Courted by the easy-to-initiate off-the-shelf solutions and enamoured by the successes of the early movers large corporations in the digital factory space, SMEs are rapidly catching up on making their manufacturing smart.
Most of the digitalisation in India is credited to the large domestic and multinational corporation. Apprehensive of large investment and inability or unwillingness to bear possible disruption in productions, SMEs had largely ignored the impending inevitability of digitalisation. With pandemic forcing digitalisation on them and the exemplary successes trickling out about early movers who had ensured continuity of business in their enterprises through the lockdowns, smaller enterprises are getting on the fast lane of adopting smart manufacturing trends.
“We are seeing encouraging enquiries and deployments of automation solutions, as businesses are investing considerable number of resources in upgrading their infrastructure,” says Inderpreet Singh, Vice President – Sales, Addverb Technologies.
“Technology is becoming more advanced seemingly every passing day, and it has become nearly impossible for enterprises to truly thrive without adopting digitalization and automation for their operations,” opines Singh, whose company is in the business of providing dedicated support for the digital transformation of material handling processes.
Even though their adoption of new technologies initially is piecemeal off-the-shelf end-of-line solutions, there is a growing realisation and acceptance of the need for a holistic approach to the subject too.
“We adopted tailor made as well as standardized solutions for process improvement, optimization, safety, environment and other areas which gave the desired returns. However, when we go for smart factory and implementing digital technology we should see the overall benefit of the organization,” says A Murugan, Manager- Unit Operation, Dalmia Cement (B) Ltd.
Industry 4.0: Drawing in with smart solutions
There are a myriad of technology providers offering varied services and solutions for customised as well as standardised ready-to-use solutions for particular functions. Enterprises are picking them up on a need-to basis.
Technology providers are drawing them in with easy and quick to adopt solutions. HERE Technologies for instance showcases an asset tracking solution to affordably track indoor and outdoor industrial assets that can be easily and quickly set up.
“HERE Asset Tracking is a plug-and-play platform-as-a-service solution that has an immediate set up time of up to five days and allows businesses to track their assets globally in almost 150 countries,” says Abhijit Sengupta, Director and Head of Business, India and Southeast Asia, HERE Technologies.
Dispelling intimidating notions about digitalisation among the un-initiated, Sengupta cites examples of some of the solutions he provides. Businesses can simply choose to lease a hardware tracking device from HERE’s portfolio of trackers or use one of their own trackers and attach the device to their warehouse or factory assets.
Otherwise, businesses can leverage the asset tracking as API (Application programming Interface) where pieces of software communicate with each other and thereby obtain usage and optimisation metrics of their equipment across the factory floor.
Moreover, the tracking solution works with mobile applications too that can be installed on mobile phones and tablets and is ready to use without any extensive integration into existing applications.
Singh at Addverb Technologies is another of those solution providers to smart manufacturing. Autonomous Mobile Robots, pallet shuttle robots, end of line automation, picking solutions and AI enabled software suite are some of the off-the-shelf solutions that he provides. Moving WIP goods and finished goods from point to point within the factory, order picking and packing operations are among the popular purchase list of small enterprises looking for smart solutions from him.
“AMRs, facilitating intralogistics within the factory that are standalone and can be taken in small as well as bulk quantities, are incredibly versatile,” says Singh, who is charging ahead in the domain of robotic automation.
He explains how they can speed up the picking process by handling the tedious task of moving products around. Some collaborative robots can guide operators through task by navigating to inventory locations, displaying the items and quantities to pick, directing workflows and keeping associates on task to improve the accuracy and efficiency of order fulfilment operations, he elaborates.
“AMRs can determine and follow optimized picking routes and are particularly valuable in facilitating zone and pick-and-pass picking methodologies,” informs Singh. Pick up to Light systems, a simple but robust system that helps to streamline warehouse picking operations and enables high speed order fulfilment, is among the popular ones that goes by the name of ‘Rapido’ at Addverb. “With very fast, nimble, and accurate results, Rapido, our Pick to Light is one of the world’s largest selling light-guided picking technology,” he pitches.
Jitendra Joshi, Senior Manager – Product Marketing, Factory Automation & Industrial Division, Mitsubishi Electric India Pvt. Ltd. talks of Mitsubishi Electric’s e-F@ctory Solution that is completely based on commercial-off-the-shelf products at various layers of manufacturing. Mitsubishi works as SMEs’s digital partner with shared responsibility. Being digital partner, Mitsubishi Electric India guides SMEs to implement latest digital technologies and make it success through its SMKL (Smart Manufacturing Kaizen Level) practice.
