Cummins

February, 2023, Shanghai - The Chinese power industry has been accelerating its pace of digital transformation in recent years. An extensive array of automation technologies including robotics are now being progressively deployed in different application scenarios throughout the industry chain. Cummins Power Generation (China) Co., Ltd. (“CPG China”) is among the successful practitioners. The Autonomous Mobile Robots (AMRs) from Mobile Industrial Robot (MiR) have been successfully introduced and deployed at CPG’s generator assembly plant in Wuhan. AMRs are used for automating the transportation of materials on production lines.

MiR previously carried out many successful projects in collaboration with CPG’s parent company Cummins for its global markets in China, Europe, and the Americas. The latest project, AMR, represents another automation project completed in China. As one of Cummins’ key business lines, CPG offers high-quality power solutions to industries worldwide. The generator assembly plant in Wuhan is one of CPG’s five main standard generator assembly factories around the world. The MiR250 AMRs at the Wuhan plant are mainly assigned to supporting the medium-horsepower, heavy-duty generator assembly line where it carries out edge feeding, return of empty containers and transportation tasks. The robots will be progressively deployed to the high-horsepower generator assembly line in the future.

MiR250 AMRs can meet the exacting requirements of material transportation on the assembly line in an efficient, safe and intelligent manner. In terms of efficiency, each MiR250 saves CPG China at least 2.5 man hours on manual return of empty containers and replenishment of materials. Not having to spend excessive amounts of time on trivial, non-technical tasks every day allows for greater optimization of personnel assignments. In terms of safety, the production lines inside the plant are surrounded by forklifts, pallet trucks and workers. There are people and vehicles everywhere so very high standards of safety and reliability are expected of the AMR. MiR250 AMR leverages a number of safety technologies and its autonomous navigation function to meet the challenges of the plant environment and reduce the risk of ergonomic injuries to zero.

The MiR AMR is very intelligent so it can automatically identify and detour around obstacles. It is very good at autonomous operation. It is also very easy to deploy. Its SLAM laser navigation means there is no need to install magnetic stripes, pegs or reflective markings along the route. There is truly no damage to the work site. The operating system of MiR AMR is very scientific, simple, and logical. Processes can be quickly edited and adjusted in response to production line requirements. These include adding/removing stations, as well as the setting and adjusting of paths, frequency, and operating speed.

Cummins Power Generation (CPG) is one of Cummins’ key business lines and offers high-quality power solutions to industries worldwide. CPG is committed to satisfying the power requirements of customers in continuous power generation, base load, peak regulation, backup power, cogeneration, and turn-key projects of power stations. Key products include diesel generator sets, gas generator sets, generators for generator sets, generators, controllers, automatic transfer switches, and digital control cabinets.

CPG is headquartered in the city of Minneapolis, Minnesota, US. Its five global standard generator assembly plants are located in the US, UK, China, India, and Brazil.

Cummins Power Generation (China) Co., Ltd. (CPG China) is Cummins’ only generator assembly plant in China and is located in the city of Wuhan, Hubei Province. The plant designs and produces open-type, soundproof enclosed, and containerized diesel generator sets (55 kVA–3,000 kVA) as well as automatic transfer switches.