GE Hai Phong: American standard smart factory in Vietnam

Reporter of Cong Thuong Newspaper had the opportunity to visit the smart factory of GE located in Hai Phong – one of the many imprints left by General Electric (GE), the US multinational corporation in Vietnam. Male – with an investment of US $ 111 million and total export value so far is more than US $ 1 billion.

Main products of GE Hai Phong are generators, electric cabinets for wind turbines and some mechanical products. 100% of these products after production will be exported to the US and Europe – where quality requirements are a prerequisite. These products meet between 70% and 80% of the demand for renewable energy in the world.

The reporters had a short but exciting journey to the world of industrial machinery and modern technology; a world where streamlining is focused to minimize unnecessary redundancies, where modern management software is located in each zone and connected to the system to update data running every second where people and robots are good partners.

By applying modern management software located in each zone, engineers at the factory can easily control the performance of many devices from different vendors right on the laptop or tablet by the real time. Thanks to the parameters that are synthesized every minute and allow users to select statistics by hour, by month, quarter, etc, engineers will know which machine is working well, which causes the product to be slow, The reason is where (waiting for materials, maintenance. etc), thereby increasing efficiency to 25% and productivity up to 15%.

The application of digital software in smart factories not only helps increase operational efficiency but also contributes to solving environmental problems and resources. If before, every day management had to go to each station to check and record paper parameters and data entry, now all indicators are updated and stored and analyzed automatically. Jobs that require time and personnel such as warehousing of materials/equipment or reporting whenever any device is in trouble is resolved quickly with just a few operations and all the relevant parts come to know the information.

In the manufacturing zone, the plant is operating two chamber welding generators to reduce the time of changing fixtures and finishing products, in which the welding robot is in charge of a chamber and skilled workers “show up” in the remaining chambers. The introduction of robots into welding applications not only increases welding productivity by up to 30% but also minimizes the need for workers to be exposed to dangerous devices and toxic chemicals. Besides the robot, the factory also has co-bot installations, namely the gravityless lift arm, in the manufacturing zone; With the support of this technology, workers do not need to carry heavy loads but just moving like normal walking can lift products weighing up to 300kg.

Similarly, pitch pitch workers who produce fan control cabinets are also supported by digital tools, making things easier. One of these tools is a smart screw gun; With this modern tool, the screw force has been preinstalled, only when a screw is caught correctly, the new worker can switch to the next screw. The number of screws is also displayed directly when the worker performs the operation, ensuring no errors such as screws are not tight or lack of screws.

In the era of change, Groups also need to be changed, GE continues to demonstrate a strong innovation with the transition to a digital industrial company with the introduction of Internet industry platform Predix, a new milestone that makes every People remember the company as a startup at the age of 124.

Productivity and Quality Office