As night falls, the warehouse of ZF Automotive Systems (Shanghai) Co., Ltd. in the Jiading District is dark, yet production continues uninterrupted. Agile robots move seamlessly, accurately picking and placing goods, enabling a fully unmanned operation process.  

This is the real scenario of ZF's Dark Factory, which has earned the title of "National Exemplary Smart Factory." Behind this intelligent operation, the one-stop robot solution provided by SEER Robotics plays a key supporting role.  

Project Challenges

As a giant in the automotive parts industry, ZF faced multiple challenges in advancing its Dark Factory due to its complex production system:  

1. The variety of material specifications and sizes made traditional manual handling inefficient and accuracy difficult to guarantee.  

2. The complex on-site environment demanded extremely high laser positioning accuracy for automated equipment.  

3. Some racks, due to structural limitations, could not accommodate all types of goods.  

Solution Highlights

SEER Robotics did not simply provide a "robot replacement" solution for ZF. Instead, it delivered a highly integrated, open, and collaborative smart logistics system based on SEER's intelligent control system.  

1. Intelligent Traffic Control: Multi-Robot Collaboration Without Congestion  

In scenarios involving various types of robots, such as ground forklifts and stacking forklifts, the system utilizes global traffic control functions to plan and dispatch the paths of all robots in real time. This effectively avoids congestion and deadlocks, ensuring smooth logistics in scenarios like automated storage, workshops, production lines, gate crossings, and automatic charging.  

2. Robot Brain + Business Brain: Breaking Down Information Silos  

With the control system at its core, the robot brain and the M4 business brain deeply collaborate, integrating robot systems, customer business systems, and on-site automated equipment. This breaks down information silos and enables unified management across the entire plant.  

Based on the M4 Smart Logistics Management System, not only is precise binding and full traceability of material information achieved, but intelligent allocation of material storage heights is also enabled through customized storage rules. This effectively resolves management challenges posed by varying specifications.  

3. Open Compatibility: Precisely Solving Positioning Challenges  

To address the difficulty of laser positioning, functional customization was implemented based on open interfaces. By adding laser positioning blocks and optimizing algorithms, navigation accuracy was significantly improved, ensuring precise navigation and operation of robots in complex environments.  

Customer Recognition

Alex, the Lean Production and Automation Lead, commented on the project: "The SEER Robotics system provided critical support for building the Dark Factory, accelerating the deep implementation of lean production, and achieving a dual leap in production efficiency and value creation."  

Cathy, the Warehouse Manager, also expressed approval: "After the implementation of Dark Warehouse management, the entire process, from receiving, storing, retrieving, to shipping, has been fully automated. Inventory accuracy has reached 100%, and personnel efficiency has reached new heights."