AMK Narrow-Aisle AGVs Power Qianjiang Refrigeration’s Smart Factory Transformation

Qianjiang Refrigeration Group is a leading enterprise in China's refrigeration industry. Since its establishment in 1985, its business has covered four major business sectors, namely, refrigeration compressor manufacturing, artificial intelligence town, household trade and commerce, and high-tech industrial park, with the core of refrigerator compressor manufacturing. There are 12 automated intelligent assembly production lines, with an annual output of 60 million units of environmentally friendly high-efficiency and inverter compressors, parts and components of more than 90% of the rate of self-manufacturing and with the help of intelligent logistics to optimise costs and improve efficiency, and build an advanced level of modern intelligent factories, to achieve the comprehensive upgrading of the ‘manufacturing’ to the ‘precision intelligent manufacturing’. To comprehensively upgrade from ‘manufacturing’ to ‘smart manufacturing’.

Customer Pain Points

1. Efficiency and safety: each production line needs to be equipped with a porter; manual handling efficiency is low, and there are safety hazards, making it difficult to match the high-speed production rhythm.

2. High-precision handling: High precision is required for material handling, with no gap between the contact surface of the material frame and the material shelf, and the left and right positioning accuracy should be controlled within ±5mm.

3. Automation upgrading: the factory is in urgent need of automation transformation and upgrading

4. Large factory area: the handling distance is far, at the same time, it needs to adapt to the narrow aisle operation scene.

Solution: AMK15 Narrow Aisle Intelligent Handling Robot

In response to Qianjiang Refrigeration's high standard requirements, the AiTEN project team customised the AMK15 intelligent handling robot with an innovative blend of the following technologies:

1. Wide fork legs and clamping design

• Wide fork and leg structure: adapted to the customer's floor-fixed wide spacing material rack, to improve the handling stability;
• High-precision Clamping Forks: Intelligent forks can move left and right to clamp the material frames with high precision, breaking through the limitations of the material frames without bottom gaps, and achieving ±5mm accurate positioning through intelligent clamping.

2. Intelligent cluster scheduling and digital management

• Equipped with laser SLAM and a vision positioning system to achieve long-distance navigation;
• Docking with factory MES and warehouse system to open up the whole unmanned chain of ‘warehouse - production line - wire side warehouse’;
• AGV cluster scheduling algorithm optimises the handling path and matches high-frequency tasks at 10 lineside pick-up points.
• The software system realises the visualisation of the handling process and makes it traceable.

 3. Super performance

• Load capacity of 1.5 tonnes, 2 hours of charging and 8 hours of endurance, supporting 24 hours of continuous operation;
• Narrow channel design (channel width <2m)

Project Results

Through AiTEN robots, logistics efficiency and precision breakthroughs, a digital, green management mode to accelerate towards the ‘factory of the future, achieved:

1. Efficiency multiplication: AGV cluster scheduling speeds up logistics response by 40%, accurately matches the rhythm of key processes, and completely replaces manual handling.

2. Cost reconstruction: AGV algorithms optimise inventory turnover, reducing both manpower and wastage and increasing annual revenue by 25%.

3. Safety upgrade: Laser SLAM and vision positioning synergy, intelligent fork to achieve high-precision gripping of materials, eliminating the potential safety hazards of manual handling.

4. Data visualisation: the whole process of logistics data visualisation, combined with the accumulation of AGV data, to build a complete digital quality traceability system, laying the data foundation for the ‘factory of the future’.

Conclusion

Qianjiang Refrigeration has not only realised unmanned and accurate logistics through the landing of the AMK15 intelligent handling system, but also reconstructed the production management process with data-driven methods, accelerating the progress towards the green intelligent manufacturing benchmark. This project provides an exemplary path for large manufacturing enterprises to upgrade from ‘single-point automation’ to ‘global intelligence’.

For businesses facing similar challenges, AiTEN’s handling solution offers a proven path to operational excellence. Contact AiTEN today to learn how our innovative robotics and intelligent systems can transform your material handling processes.