50 Manufacturing Companies – Volkswagen India

The Volkswagen Pune Plant has been promoting innovation to a great extent last few years. The idea has been to achieve low cost automation. “We have approached this goal by implementing i) low cost techniques and solutions that have come to the fore through out-of-the-box thinking from our teams ii) low cost methods by localising and in-house sourcing and, iii) reusing/recycling of equipment,” he says.
An example of low cost technique implemented in its body shop would be the visualisation done for the production process. Earlier, manual alert for every model changeover during production was required. With in-house development of visualisation programme, there is an overview available in real-time and all production adjustments can be done without manual alerts. Additionally, all production information is available in real-time to the management at a click of a button and the company has achieved reduction in downtime caused due to miscommunication. In case of any issues, team leaders can identify location of issue and solve the issue without losing time.
Dr Manzenrieder says that manufacturing is moving rapidly towards Industry 4.0. One of the biggest challenges faced by the industry are conversion of production processes involving existing equipment and new equipment and marrying them together. Many new sensor technologies are being introduced to gather data from the equipment and systems. By putting this data through analytics, the manufacturers are able to improve production in terms of productivity and efficiency.
VW India is investing efforts towards adapting the plant for digitalisation. It has mapped areas where it can bring in digitalisation in manufacturing and designed a roadmap. “Currently our body shop, paint shop, engine shop and assembly are all working independently. In the near future, all these shops will be connected. This will help us in better planning of production volumes and buffers between shops,” he adds.
It’s increasing the use of 3D printing. In an emergency, it is able to 3D print certain tools to improve production quality until a permanent fix is implemented. Quick reaction to problems has become possible with the help of 3D printing.