Recently, the Department of Economy and Information Technology of Anhui Province issued the “Notice on Announcing the List of Smart Factories and Digital Workshops in Anhui Province for 2021,” under which the Huainan Bearing High-Precision Tapered Roller Intelligent Workshop was recognized as a digital workshop in Anhui Province.

To accelerate the digital, networked, and intelligent transformation of manufacturing in Anhui Province and promote high-quality development of the manufacturing sector, the Anhui Provincial Department of Economy and Information Technology, in accordance with the “Notice on Issuing the Provisional Measures for the Identification and Management of Smart Factories and Digital Workshops in Anhui Province” and the “Notice of the Anhui Provincial Department of Economy and Information Technology on Launching the 2021 Application Process for Provincial-Level Smart Factories and Digital Workshops,” has identified the smart factories and digital workshops of Anhui Province for 2021 after going through a series of procedures including enterprise applications, review by city and county authorities, expert evaluation, comparison, and public announcement.

Huainan Bearing is a national high-tech enterprise specializing in the R&D and production of various single-row tapered roller bearings. The company continuously improves its management system; since obtaining QS9000 certification from U.S. UL in 2003, followed by TS16949 certification and then IATF16949 certification, the establishment of these various systems has laid a solid foundation for the company to further enhance both product quality and management standards.

To accelerate its intelligent upgrade, Huainan Bearing initiated a precision tapered roller bearing project in 2019, with a total investment of 25 million yuan. The project has introduced 10 of the most advanced CNC grinding and superfinishing gantry lines in China. These production lines feature automated loading and unloading processes, and the entire gantry logistics system and grinding/superfinishing equipment are equipped with the world’s most advanced integrated CNC systems. The operational status of production equipment is displayed in real time, and production data is automatically collected and analyzed. Additionally, the production line has been enhanced with automatic inspection stations, enabling online product inspection. The assembly of finished bearings is carried out under dust-free, constant-temperature, and automated conditions. Two state-of-the-art automatic assembly lines have been introduced, utilizing China’s most advanced execution systems, which enable functions such as automatic component assembly, automatic equipment monitoring, online automatic inspection, and automatic product statistics. Meanwhile, the intelligent production workshop for precision bearings is equipped with networked devices, allowing real-time monitoring of equipment operating status and immediate tracking of production activities.

Moreover, for more than two years, the Huainan Bearing Innovation Team has been actively promoting a lean grinding, superfinishing, and assembly short-line process for small- and medium-sized tapered roller bearings. They have optimized and shortened the original equipment and process flow—originally configured with a 7+5 layout for the inner and outer rings—to a 4+2 layout. Additionally, they redesigned the inner and outer ring connection layout into a closed-loop configuration, inserting an assembly line directly into the middle of the process. After parts come off the grinding machines, they proceed directly to assembly. This not only achieves a truly integrated production line but also reduces the number of grinding machines by half and cuts staffing levels by one-third, fundamentally transforming the conventional bearing production model and demonstrating significant value in terms of efficiency and cost-effectiveness.

Going forward, Huainan Bearing will further enhance the technological content and quality of its products, continuously expand into the high-end commercial vehicle transmission market as a supplier, deepen its integration into OEM supporting businesses to replace imports, and further elevate the overall level of bearing production, thereby contributing to the high-quality development of the manufacturing sector.