Schneider Electric and AVEVA have partnered with IN-CORE Systèmes to drive efficiency in electric vehicle (EV) battery production. Specifically, the joint offering will connect electrode level to final cell performance and provide customers with a complete data picture to improve processes.

As the EV market continues to see exponential growth, battery production is under greater pressure to improve quality, efficiency, and business outcomes. Therefore, this increased production can lead to new issues, including failure modes and process variation. Eventually, these issues can create operational, material, and labor losses.

Digitalizing Production Process

Until recently, EV battery production has seen up to 20% of materials scrapped, and an inefficient use of energy with 47 kWh of energy needed to produce 1 kWh of an EV battery cell. Moreover, these challenges can only be mitigated by greater operational insight.

The partnership between Schneider Electric, AVEVA, and IN-CORE will bring greater data connectivity to the production process. Specifically, by addressing data traceability at the electrode level. The IN-CORE Traceability Solution will work with AVEVA System Platform to connect critical parameters to electrode manufacture, final cell, and pack performance. Thus, providing relevant data at the right time and format to ensure a complete data picture. This provides customers with positive outcomes such as:

• Faster troubleshooting of field issues
• Waste Reduction
• Production Optimization
• Materials Optimization

“Operational challenges are the greatest barrier to success in EV battery production,” said Christel Galbrun, Segment President for Mobility at Schneider Electric. “As demand grows, we must improve quality and efficiency, while reducing variation and scrap. This partnership with IN-CORE will provide new levels of data connectivity to the EV market and help customers establish a complete data architecture across all processes.”

Meanwhile, Michel Popovic, CEO and Sales Director at IN-CORE Systèmes, said, “We are happy to partner with Schneider Electric to address one of the key challenges in the EV market, electrode level data connectivity.”

In addition, Popovic said the partnership will enable them to collect traceability data. Thus, connecting it to the rest of the value stream and contextualize it to bring immediate value to customers.

Flexible, Scalable Solutions

IN-CORE solutions offer flexibility and scalability. Thus, it can seamlessly integrate into complex environments and adapt swiftly to changes. Additionally, their architecture eliminates the silo effect by consolidating data into a single access point shared by all machines.

This approach ensures data is readily available for analysis of quality production and automatic processes, such as scrap rejection at the stacking line.

By choosing IN-CORE, manufacturers gain easy access to qualified data for rapid ramp-up. Moreover, it enables to maintain high yields through swift analysis of a unified data set. Also, it reduces costly manual interventions by automating defective electrode treatment processes.

11 June 2024