Automation Systems (PLCs, HMI, Industrial / Collaborative Robots, Drives, Servo etc.) to capture and control real-time data from manufacturing data sources (sensors/devices), Edge Computing Platform for IT-OT/FA integration, Commercial off-the-shelf Software solutions as pre-configured to meet end-user’s expectation and completely configurable Software Suite for Data Visualizations & Analysis; are easy-to-adopt solution provided by Mitsubishi Electric.
Collaboration and connectivity solutions is what Tata Teleservices helps businesses with. Solutions like Smart VPN, Smartflo – advanced cloud communication suite, cyber security solutions, SD-WAN iFlx, Smart Internet are among some of its offerings.
“Most of our solutions are backed by SLAs with 99.5% uptime backed by our robust 24*7 managed services,” claims Mannu Singh, VP, Tata Teleservices.
Expanding industrial automation in Industry 4.0
However, end-line automation is just a beginning part of it. “Industry 4.0 is all about the need for efficiency, productivity and cost savings. The as-a-service models do this best and it’s only likely to continue growing. However, digitalizing the factory process is not a straight forward process,” alerts Sengupta. Without a holistic approach, digitalisation with just ready-to-use solutions can run into road blocks.
Enterprises, big and small, are clearly moving ahead of seeking just standardised easy-to-adapt solutions with a quick fix return on investment. Positive stories have started to come out from early adapters of smart factories. These stories are getting amassed in to concise narratives in favour of new technologies and finding easy embrace with the late adapters.
At Stanadyne India, that puts itself in SME category having a turnover of about Rs 360 crore per annum, implementation of Industry 4.0 is already around 65% complete in the plant and the project is still on with a long term perspective.
“Smart Factory Project in Stanadyne India is big and are planned based on long term returns,” says Sanjay Chadda, Managing Director, Stanadyne India Pvt Ltd. “The implementation of Industry 4.0 is in the plant where the most critical products were considered initially to start with. As far as the current level of implementation is concerned, the top management is highly satisfied and rated successful.”
With new projects in the pipe line and the Industry 4.0 initiatives to continue, he is looking to drive his business further in achieving a targeted growth of Rs 500 crore in 2025.
Numerous other success stories are doing the rounds in the industry, laying the road map for the others to follow.
Among the very successful ones, going about implementing i4.0 is SKF. “Smart factory is not about deploying one software across the entire shop floor and seeing immediate improvements in the production process. It is about digital development, which is the connection of assets to the internet combined with cloud computing and powerful analytics, which leads to insights,” says Shailesh Sharma, Director of Manufacturing, SKF; with a strategic road map of reaching Manufacturing 4.0 by 2023-24.
Sharma sees Indian manufacturing to adapt Industry 4.0 sooner than otherwise imagined. “The fastest-growing connectivity will be in manufacturing, which is expected to represent almost one-third of the total value of Industry 4.0.,” he says and adds that his company is “smartifying industry” in order to utilise these opportunities.
Smart factories delivering numbers for Industry 4.0
So, while the debate on the long-term benefits vs short term return on investment rages on, and while enterprises are slowly coming down to accepting the inevitability of smartifying their operations even if in piecemeal manner, the benefits can be seen clearly even in the short time.
“HERE Asset Tracking is enabling smart factory owners to better utilize and optimize their assets up to 30%, so revenue per asset can be increased,” asserts Sengupta. “By tracking assets in real time, smart factories can root out inefficiencies and reduce overhead costs by up to 15%,” adds Sengupta who is in the business of offering all location data and software in one platform.
Sharma at SKF expects smartifying will help realize cost-effectiveness in manufacturing, application engineering, product development and cross-functional operations closely connected to those.
“We have improved the green fuel consumption from 4% to 25%, specific power consumption reduced from 48.5 kwh/t to 43.5 kwh/t, equipment reliability sustained above 99.5%, specific heat consumption reduced from 702 Kcal/kg to 697 Kcal /kg,” cites Murugan of the real gains at Dalmia Cement.
“Reduction of unplanned machine downtime and maintenance costs, reduction of manpower in critical operations, elimination of quality rejections, reduction in Cycle Time resulting in increased production, transparency in data which are customer requirements and are critical to fit and function of the products, customer satisfaction resulting in new business opportunities and safety in operations,” are some of the other tangible and intangible benefits of a smart factory Chadda dwells on.
