Panasonic India

The Indian white goods industry has almost phased out the R22 refrigerant, which is a hydrochlorofluorocarbon (HCFC) that depletes the ozone layer and also has high global warming potential. In order to meet the Indian compliances, Panasonic India has phased out R22 refrigerant gas from manufacturing and substituted it with an environment-friendly solution.

Accordingly, the company has also modified its production line and added an additional facility for manufacturing air-conditioners using R410A as a refrigerant. The same production line can also be used for producing R22 air-conditioners as well as R410A air-conditioners, depending upon demand and requirement. The multi-product production line helps the company increase its operational efficiency for the air-conditioner plant. While most of the current refrigerant variants used are HFCs, which do not harm the ozone layer, the industry is adopting variants such as R410A, which has lower global warming potential.

In India, home appliances like air-conditioners, washing machines, refrigerators, etc. are considered as a seasonal product, it is but natural that production cycles will fluctuate throughout the year. Since Panasonic India manufactures multiple products at Technopark, with each product having different peak demands, it utilises the same resources for various products at different times. The demand forecasting team needs to understand the trends and inform the production team about the cycles. For instance, when demand for air-conditioners are high, demand for washing machines could be low. Keeping this in mind, the production team and the plant head ensure that they maintain productivity as and when they see fluctuations in the market.