Faced with the global trend of accelerating the transition to new energy vehicles, car manufacturers need to consider new ways of working. Sinotruk seized the opportunity, with the support of ABB’s world-leading intelligent manufacturing technology, actively explored industrial digitalization and automation, and successfully won the “double first” in sales and market share of domestic heavy truck enterprises in 2022.
Sinotruk’s “Intelligent Network Connection (new energy) heavy truck project”, that is, SinotruK Laiwu Intelligent Factory, is a digital “lighthouse factory” built by China National TruK after the restructuring and reform, and is now the most digitalized factory of SinotruK Group. ABB provided a total of 111 robots, a series of digital products and flexible solutions for its welding workshop, creating the first automated production line of SinotruK to produce a new generation of high-end logistics traction heavy truck “Yellow River” series. ABB’s complete welding solution for TRUK Laiwu Smart Plant uses IRB 6700 and IRB 7600 robots to cover the entire process of the welding plant, including material preparation, floor line, side wire, main line, door line and adjustment line areas, and ensures high precision welding quality. At the same time, a large number of ABB FlexTrack seven-axis guide rails are used, and with its excellent motion performance, the transfer speed of the body is greatly improved. In the pre-planning phase of the project, after continuous grinding and testing, ABB and SinotruK finally decided to innovate the ABB FlexProd production line layout at some stations: split the traditional long-line production structure of the plant and deploy dedicated modular units. Using this cutting-edge plant layout concept, the Laiwu Smart factory can replace or adjust individual workstations at any time to avoid production disruptions, while cooperating with flexible AGV logistics to replace manual loading and unloading, enabling more flexible and productive production processes. In addition, ABB also provides the ModulFlex automatic fixture switching library for the production line, which can support multi-model switching without affecting the production rhythm at all. With ABB FlexPLP flexible programmable linear positioner, the body positioning accuracy and welding quality are greatly improved. Today, ABB’s welding production line for SinotruK Laiwu Intelligent factory mainly produces heavy truck products such as Yellow River series and Howo TX series, with an annual output of 50,000 vehicles.
The first cooperation between ABB Robotics and SinotruK dates back to 2010. At that time, ABB built the group’s first body in white welding production line for SinotruK. With more than 10 years of tacit cooperation, ABB will continue to help SinotruK realize the continuous transformation and upgrading from traditional vehicle products to new energy, intelligent network connected green products through leading automation technology and solutions, further consolidate SinotruK Group’s position as the cutting-edge technology leader in China’s heavy vehicles, and jointly create a bright business card for Chinese commercial vehicles to the world.

China National Heavy Duty Automobile Group Co., LTD. (hereinafter referred to as “SinotruK”) was founded in 1930, with a full range of well-known commercial automobile brands such as Huanghe, Shandeka and Howo. Products exported to more than 110 countries and regions, 18 consecutive years to maintain the national heavy truck industry export first. After undergoing restructuring and reform in 2018, SinotruK accelerated the pace of independent innovation and strongly jumped to the “double first” in sales volume and market share of China’s heavy truck industry in 2022.