Giga Press, is the machine used in car manufactory. It is the name of a giant machine from the IDRA company, model OL 6100 CS, from Italy. This machine is used to form workpieces from liquid aluminum by compression with high pressure or what is known as the die cast process. Currently, there are only 2 companies in the world that can produce this giant machine. Which are: IDRA OL 6100 CS from Italy and IMPRESS-PLUS DCC6000, both brands have the same parent company, which is the LK Machinery from China. The Giga press machine is being used for the first time for the Tesla company to construct the Tesla model Y, which the manufacturer that is responsible for constructing cars for Tesla is the Gigafactory factory. As the car itself had problems with production quality control. Because of the use of too complicated assembly techniques, which appears that the joints on the car are not very stable. And when we look at the production line of the GIGAFACTORY factory, we will find that it is a factory that uses thousands of robots. It performs the function of “welding” , “riveting” and “adhesive bonding” , and each process is usually a different type of material. In assembling, there is a chance that there will be quite a lot of discrepancies in the workpiece. As this happens, Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla, demanded Tesla’s employees to find a way to make a car assembly more precise, able to produce faster than before and have a lower cost. In addition, the weight must be reduced as well. And so they came up with this idea of the GIGA PRESS. The GIGA PRESS machine is considered the largest aluminum die casting machine in the world. It has a molding force of up to 6,100 tons and the weight of each machine can be up to 430 tons. At present, Tesla’s factory in Shanghai has 3 Giga Press machines installed and another 2 at the factory in California. The foundations are being prepared in Berlin and Texas to install this giant machine in each factory. The working principle of the Giga Press machine is to extrude molten aluminum alloy at high pressure to turn into the steel mold to get the desired shape. The aluminum alloy used is grade AA386, an alloy invented by TESLA metallurgists together with the SPACE X. Sandy Munro, an expert in automotive engineering, analyzed that this aluminum alloy grade AA386 has flow properties suitable for large metal castings. It is big enough and can be welded and repaired if cracks occur. Currently, the pieces of TESLA MODEL Y produced by the GIGA PRESS machine have a weight of approximately 80 kilograms per piece. Large parts produced by a giant machine like this, one machine can produce approximately 40-45 pieces/hour, or approximately 1,000 pieces. pieces/day and with this fast production rate, ELON MUSK said that compared to the production of TESLA MODEL 3 that uses a general assembly process That would require approximately 1,000 robots throughout the entire production line, but by adopting Giga Press, The manufacture was able to eliminate approximately 300 robot arms for front underbody assembly and another 300 for parts for the rear underbody, Which means, more than 600 robots will disappear from the production line. In addition, problems with welding of more than 70 parts can be reduced, which means that problems with welding, riveting, and gluing of different metals will be greatly eliminated. And finally, it will be possible to reduce the size of the factory as well. Producing large parts from the same metal is easier to produce. It also has a very good response directly to the methods of recycling. Because, in order to recycle the steel, copper, and aluminum must be separated before being recycled. And making the car’s large parts into one piece would create great convenience for recycling.
This article is written by Chanikarn Chaiduangdee for the course 751309, Faculty of economics, CMU.