Solar Manufacturing Solution

The solar photovoltaic (PV) market is experiencing unprecedented growth as the world embraces renewable energy to reduce carbon emissions and achieve climate goals. Solar energy is emerging as a key solution, with increasing investments and demand across industries seeking sustainable alternatives.

With production facilities now spread across multiple regions, manufacturers face new challenges in maintaining consistent quality and process control. Digital continuity and advanced quality assurance systems have become critical to managing these complex operations to ensure reliable, high-performance solar modules while optimizing efficiency and reducing production risks.

Scale up towards gigafactory

Stay at the forefront of innovation to enhance efficiency and scale operations from lab prototypes to gigafactory production, driving increased output through technological advancements.

Maintaining high manufacturing throughput

A highly automated and integrated production environment is essential to meet high manufacturing throughput and to gain a competitive advantage

Shorten time to market by optimizing resources

Accelerate production ramp-up and improve yield by optimizing resources to shorten time to market, reduce waste, and control manufacturing costs.

Maintaining high quality supply chain

Ensuring the quality of the raw material supply chain is essential to maintaining consistent product quality that meets industry standards and fulfills customer needs.

Achieve complete supply chain traceability from ingot to module

Tracking every stage from ingot manufacturing to cell production to module assembly can be challenging, but comprehensive BOM tracking ensures quality and accountability across the supply chain.

Meeting regulatory compliance

Manufacturers are required to adhere to strict industry regulations and international standards.

Environmental and Ethical Concerns

By minimizing its ecological footprint through ethical sourcing and sustainable practices, the solar industry reduces its impact while making clean energy more accessible and beneficial to consumers.

Polysilicon Production

1) The process begins with refining silicon to produce polysilicon, which is the base material for solar cells.

Ingot and Wafer Production

2) Polysilicon is melted and formed into ingots, which are then sliced into thin wafers. The wafer thickness and quality directly impact the efficiency of the final solar cell.

Solar Cell Manufacturing

3) Wafers are processed to create solar cells, involving several steps, including doping, diffusion, and the application of an anti-reflective coating.

Solar Panel (Module) Assembly

4) Solar cells are assembled into modules with glass, encapsulants, and a back sheet to form a durable, weather-resistant solar panel.

Testing and Quality Assurance

5) Each solar module undergoes rigorous testing to ensure efficiency, durability, and compliance with international standards.

Efficiency profile analytics enables solar manufacturers and operators to maximize the performance and reliability of solar cells and panels. By identifying inefficiencies, defects and real-world energy output, it improves quality control and ensures optimized operations efficiency.

This analysis highlights factors improving performance of cell and solar panels, ultimately enhancing energy yield, reducing lifetime costs, and accelerating the transition to sustainable energy.

Tracking of individual ingots, cells, and modules—both physically and virtually—throughout the entire manufacturing process is crucial for ensuring quality assurance.

Detailed traceability data enables manufacturers to quickly identify inefficiencies and defects, manage recalls, and maintain a consistent production record, ensuring effective batch tracking that enhances both quality assurance and customer trust.

Meeting the dynamic needs of solar manufacturing requires production flexibility and optimized resource management. An advanced MES software solution supports quality control, adaptable production lines, and smart resource allocation. By minimizing waste and increasing throughput, manufacturers can effectively scale operations and respond quickly to market demands.

Real-time data collection is key to maintaining high standards. This includes:

Inline Measurements: Monitoring process parameters like etch rate and deposition rate.
Visual Inspections: Checking dimensions and optical quality for consistency.
Electrical Data: Measuring power output of cells and modules to validate performance.

WMS plays a critical role in optimizing the storage, handling, and distribution of materials in solar manufacturing. It improves inventory management, production efficiency, and supply chain integration by enabling real-time tracking, automating processes, and optimizing storage. This ensures the smooth flow of materials for solar energy production while maintaining quality and regulatory compliance.

The RACE Suite MCS solution is specifically designed to optimize and streamline automated material handling processes in high-volume manufacturing environments. It seamlessly integrates with various Automated Material Handling Systems (AMHS) and Automated Guided Vehicles (AGVs) within photovoltaic (PV) manufacturing facilities, enhancing efficiency, reducing downtime, and improving overall production flow.

A well-established MES solution will serve as a one-stop MES platform which supports all stages of solar manufacturing from the ingot stage of production to cell production, and to the final panel module assembly. Designed to streamline the entire solar production process, the MES Solar Edition solution will help you to accelerate production ramp up, improve yield optimization, and shorten time to market.

It is a fully integrated platform compatible with both crystalline silicon and thin film solar technologies, offering flexibility for diverse production environments. Utilizing open standards, it seamlessly integrates with your existing infrastructure, enhancing quality management and optimizing equipment performance.

Line Manager

“I have to optimize throughput and equipment utilization. What are the current KPI values, and what are the trends so far?”

Process Engineer

“When introducing new products, I need to ensure continuous process stability. To achieve this, I require data on the current process, including product details, process plans, consumables, and equipment data.”

Equipment Engineer

“My job is to maintain the equipment. I need to know what has happened with this equipment in the past hours, days, or weeks. Were there any deviations, alarms, or issues?”

Planner

“I am responsible for planning new job orders for customers. How many orders are in the pipeline? What is the status of current orders in production? Which equipment is available or unavailable?”

Operator

“I need to know what happens next? What’s the next step? Which material or order to set up or start on specific equipment? Some working instructions would be helpful.”