The 2019 Discovering Technology Treasures has kicked off! The Do It Today: Industrial Technology Focus Exhibition, organized by the Department of Industrial Technology (DoIT), Ministry of Economic Affairs, demonstrates the benefits of sectors raising issues and legal entities solving issues by integrating the technical capabilities of different legal entities and presenting the results. The first session was grandly opened on the 6th in the premises of the Taiwan Association of Machinery Industry (TAMI). Dr. Ta-Sheng Lo, director of DoIT, Alex Ko, chairman of TAMI, Dr. Chiu-Feng Lin, the president of MIRDC, and other distinguished guests all attended the opening ceremony, which demonstrated the cooperation among the government, legal entities, and manufacturers in increasing the value of industries and facilitating industrial upgrading with innovative technologies.
Bionic Intelligent AGV Fleet System developed by MIRDC were featured in the opening ceremony. With the characteristics of a wireless intelligence, flexible application and agile mobility. Several AGVs may be controlled simultaneously using the wireless intelligent coordinated transport system. A number of AGVs can be linked through remote controls to carry out transport tasks. Moreover, the design of omni-directional wheels that allow 360 degrees movement makes such AGVs ideal for the warehousing, production, manufacturing, and other related industries. The application of automation technologies for Industry 4.0 has solved the problem of limited mobility in a confined indoor space, which is common for traditional unmanned vehicles, so these AGVs can also work easily on omni-directional mobile platforms. Dr. Chiu-Feng Lin, the president of MIRDC, indicated that such technologies not only create an intelligent transport model for the future, but they also provide a convenient lifestyle, and that a drastic increase in the popularity among small and medium‐sized manufacturing companies and market potential is expected.
In addition, MIRDC presented the Smart manufacturing technology for the fastener industry (SMTFI), which targets the fastener industry. The technology combines the systems developed by MIRDC, including the forming design simulation and process system, optical mode adjustment expert system, fastener forming process monitoring system, and forming quality analysis and prognostics system, which will help manufacturers conduct a quick evaluation and proceed with production after receiving an order. By systematizing the adjustment process, the period of time required for mold adjustment shortened from four hours to one hour. The system also retains the experience of experienced workers in adjustment, which reduces the errors caused by inconsistent adjustment methods and experiences and consequently mitigates the impact on the life expectancy of molds and the quality of fasteners. Forming sensor feature signals help improve periodic inspections and enable online monitoring on an item-by-item/line-by-line/time-by-time basis, which reduces errors in estimation and judgment made based on staff experience and defects in online operations. When an abnormality is detected, machines will be immediately shut down to prevent defects and shutdown without warning. To better meet the needs of the industries, an intelligent fastener manufacturing demonstration line has been set up. In the near future, the intelligent service cloud for fasteners will be introduced to put together information about the supply chain for upstream, midstream, and downstream sectors, thereby establishing systematic production methods for the fastener industry and providing tailor-made intelligent manufacturing solutions.
Through the presentation of the attention-grabbing technologies, MIRDC exhibited its innovation capability in research and development that may facilitate industrial upgrading. MIRDC received a lot of interest from manufacturers during the event, and it will continue to make improvements so that its technical capabilities may greatly meet industrial needs and be utilized in the industry.