drive CNC electric screw presses, multi-action, multi-direction, multi-station CNC servo hydraulic press and servo hydraulic flat forging machine and other products, and invested in the development of servo direct drive hot die forging press, We believe that the development trend of forging equipment is inevitably shorter and shorter transmission chain, stronger and stronger process flexibility, and higher and higher degree of automation information.

"Mold process is the soul of forging, forging equipment and production lines are in order to achieve the process and exist and develop, die forging development direction is always higher and higher precision, lower and lower temperature, which is energy saving, material saving, consumption reduction, environmental protection and other green manufacturing inevitable requirements, In this area, we have our own mold process department and have maintained deep cooperation with the State Key Laboratory of Material Forming and Mold Technology of Huazhong University of Science and Technology.

"Automated production lines can maximize the consistency of forging products, which is the inevitable requirements of downstream customers of forging production enterprises, reliable quality, stability is the only choice, in addition, with fewer and fewer young people willing to engage in forging industry, saving people and extending the working time of the production line is also one of the goals of automation, Our company began to develop automatic forging production lines around electric screw presses in 2009, and has successfully completed more than 70 fully automated production lines and turnkey projects.

"Automation is the basis of information, with the equipment and production line to meet the requirements of automation, coupled with the necessary sensors and detection devices, in order to achieve the information of the production line, such as the data acquisition system we developed around the equipment, remote diagnosis system, as well as the three-dimensional online detection of the production line vision system, etc., the foundation of information is built. In the future, it is inevitable to realize the data of equipment and production lines.

"Information is the basis of intelligence, after the realization of automation and information, the production line's 'body' and 'nerve' and other hardware facilities are completed, and the collected data is processed into information, it is necessary to have the process strategy of the 'brain' to turn information into knowledge to command the full closed-loop automatic adjustment and operation of the entire production line, this step is still a long way to go, and the road is long." I will search up and down."

Focus forging, collaborative development

In the minutes of the working meeting of the chairman and chief supervisor of the China Forging Association in 2020, it is mentioned that: from the current situation, the upgrading speed of forging equipment is accelerated, but the profits of equipment enterprises are worrying. The main problem is that the diversity and personalized needs of forging equipment are obvious, and the research and development investment is large, but the market demand is limited, and the sales price can not make up for the investment, which not only affects the new technology research and development of equipment enterprises, but also affects the survival of equipment enterprises. In order to provide more competitive and efficient forging equipment for the forging industry, it is time for forging production enterprises to seriously consider the frequency, advancement and practicality of equipment investment, and slow down or avoid the vicious competition in the price of forging equipment.

In response to the above problems, Feng Yi said: "As an equipment company, we deeply feel the same, there is no good price or a certain profit margin, it is difficult to make good equipment, more difficult to ensure the continuous improvement and upgrading of products and technology, making the forging equipment industry similar to other domestic machine tool industries, is always large but not strong, we themselves locked in simple and repetitive low-end manufacturing, And the real high-end manufacturing cake is still firmly grasped by foreign equipment manufacturers, it is obvious that the low-end oversupply, high-end has no response, even the leading enterprises in the domestic machine tool industry, can not get out of such a dilemma. "

For domestic and foreign counterparts compared, Feng Yi said: "The gap is still very obvious, the first manufacturing industry is industrial, especially our equipment manufacturing industry belongs to the middle and high-end manufacturing, it takes time to accumulate and experience precipitation, this congenital deficiency, we should be rational and treat." Some of the things we can see externally may soon be able to imitate and catch up, such as mechanical structure, software design, electrical automation, etc., but some of the invisible internal work we do not have the same difference, such as basic materials and processing technology, is not a day's work; For example, we have repaired some imported equipment and found that a Weingarten electric screw press used for 38 years has no more than 2 mm of copper nut wear. Among them, we may also say that if our domestic equipment can sell at that price, we can also make the equipment very beautiful, yes, the price is good, we can indeed make the equipment better, very good, but such materials and processes, maybe we can not find ourselves, can not do, this is the generation. Therefore, our domestic equipment manufacturers must still calm down and work hard to develop and revitalize the national manufacturing industry as their own responsibility."

Closing remarks

Business operations must continue to practice "innovative thinking", any social changes, will have an impact on all markets, causing changes. Therefore, it is one of the important guarantees for the survival and development of enterprises to constantly carry out thinking reform and innovation and adapt to the needs of changes.

In the gap period after the resumption of work after the epidemic, Newwish has been working hard to cultivate internal achievements, step up the research and development of new products in technology, strengthen the systematic construction in quality, improve the whole process accounting in finance, improve the information management in operation, etc., open source and throttle, improve quality and efficiency, and lay a solid foundation for the next development. Always adhere to the mission and vision of "excellence, to create the first brand of China's electric screw press" and "professional, dedicated, to do the overall solution provider in the field of die forging", focusing on intelligent forming, boosting manufacturing in China.