While the buzz words of ‘Industry 4.0’ and ‘smart manufacturing’ have been doing rounds in the manufacturing circles for quite some time now, the adaptation to disruptive technologies had been very guarded. With reports of competitive advantage and tangible benefits gained by the early movers trickling out, the manufacturing industry is sitting up to the transformation taking place in the way products are being designed and created; consumed and serviced.
Helping it understand this transformation and providing solutions to incorporate changes in operations and processes are the technology providers aggressively promoting digitalisation.
Driving digital transformation
For the manufacturers, it’s no more should-we? It’s how soon and how much and how?
Companies, across sectors, are seeking to drive digital transformation of their organisation and processes by integrating automation, software and cutting-edge technologies in their day-to-day operations. Legacy method of manual capture of data and working on analysis is swiftly making way for digital initiatives across assembly lines.
And, while they proceed with it, the focus of all the endevour is still the customer and the values cherished by the organisations.
“Our vision is to unify the data across value chain, as that would generate greater value for our customers,” says M. S. Ravi Kumar, Vice President, WABCO India Limited in the business of commercial vehicle control systems. “We are focused on key value drivers that are relevant to our organization, namely asset utilization, productivity, defect free manufacturing and customer delight,” he adds, echoing the voices heard in the higher echelons across the manufacturing world.
As a strategic move towards digitalisation, companies across sectors are adopting a conglomeration of technologies and solutions addressing heterogenous operational issues.
At Elgi Equipments, it is tracking efficiency and quality parameters real-time that is driving its digitised automated testing and inspection solutions.
Sriram Srinivas, Director Operations, Elgi Equipments Limited, that designs compressed air solutions for a variety of industry applications summates, “We have moved to a digital paperless factory initiatives across assembly lines to track efficiency and quality parameters, real time.”
At SKF, among India’s leading providers of technology and solutions of bearings and units, it includes Predictive Cockpit (condition monitoring) for maintenance, additive manufacturing for shop supplies, an AI enabled Vision Inspection system supporting M2M and E2M connectivity and a connected supply chain.
Shailesh Sharma, Director of Manufacturing, SKF Limited, says “We’ve been driving digital transformation by integrating automation, software, and cutting-edge technologies for our day-to-day operations.” He lets out on the aggressiveness in digitalisation informing of the acquisition of AI solutions provider Presenso.
Technology vendors partnering industrial automation
Helping manufacturers digitalise their shop-floor are the technology providers who are mapping out the routes for turning the factories smart. Providing them a holistic perspective of bringing about efficiency-improvement through the entire production cycle and helping them create an entire digital eco-system of connected manufacturing, the technology and solutions providers are the most powerful catalysts in the brew.
From engineering and commissioning to operating and maintenance, technology providers are helping manufacturers in integration and assemblage of data; in sharing and analysis of data.
ABB robots for instance, are equipped with ABB Ability Connected Services, a unified cross-industry digital offering, extending from device to edge to cloud that enables secure integration and aggregation of data, combining with wider industry data, application of big data and predictive analytics.
“Competing in today’s manufacturing world means meeting consumer expectations for promptly delivering tailored products. This calls for quick and flexible production at reasonable costs, with minimal wastage and maximum efficiency,” says Subrata Karmakar, President, Robotics & Discrete Automation business, ABB India Ltd.
Rockwell Automation, which has been at the forefront of the digital transformation, says it is helping organizations in realizing their goals by providing services across three broad domains: Operational Intelligence; Increasing Productivity; and Risk Management.
“We are the largest company in the world that is dedicated to industrial automation and information. Our keen focus on technology innovation, domain expertise, and integrity and corporate responsibility fuels our success,” says Ruchi Mathur, Head India Marketing, Rockwell Automation.
OMRON is another technology provider that is said to be gaining a lot of traction in the manufacturing world for introduction of flexibility at the shop floor, impeccability of product inspection, reduction of down-time and automation of activities that are hazardous and burdensome.
Sameer Gandhi, MD, OMRON Automation, India, says, “As enablers to help the manufacturers make products of global quality in India, OMRON is powering the manufacturers turn their factories smarter and connected; reducing downtime, decreasing frequency of sudden failures, improving change-over efficiency and real-time data based predictive maintenance.”
Nikhil Ramaswamy, Co-Founder and CEO, CynLr places greater emphasis on adaptable and future-proof automation infrastructure that is capable of scaling with time to significant product evolution and part changes.
The initiatives of the manufacturing entrepreneur in adapting these disruptive technologies and the continual efforts from the technology providers in developing implementable solutions are providing substantial competitive advantages in the pandemic-disrupted business world.
