Qingdao Haier Moulds Co. Ltd
Haier is unquestionably China’s best-known brand. With production facilities on four continents – America, Asia, Australia and Europe - it not only dominates the Chinese white goods market but has a third of the American market and is on its way to conquering Europe.
One of the companies in the Group is Qingdao Haier Moulds Company Ltd, located in Qingdao, midway between Beijing and Shanghai. Its 450 employees, working since 1998 in a facility covering 15 000 m2, currently produce over 100 mould tools a month.
Part of the milling department
With justifiable pride, Guo Qingchun, Marketing Manager, explains, “Compared with 1993, our sales are now 200 times greater. Our customers are split evenly three ways between the Haier Group, export and other Chinese companies . We’re now China’s most successful mould tool maker. About 60% of our output goes to white goods, 35% to automotive and the remaining 5% to precision industry. We are ISO certified.”
Rows of die-sinking EDM machines
Bing Zhaoyu, in charge of EDM operations, is justifiably proud of his very impressive workshop. Over 30 die-sinking EDM machines (Charmilles, Dophen, King and Sodick) and 15 wire EDM machines (Charmilles and Sodick). 16 CNC milling machines (DMG and Makino) which include a Makino CNC64 with a 60-position magazine for the production of graphite electrodes on Macro pallets.
Bing Zhaoyu says, “Since we started using Macro we’ve cut set-up times by two-thirds. And we’ve just taken the next step - palletisation of workpieces on Dynafix. This investment – a large number of table chucks and hundreds of pallets – is so new that we can’t give any figures yet, but if anything like the the positive effects of Macro, we clearly have high hopes for Dynafix.”
Say ‘China’ and most of us think of cheap labour. But this is not the basis of remaining competitive for the Haier Moulds operation. Guo Qingchun explains “To compete on the global stage in our sector, with its demands for high precision and rapid delivery, we’re always on the lookout for new technologies and the most efficient production aids. The hallmark of our operation is the constant pursuit of greater accuracy and higher productivity.”
Over 100 enineers in CAD/CAM/CAE.
Bing Zhaoyu concludes, “There’s no doubt about it, Macro has been very profitable for the entire operation. It lets us move electrodes from one machine to another, without subsequent alignment – quickly and precisely.”
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Related links:
Macro
Dynafix