Every stage of lithium-battery manufacturing—from electrode coating, calendaring, and slitting to cell winding/stacking, electrolyte filling, and sealing—relies heavily on vacuum cups for precision handling and positioning.
During cell handling, the stability of the vacuum cup’s gripping force directly determines stacking alignment and module assembly tolerances. During electrode-sheet lamination, even minor fluctuations in vacuum pressure can cause electrode-sheet displacement, wrinkling, and even the risk of short circuits.
Traditional vacuum-system maintenance primarily relies on “regular inspections + corrective maintenance after failures”:
Through standard protocols such as MQTT, the Festo AX platform seamlessly connects to production-line PLCs and MES systems to collect the following key parameters in real time:
All data is sampled at millisecond-level intervals and preprocessed through edge computing to ensure high-quality input for cloud-based AI models.
The Festo AX Vacuum Insights application features deep-learning-based anomaly-detection algorithms. It can autonomously learn a “health baseline” model for each vacuum circuit and continuously compare real-time data against the baseline to accurately diagnose various types of anomalies, including:
When the analysis indicates a potential failure risk, the system issues early warnings through an intuitive dashboard or mobile notifications and generates maintenance work orders. It clearly identifies the location and severity of the vacuum cup or generator experiencing performance degradation.
Maintenance teams can carry out targeted maintenance during scheduled downtime days or even weeks before a potential failure occurs, eliminating unexpected shutdowns during production.
AI-driven predictive maintenance enables early warnings and proactive intervention for vacuum-system failures. It has reduced unplanned downtime at relevant workstations by more than 20%, effectively ensuring stable, continuous production and supporting output targets.
By shifting from reactive repairs to planned maintenance, labor overtime and travel expenses associated with emergency repairs can be significantly reduced. Spare-parts management can also shift from “bulk stockpiling” to “precise, demand-based replacement,” with maintenance costs expected to decrease by 50%–60%.
Founded in 1925, Festo is a global leader in automation technology. Festo AX is not a generic data dashboard. Instead, it incorporates Festo’s decades of expertise in pneumatics and electric automation into AI models, enabling it to truly understand equipment, processes, and maintenance requirements.
No additional sensors are required. The solution can operate using data collected from existing PLCs. A single standard application is compatible with pneumatic components from all brands, significantly lowering the barriers to deployment.
Festo AX can be seamlessly integrated with Festo AX Smartenance, the maintenance management software, creating a complete digital operations and maintenance loop—from predictive maintenance at individual equipment level to digital maintenance management across the entire plant.
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Competition in the new energy industry has shifted from a “capacity race” to a competition focused on efficiency and yield. Festo AX is helping an increasing number of lithium-battery manufacturers transform unplanned downtime into scheduled downtime, hidden faults into predictable risks, and maintenance costs into controllable expenses.