Industry 4.0: Encountering challenges of smart factories
Smart factory doesn’t come without its challenges. Chadda’s narration of the difficult times the company had to encounter in the initial stages as it set on its journey to smart manufacturing should be of interest to enterprises wanting to know what it would encounter and what it takes to overcome them.
“Setting up smart manufacturing in a company is very demanding on the Manufacturing Engineering Team whose support and continuous involvement is essential to ensure the project was carried through without disruption. It tests the organisation’s deftness in handling job change-overs and reduction in manpower.
The organisation has to gear up to subject themselves through time consuming product validation process undergoing the entire testing cycle demanded by the customers. Ensuring collaborative efforts through the entire gamut of the organisation including the HR that has to plan and execute the classroom and on-the -job training programmes,” chronicles Chadda.
Piercing through the investment-demanding bottlenecks related to compatibility issues of existing hardware devices in the machines with the changeovers; and harnessing IT teams to ensure data security, are some of the other major challenges that his company encountered and worked around.
In similar vein and adding to it, Sharma gives his take on what he calls “smartifying manufacturing”. Aligning every stakeholder to the business objectives that are driving the digital transformation is a challenge and overcoming it is critical to the success of digitalisation for any enterprise.
“Facilitating an understanding of the role across all departments, in the overall strategy and detailing how their work contributes to the bigger picture is a critical success factor in driving digitalization,” according to Sharma.
“Qualitative approach to deal with such challenges are clear communication on expectation and deliverables, participation of cross functional team with shared responsibility and training to user for smooth operations,” advises Joshi to deal with the challenges.
Most importantly, identifying the exact tools appropriate to the digitalisation need of an enterprise is a test best negotiated right at the beginning of the process and a spoiler for the many well-intentioned well-invested initiatives.
“It was a challenge to identify suitable tailor-made technological solution provider to meet our requirement,” admits Murugan.
“If the current process has issues same will get repeated even after investing money in digitalization.” Sharma adds as a caution, “Many companies want to follow digitalization but without any set KPI or strategy. As a result, the transformation can fail to set in motion.”
Meeting the requirement of a cultural shift across the organisation, weighing key questions around future workforce and growing requirements of data protection are daunting.
Voluminous data coming at a very fast pace and in multiple formats can be overwhelming. Comprehending the staggering data that is being generated within a smart factory is a challenge. “Businesses that understand data will yield greater business value insights in the long run,” says Sengupta.
Inability of machines to communicate between them and consequently difficulty to leverage the information generated is a big put-off. “It is not easy to just swap out one vendor for another, or one part of the system for another. To counter this, it’s worth pursuing standards development to increase interoperability, as well as open-source options for smart technology projects,” adds Sengupta.
In this context, Tata Teleservices VP says, “A common hurdle manufacturers encounter is the integration of multiple technologies. The sudden switch to hybrid and remote working has catalysed the digital enablement of business environments.”
“The excessive focus on quantifiable results such as ROI and ignoring indirect benefits such as process improvement, accuracy of operations etc.” is another challenge Singh alludes to.
At the same time, the initial apprehension in the SMEs circle about adopting smart technologies cannot be simply brushed aside. “Most of the small and medium manufacturing businesses are anxious about adopting smart technologies as they often discover that initiating a smart-manufacturing project is labour-intensive, time-consuming and costly,” says Singh of Tata Teleservices in an understanding note.
Skilling the workforce for digital dexterity, formalising data sharing to address concerns on data sensitivity and data security, increasing interoperability without which companies will always find limitations to innovations, and developing a robust system architecture to balance compute needs and location needs of edge and cloud are only some of the challenges to address according to Sengupta.
The essence of Industry 4.0
Be it automation across functions in a factory or some individual issue being addressed, the essence of digital transformation is connected and intelligent devices machines and production systems for informed decisions and improved processes.
“When it comes to the new wave of industrial revolution, Industry 4.0 is all about the need for efficiency, productivity and cost savings,” says Sengupta.
“The essence of a Smart Factory is Data Transparency. The Industry 4.0 insists on full automation & digitalization of machines and equipment in the process which enhances data transparency through the Internet of things (IoT). Machines & Equipment are interlinked and the output of one machine is taken as input to other machines in subsequent operations in the process,” elaborates Chadda of Stanadyne that is a leading global fuel and air management systems supplier.
“In order to make factories smart, not only do we need digitalization and automation, but we also need human knowledge and experience to solve complex problems,” concludes Joshi.