Digitalizing an Aluminium Extrusion Plant
How a 20,000 m² extrusion and CNC plant in Foshan moved from Excel, paper travellers and WeChat groups to barcode traceability, digital die management and line-level quality data — written by the people who did it, including what failed.
Why we publish this
Buyers ask us the same question every week: “Can you prove which billet went into my parts?” For years the honest answer was “give us a day and we will dig through the paperwork.”
This series documents what we changed, in the order we changed it — with the numbers, the cost of getting it wrong, and the dead ends included. If you run an extrusion plant, you can copy it. If you buy aluminium parts, it tells you exactly what to ask any supplier, including us.
Who it is for
- Procurement and quality engineers auditing a supplier
- Extrusion or CNC plant managers planning a first system
- Anyone who is tired of “we are ISO certified” as an answer
All episodes
Start anywhere — each episode stands alone.
EP 01
Before January 2023: How We Ran This Plant on Excel, Paper and Chat Groups
Before our MES went live in January 2023, orders, schedules and inspection records lived in spreadsheets, p...
Read the draft →
EP 02
One Minute to Trace a Batch: How We Find the Billet Behind a Complaint
When a buyer reports a defect, the useful question is not who to blame but which billet, press, die and shi...
Read the draft →
EP 03
How We Digitized an Aluminum Extrusion Plant Since 2023: What Worked and What Didn't
A working record of digitizing a Foshan extrusion plant since January 2023: what the systems do, where we s...
Read the draft →From a drawer of dies to digital die-life tracking
Die history, shots per die, and how we plan die maintenance now.
In productionBarcode vs QR on the extrusion line: what we chose and why
Two labels per bundle, one scanner per shift — and the mistakes we made first.
In productionFrom paper inspection sheets to live SPC in the press shop
Which tolerances we chart, how often, and what we do when Cpk drops.
In productionMeasuring kWh per kilogram on every press
Why energy per kilo is the honest efficiency number, and how we collect it.
In productionMES vs ERP: what a 20,000 m2 extruder actually needs
What each system does, what we run, and the order we would buy them in again.
In production10 questions buyers should ask any aluminium supplier
The checklist we would want a customer to use on us — with the answers to expect.
In productionWhat digitalization actually cost us
Budget ranges, payback time, and the parts we would not spend on again.
In productionDownload: Supplier Traceability Checklist
One page, 10 questions — with the answer you should expect from a plant that really tracks batches. No sales call required.