Helping Great Wall Motors succeed with a car seat foaming plant

​Great Wall Motors Company (GWM), headquartered in Baoding, is China’s largest sport utility vehicle (SUV) and pick-up truck producer. GWM sells passenger cars, trucks under the Great Wall brand and SUVs under the HAVAL and WAY brands. In May 2017, the company officially launched its first electric new energy vehicle, Great Wall C30EV. With a historic sales record of 1,074,471 cars worldwide in 2016, the company has continually increased sales, surpassing 1,220,000+ in 2023.

GWM’s top-selling SUV model, the Haval H6, is produced in their Xushui province plant. All foam seats and backs are manufactured internally, using, among other equipment, a complete foaming line manufactured by Shinnon, our China-based manufacturing center. When the success of the H6 model called for a larger seat output, GWM launched an international bid for a complete, highly sophisticated, new foaming plant.​

The client’s requirements were:

• User-friendly programming system for simultaneous use of different chemical formulations
• Easy definition for pouring patterns in the different molds
• Complete production statistics with easy traceability of each foamed part
• Complete management over alarms and relevant causes
• Complete integration of the whole plant with the factory’s central information system

When manufacturing the equipment began, in Italy and China, the situation was complicated by a sudden need to expand the production capacity for the seats. This was due to successful sales of the H6 model and the need to produce cushions for GWM’s new WAY brand SUV, a more luxury brand.

An emergency plan was put in operation, to provide:

• 8 extra presses
• 1 additional, identical high-pressure dosing unit
• A second 4-component Cannon AX24 mixing head
• A second robot for the head
• ​A state-of-art operation control system

From the raw materials storage farm to high-pressure dosing units, mixing heads and head-carrying robots, to each individual mold and press, all functions of the plant are monitored in detail thanks to our in-house-developed specialized control system.

The programming system for teaching the head-carrying robot is based on our latest development, using a touch screen to “tap” individual waypoints for new pouring patterns, adding extra functions (head open, close, formulation changes etc.) when and where they are needed, directly from a command line on the screen. This method eliminates joysticks and programming consoles, allowing for faster teaching using non-skilled operators.

Cannon Far East — in charge of our presence in the Chinese market, through three local marketing & technical centers (Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou), plus the Shinnon factory in Zhongshan, Huangpu county, Guangdong province — coordinated a delivery program between the manufacturing resources available in Italy and China. Cannon Far East secured this major contract against fierce competition.

Equipment delivery, considering the complication deriving from the second lot of supply, was performed rapidly by Cannon Afros in Italy and Shinnon in China, and delivered on time, working in favor of the client’s needs.

• Conveyor carousel with 28 presses, fitted with 14 thermoregulators for mold temperature control and continuously operation, moving more than 10 m/sec
• 1 high-pressure dosing unit, metering three polyols and one isocyanate
• 1 four-component AX24 mixing head
• 1 robot, for the fast and precise displacement of the mixing head over a variety of molds,

• 4 extra presses, to be kept on stand-by for quick mold changes
• Complete, centralized electronic control for the whole plant
• Safety system for carousel and foaming area
• Extraction hoods for fumes