On the 10th of April, the 6th National Industrial Innovation Award held the Award ceremony, MIRDC’s “Innovative Regenerative Combustion System “and “League of Superb Shoe Cementing” won for the “Local Industry Innovation Award” and “Industrial Innovative Alliance Award” respectively. The National Industrial Innovation Award aims to reward Taiwan enterprises, academic and research institutes for their effectiveness in “Integration and Innovation”. MIRDC’s awarded technologies focus on intelligent machinery and green energy technology to assist the transformation of traditional footwear and other high-temperature processes such as steel and casting which has performed reasonably well.
In the aspect of Local Industry Innovation Award, the production value of the steel industry in the southern region is ranked the highest in Taiwan, the high-temperature processes exhaust emissions often cause environmental concerns. In order to reduce the problems caused by the high-temperature processes in the southern region, MIRDC has integrated the industrial furnaces, energy-saving equipment industry and key component manufacturers of the southern region to establish localized heat storage and combustion service capabilities, and successfully developed the best waste heat recovery technology in the industry above 700 ℃. The energy saving rate can reach more than 30％. Mr. Heng- Yu Lin, director of the Industrial Upgrading Service Department pointed out that their R&D team is committed to developing integrated design and development capabilities of regenerative combustion systems and industrial furnaces, and establishing industrial furnace energy-saving emission reduction models and combustion reference standards by developing innovative application demonstration fields that conform to international standards. MIRDC has transferred the R&D results to the related manufacturers and has gradually established a waste heat recovery energy-saving ecological chain. Up to now, it has successfully developed five types of high-temperature industrial furnaces, providing the best solution for high-temperature waste heat recovery in the steel industry, precision casting industry, chemical industry, fabricated metal products industry, and foundry industry.
When it comes to Industrial Innovative Alliance, the footwear industry is the most labor-intensive industry among manufacturing industry, especially in the process of the shoe forming, a large amount of manual work is required for roughing and cementing of upper to complete the process of combining the sole with the upper. It is considered one of the most difficult for automatic production. According to Mr. Chen-Chang Chiu, Deputy Director of Energy and Agile System Department, MIRDC’s automatic shoe cementing technology is to establish 3D stereo image through a linear 3D scanner, and then to identify the edge of the sole or the trajectory of a specific area and cement by 3D stereoscopic image recognition technology. This 3D image recognition technology further conducts the intelligent algorism of robot motion path and posture planning for cementing angle and height to automatically generate the path and posture of robotic arm for sole cementing. The technology thus solves the problem that the variety of shoe size is great and the tolerance is large, causing that is not easy to be automatically cemented. The automatic shoe cementing technology not only replaces the traditional manual cementing process, but also introduces automation to increase the production capacity by 50％, to raise the yield rate by 12％, and to further improve the ability of manufacturers by obtaining international orders.
Dr. Chiu-Feng Lin, president of MIRDC indicated that MIRDC has proactively assisted Taiwan traditional industries to break through technical bottlenecks and move toward high-value products. In addition to integrating Taiwan equipment system manufacturers and shoe manufacturers, MIRDC will introduce automation equipment into the footwear industry. In terms of energy saving, the industry in the southern region has long had high energy consumption problems. MIRDC has integrated the manufacturers in southern region to organize the research and development and promotion alliance of regenerative combustion systems, and to provide upgrading opportunities for the traditional industry. In the future, MIRDC continues to improve its technology and to be seen by more people as well as bring substantial benefits to the industry.