Smart digital concept using tracking and tracing system in the electrode production

The market for lithium-ion battery applications has grown tremendously in recent years. Future demand and new application require further reduction of production costs. By integrating digitization concepts into an automated battery cell production line, the overall costs of battery manufacturing can be significantly lowered. To ensure a continuous operation of the production line in combination with a high in-spec product rate, a large quantity of data reflecting both process and product parameters along the whole manufacturing process is mandatory. Only automated data collection through integrated sensors can provide such information and all this data stored into a data warehouse will enable employees to make conscious decisions for process improvement already during operation.

In this work, we present a tracking and tracing system based on Data-Matrix-Code (DMC) implemented in the electrode coating and calendering process at our research production line (FPL) in Ulm. The position of the mark is stored in a database together with linked production data from the subsequent processes, such as calendering. With this technology, production defects can be discretely traced via DMC already at electrode sheet level and sorted out in a targeted manner. Our goal is to build up a tracking and tracing (T&T) system along the entire process chain for optimizing the battery manufacturing process in view of off-spec material losses and overall downtime.