Date: 31 October 2023
"Welcome to Leadshine, your reliable motion control partner".
You will find this slogan on the Leadshine homepage. After a travel restriction of 3 years, I was recently able to experience in person again that this slogan is also reality. A warm team of specialists who know what they are talking about and guarantee quality.
In my blog from September 2019 you could read about the first visit to Leadshine in Shenzhen. At the time, I flew back full of enthusiasm and plans and started the introduction in the Benelux, not knowing that a few months later the world was restricted. While we were still active without restrictions in January and February 2020, our plans with the Leadshine team took a major turn because they could no longer go to the office and worse; factories stood still. But strangely enough, production was already in full swing again in the spring. And while much in Europe came to a standstill, we quickly restarted the collaboration with Leadshine via Teams. Has that given any limitations? Hard to say. We do know that even though we have not been able to visit each other, the introduction of new products has continued rapidly from 2020 and that we have not experienced any supply restrictions. Partly because of this, we have been able to find many new customers in the Benelux and help realize new developments.
Now 4 years later there was finally the opportunity to meet each other in person in Shenzhen and experience and see the rapid development at Leadshine. Together with colleague Martin van der Steenhoven we visited Leadshine on October 25. Has much changed in 4 years? On one side yes, and on the other side no.
What has not changed is the overseas team and the enthusiasm of this team. While it is known that employees in China do a lot of job hopping, we do not see this at Leadshine. The big advantage is that you get to know each other well and that you dare to trust each other.
What has changed is that the team has grown and, above all, turnover and production have also grown enormously. Almost a tripling in 4 years to a total turnover of more than 250 million dollars.
Production of more than 3000 drives per day
In the morning we first went to the factories. The new production and assembly lines for the servo and stepper drives are impressive. With a capacity of 3,000 drives per day, or almost 1 million per year, Leadshine is one of the largest producers worldwide. We were able to see these new production lines from start to finish. In addition to the capacity increase, the high degree of automation is also noticeable. There are still many employees, especially in handling and assembly, but mainly for light work and for inspection. The physical work is mainly automated. Also impressive to see is that system software is loaded into the production line and functionally tested at a subsequent location. Finally, and not known to everyone, all drives are subjected to a 24-hour heat test before they are finally sent to the stock warehouse in neat packaging.
Inspection and testing of drives. Would you like to know more about the production of the drives? Click here for a YouTube film.
In addition to the production of drives, a new hall has now been set up in Shenzhen for the production of servo and stepper motors. In 2019, Leadshine only had a factory in Shanghai, which is still producing at full speed. These moteurs are also exposed to heat tests.
Endurance test of motors. Would you like to know more about motor production? Click here for a YouTube film.
Super interesting and good to be able to see the new production lines and therefore understand how capacity and quality are guaranteed.
In the afternoon we visited the new offices in Nanshan i-Valley, the Silicon Valley of Shenzhen. Leadshine moved there in 2022 with much more laboratory space such as an EMC test center, fieldbus test center and an application center where complete applications are simulated.
A huge showroom has also been created, again impressive, a matrix model with 128 servo axes.
Here we met the entire overseas sales and application team where all new developments and strategy plans were discussed and shared. Interesting here is the new MC500 controller based on Codesys, which will be presented at the SPS in Nurnberg in November. Naturally, the traditional group photo could not be missed!
Last-but-not least, we have also been able to lay the foundation for good contractual agreements for our collaboration and sales in the Benelux.
(Additional: These were formalized on November 21 by signing at ATB Automation in Mijdrecht, Netherlands, see news item.).
After a typical local Cantonese dinner and a lot of fun with the Leadshine team, Martin and I boarded the plane the next day with confidence and expectations. 2024 promises to be a year of enormous further development where we can provide our customers with good and reliable service with the latest technologies, short delivery times and all for a good price: "your reliable motion control partner"
Want to know more about Leadshine products: check our website
+31 297 38 05 62
henry@atbautomation.eu
Henry le Noble is responsible for the motion control activities in the Benelux since 1999 and the contacts with suppliers as Stöber, Exlar, Trio Motion Technology, Leadshine, Wanshsin and IAI Industrial Automation. Together with Olaf van de Ven, Henry le Noble forms the management of ATB Automation.
We supply slewing ring bearings, oscillating mountings, tensioner devices from stock and we also have spiral bevel gearboxes, servo gears and electromechanical actuators in our delivery program.
In addition we also select and offer the right components and systems for motion control solutions, such as servo gear motors, linear servo actuators and complete XYZ cartesian systems.
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