"It's not easy to build a factory." At the "walk with Peng" open day, Xiaopeng Automobile Chairman and CEO He Xiaopeng just opened his mouth, denied this view.
Two years ago, the Zhaoqing factory is located in a fish pond, and 80 meters deep area below the fish pond are all caves, the news to immersed in the joy of construction "Peng people" poured a pot of cold water. After spending more than one hundred million to fill the cave, new problems appeared, they found that the terrain of the 1,000 acres of land than the surrounding area to be more than one meter lower, and in some places even up to two meters difference. So, buy soil and fill in the height!
He Xiaopeng is clear that there is no one in this world who will take pity on anyone, only by themselves and by the team. Now that the Zhaoqing factory is completed, but everything has just begun, he needs someone to guide the Zhaoqing factory to mature and grow up.
"In May last year, he joined the Peng Automobile, as the company's vice president, mainly responsible for the company's manufacturing plate, to achieve the production goals of the Peng Automobile production of intelligent manufacturing. He is now mainly responsible for the construction and operation of the manufacturing center, as well as comprehensively organizing the production of Xiaopeng Auto's models and leading the team at Xiaopeng Auto's Zhaoqing base." Jiang Ping, who has worked for Guangzhou Automobile Group for 30 years, is exactly the kind of person He Xiaopeng needs.
Small Peng Auto's Zhaoqing factory is located in the Zhaoqing Hi-Tech Industrial Development Zone, not far from Baiyun Airport and Guangzhou South Railway Station. The plant **** has five major workshops - stamping, welding, painting, assembly, and Pack - with flexible production capacity for four models on different platforms, and **** 264 intelligent industrial robots.
Official information shows that the factory covers an area of 3,000 acres of overall planning, but in the early stage, only 903 acres officially put into use. According to the plan, the factory's annual production capacity can reach 100,000-150,000 vehicles.
"This difference in capacity of 100,000-150,000 units/year mainly depends on whether we work overtime or not, and we can increase the capacity to 150,000 units/year when the market demand is high." He added that the plant could achieve a capacity of 15-20 units/hour as early as July. "Being at the manufacturing end of the spectrum, having market demand is the biggest joy, so as long as there are orders, we will leave no stone unturned to meet the demand. The entire delivery period for the Xiaopeng P7 is about 2 to 3 weeks, and we will do our best to fulfill that."
The Zhaoqing factory was defined as a digital smart factory at the beginning of the project and was built according to Industry 4.0 standards. This allows the factory to have an advanced MES manufacturing execution system, IoT technology throughout the entire production process and monitoring technology, which together can visualize production information, equipment information, process information and quality information.
To cite a few specific examples, such as a five-process complete process line, the finished product accuracy can reach 0.01 millimeters; welding shop automation rate can reach 100%; vision robots can ensure that each key part of the welded splicing quality, accuracy can reach plus or minus 0.7-1 millimeters.
According to Jiang Ping, the battery factory in Zhaoqing base realizes full automation, and the whole process of AGV intelligent logistics can meet the demand for flexible manufacturing. "The helium checking process enables the entire battery pack to be completely sealed, so that even if the vehicle is flooded, the battery pack remains intact after disassembly."
In terms of quality management system, the Zhaoqing factory*** has set up more than 1,700 inspection items, and 100 percent of the vehicles coming off the line must undergo simulated road experiments, including high speed, pebble road surface, calibration situation and verification of automatic driving and automatic parking. The testing of new energy vehicles is different from that of traditional fuel vehicles, and the program also includes testing of electrical potential, insulation testing of charging ports, and dynamic implementation checks. In terms of water tightness, it is important to ensure that there is no leakage under heavy rainfall level drenching.
Along with the hardcore nature of the factory, there is also a voice in the industry that says, "When will the Xiaopeng G3 move here?"
Jiang Ping said that in the beginning, in order to let the products of Xiaopeng Automobile listed as soon as possible, so choose to be OEM by Haima, and what to do in the future will depend on market demand. "We are communicating with the shareholders of Haima, OEM has the advantages of OEM, and their own production also has their own production characteristics, according to the development process and market demand to do the trade-off. As for when exactly to relocate, to be based on the most favorable situation for both shareholders to consider."
The Zhaoqing plant is already at an advanced level in terms of hardware, but that's not enough. An excellent automotive plant has to take into account hardware, software, management and systems to achieve near-perfect quality control and production capacity. Jiang Ping believes that Toyota has done this best. "We use Toyota as a benchmark, including Xiaopeng (He Xiaopeng), Xia General (Xia Heng) have asked us to Toyota's quality benchmark, but as intelligent manufacturing and management, we have our own unique set."
In Jiang Ping's view, flexible manufacturing, the software control system of the entire vehicle and intelligent is the character of Zhaoqing factory, but also the most essential difference between Xiaopeng Automobile and traditional car companies in manufacturing. He hopes that through digitalization, automation, traceability, flexibility and visualization to achieve intelligent linkage.
"For example, like AVM ultrasonic radar, ADAS calibration, etc., through which our vehicles can be equipped with intelligent self-driving capabilities. Intelligent car must have a visual system, brain nervous system, so as to perceive and judge the things of the surrounding car, we have to calibrate these systems to ensure that the vehicle is safe and reliable in the process of automatic driving open."
However, in the process of intelligent manufacturing, "people" is still key.
According to Jiang Ping, the Zhaoqing plant currently has more than 600 efficient and high-quality members, 78% of whom are from mainstream OEMs, 74% of whom have more than 5 years of experience, and 97% of whom are engineers with bachelor's degrees or higher.
"For example, sitting in the front row, there is a colleague specializing in quality who comes from BYD and has more than 10 years of experience, and the engineer next to him also comes from GAC Honda. In addition, we are responsible for the logistics staff have worked in Haima for more than ten years, engaged in welding work some from the General Motors over. In terms of education, some of them are graduated from Harbin Institute of Technology, and some of them are graduated from other 211 universities." He believes that everyone from the southeast and northwest, different car companies, how to unify them in the culture of the Peng car seems very important.
According to the established plan, Xiaopeng P7 began mass production in the second quarter of 2020 at the Zhaoqing plant, and will officially open the external delivery at the end of June. Jiang Ping repeated a phrase many times throughout the interview, "Develop according to the market." This seems to be a somewhat official statement, in fact, very frank, for the new forces, the market demand will often decide more things. After the "new trio" with Azure, Ideal, the next action of the Peng car in the capital market will become very critical, Zhaoqing factory will also be gradually transformed from the product "foundation" to enhance the perception of the quality of the car made in China's new role.