Delong Advances Smart Upgrades to Precision Grinding
The company is upgrading its precision grinding section in stages, connecting machining parameters and inspection data to its information systems and measuring the line by consistency rather than single-piece accuracy.
In early 2024, Zhuzhou Delong began a smart upgrade of its precision grinding section, with the focus on making the machines "speak": machining parameters, grinding wheel condition and online inspection results are sent straight back to the information system, replacing the earlier paper records.
In cemented carbide CNC inserts, achieving high accuracy on a single piece is not hard; the hard part is holding the same dimension across tens of thousands of pieces. The company currently holds insert tolerance to ±0.05 mm, tighter than the ±0.08 mm required by the GB/T 2081 national standard, and holding that figure depends on process data rather than final-inspection sampling. If a parameter drifts, the system spots it within the same shift, instead of rework after the finished goods have gone into stock.
The upgrade is being rolled out in stages to avoid stopping production. The company has 50 sets of main production equipment and more than 60 employees, including more than 15 technical staff and more than 20 intermediate and senior technicians. Once the equipment is networked, the experience of veteran operators is written down as parameter ranges, and the time new staff need to get up to speed has shortened noticeably.
Looking at the industry, cemented carbide tooling is moving toward the high end and toward customization, with small batches of many models becoming the norm. Whoever can hold consistency under frequent changeovers can win customers with demanding delivery requirements. That is the starting point for this round of upgrades at Delong.
