From the Kubota Utsunomiya factory in Japan, Gao Yuan En, honorary chairman of the China Association of Agricultural Machinery Industry, said with emotion: “I haven’t seen it for four years and the change has been so great that digital manufacturing is widely used”.

Utsunomiya factory is the main production base of Kubota in the local area. At present, there are more than 680 employees in the factory (of which 369 are regular employees, others are seasonal workers and outsourcers). There are more than 21,000 seated rice transplanters (accounting for 43.6% of the domestic market in Japan) and more than 11,000 rice harvesters (accounting for 46.3% of Japan's domestic market). There are 17 basic types of rice transplanters and 127 variant products; the basic models of rice harvesters are 23 kinds, and 129 kinds of modified products.

At the Kubota Utsunomiya factory, the director of the village, Takao Tsubaki, worked for many years at Kubota, Suzhou, China. He was very happy to meet with the Chinese agricultural machinery company and accompanied us throughout the visit.

IT Informatization Manufacturing and Agricultural Machinery Products We are already familiar with the flexible manufacturing of Japanese companies, and are also production models that domestic agricultural machinery companies are continuously striving to learn and promote. However, watching the Kubota company's "mixed-flow production model" still surprised us quite a bit. Here, many products of rice transplanters and rice harvesters are arranged on a production line, and a rice transplanter is followed by a harvester, alternately arranged and produced at the same time, unlike our domestic agricultural machinery companies that separate production lines or workshops by products. It takes time and effort to adjust the product once. Kubota Corporation summarized the benefits of this mixed-flow alternative production as follows: timely feedback on market demand; effective use of factories and equipment; ease of production fluctuations; and reduction of indirect staff and personnel costs. The deficiencies of this approach are that they believe that "the workforce needs to master a lot of work."

Kubota believes that a unique and important feature of agricultural machinery products is that seasonality is very strong. They account for 3 to 4 times the workload of agricultural products during the peak season of production. Therefore, the characteristics of their production activities are constantly changing according to production volume. , adjust in time. In subsequent inspections, we saw that almost all major agricultural machinery companies in Japan used this “mixed-flow production method”.

Mixed-flow production is a new organization after flexible production. Mixed-flow production is a series of product varieties that basically have the same process flow and production operation method. In the same production line, scientifically arrange the production sequence, implement a rhythm and proportionately mix continuous flow production, and use variety, output, working hours, The production method is based on the premise that the equipment load is fully balanced.

The advantages of this approach in the product market response speed, manufacturing cost reduction, effective labor deployment, logistics and distribution, etc., are worthy of attention and research by domestic enterprises. As far as we know, no enterprises in the domestic agricultural machinery industry have so far produced in this way.

The mixed-flow production model must rely on IT informatization technology. Every link in the production process should be controlled by the manager at any time and any place, and the manufacturing information of multiple products should be conveyed to various production nodes and locations in a visual form. Employees follow these instructions for accurate assembly. Kubota company relies on information technology, adheres to the "Five Presents Management" improvement activities, and continuously reduces the number of processes and fully standardized operations to eliminate manufacturing waste.

The basis of mixed-flow production is that the internal logistics of the factory must be completely digitalized. A product on the assembly line is equipped with a component delivery trolley, and the two are moved synchronously. That is, the components of each product are all mounted on a trolley. The components on the trolley are used up and the assembly is completed.

The parts in the workshop adopt LED-type distribution. Through the network to connect the parts inventory and installation station requirements, the required parts are displayed in the system screen according to the system instructions. The delivery worker removes the parts from the lighted shelves into the delivery cart. When the indicator lights are all off , Single delivery pieces are all taken out, to ensure the assembly line is good, no missing parts, no pressure parts.

The harvester's threshing roller is assembled using a robot hand. Important parts such as headers, rice transplanters, cabs, etc., are assembled in other areas and are assembled on the assembly line on time according to the procedure. This saves logistics costs and saves manufacturing space. The efficiency is very high.

Information-based manufacturing also solves the difficult distribution problems faced by many companies: Large parts and components inventory occupy capital and increase costs; parts and components inventory is small, and assembly lines often cause short-stop production. Kubota company does this. One is to avoid it beforehand. Using IT technology, the plan of spare parts storage quantity and delivery progress is very detailed. At the same time, establish network channels with suppliers to communicate plans and issues with each other, and provide timely guidance and assistance to suppliers to improve and ensure suppliers' supply quality. Second, there are remedial measures after missing parts. Through the ABC management of parts and components, they set up the most economical safety stocks and organized production at the lowest cost.

It can be said that IT informatization technology has penetrated every link of product manufacturing. Without the support of informatization technology, mixed-flow assembly cannot exert its advantages.

The information management factory in quality management implements dual quality management for each product (flowing operation) on each production line according to production instructions. The products that have been inspected in each process must be subjected to product inspections, performance checks, and visual inspections in the inspection department. For the parts and key parts where quality problems have occurred in the past, we must also conduct key inspections. Digitized quality feedback systems are commonly used in these inspections. When inspecting the site, the inspectors are equipped with palm-sized portable terminal equipment. All inspection items and defect items are entered into the terminal input device. The defect items are found to be promptly returned to the responsible department through the terminal equipment.

The assembly of important parts, the use of power tools and constant torque wrench count, in order to ensure product consistency, the number of bolts and torque through the network management, and adjustment and inspection data are kept as records.

The parts are accurately detected using a three-dimensional measuring machine.

Information-based manufacturing and employee training We have seen that in information-based, digitally-manufactured Japanese factories, employees are more focused than ever on basic skills training. Kubota has trained more than 10 hours of quality, safety, rules and regulations, etiquette, and basic skills for each new employee. After assigning to each job, special training must be arranged before entering the production line. After entering the production post, there are people who follow up each week for a week, one month, and three months of follow-up confirmation, to grasp the familiarity of each employee to grasp the operation. Even better equipment also requires excellent employees to control, advanced equipment and production organizations to enable employees to achieve their own desires.

Therefore, the improvement of digital manufacturing capabilities and the basic quality of employees is something that every agricultural machine company must pay attention to and immediately begin.