Integrating automotive technologies
“We have seen our digitalisation initiatives result in both productivity and profitability,” says Srinivas on gaining competitive advantage. “We are uncovering productivity-improvement opportunities through analytics,” puts in Ravi Kumar in a similar vain.
Technology has been a boon in keeping the businesses running post-pandemic. Robots have helped keep operations running for some while remote diagnostic features for predictive analysis have worked for others. Industry has inculcated pro-active, cost-effective maintenance enabled by digitalisation.
At SKF, opportunities for collaborative robots, AGV and AMR for automated material handling systems is reported to have eased its operations in multiple ways. Adaptation of E-Kanban and End-to-End Traceability systems have simplified its inventory. “Additionally, we see digitalization as an enabler to implement and deliver pro-active maintenance quickly and cost-effectively. We are also integrating Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) to further strengthen our reliability promise,” declares Sharma.
With competitive advantage, the early movers in digitalisation have reaped mentionable benefits.
Tangible benefits
This increasing demand for digitalisation is a pointer to the fact that manufacturers are hearing of tangible benefits of digitalisation for the early movers and would want to follow track. Something like Elgi increasing the energy efficiency of their plant operations by 24% gets industry to sit up to.
ZF WABCO’s Ravi Kumar talks of “a 5% savings on maintenance cost of conditioning monitoring of CNC machines, a 15% MTBF improvement, a 10% improvement in OLE of factories and a 5% savings on energy cost.”
A downtime reduction by 15%, noise level by 10% and repair and maintenance cost by as much as 20% at SKF are some of the noteworthy benefits of digitalisation. OEE improvement by 1% and real-time energy monitoring system showing 6% reduction in consumption are among the other benefits at SKF.
Though businesses will be finding suitability of technologies varying to different situations differently, some trend can be discerned of technologies that are finding greater favour.
Sought-after technologies
With the march of Industry 4.0, a multiplicity of technology applications has advanced catering to varied needs of manufacturing enterprises. Some are sought after more than the other.
While AI has been advancing rapidly, the big step currently is AI on the edge device on the shop floor. AI PLC and AI vision are both driving demand at OMRON among others. In robotics, ‘hard-tooled robotic cell’ is giving way to ‘flexible integrated cell’ while at the same time ‘hard-coded conventional AGV with limited flexibility’ is conceding space to ‘flexible AIV autonomous navigation’. Collaborative robots, that help rapid introduction of new products are drawing increasing interest. ABB draws a vast spectrum of industries and businesses with its extremely diverse cobot portfolio. CynLr builds hardware and software to solve a ubiquitous global robotics challenge – a visual robotic arm that is aware in handling objects and dynamically manipulating them.
Post pandemic, points of Mathur of Rockwell Automation, the manufacturing industry is undergoing a paradigm shift in implementing robust digital transformation strategies. She says they have seen a keen desire and interest coming from the industry for their ‘The Connected Enterprise’, which converges plant-level and enterprise networks, and securely connects people, processes, and technologies.
Their FactoryTalk is another solution that Mathur says seeing a lot demand as the InnovationSuite brings edge-to-enterprise analytics, machine learning, industrial internet of things (IIoT) and augmented reality (AR) into industrial operations.
“It simplifies how your company manages data and makes it easier for everyone to access, understand and leverage the information they need to make decisions,” she explains.
Technologies providing for design and energy optimisation, best asset utilisation, machine and worker safety, zero defect production, big data and analytics are the sought-after solutions. In industries assembling multiple complex components, solutions that have close interface with IIoT like Total Traceability Solution claim greater attention.
Smoothening transition
Though the transition to digitalisation has been substantial with the larger manufacturers, it is at the MSMEs that the skill-sets to execute the projects are found wanting. This is where the role of system integrators (SIs) comes into the picture, feels Gandhi. “One of the key requisites for expanding the penetration of digitalisation seamlessly and smoothly is the availability of a partner eco system,” flags the OMRON MD.
Make it easy and lead from the front, is Karmakar’s mantra. “At ABB Robotics, we are leading from the front. Our programming software allows first time users to introduce robotic automation into their production lines without the need for specialist programming skills or any knowledge of RAPID code.”
OMRON Cobots too can be programmed using a simple graphical interface without the need of any coding skills, which re-enforces that the solution providers all around believe in the need to keep it simple
Accurate evaluation of the modularity and adaptability of the technologies in a particular enterprise is an absolute must to avoid later days hiccups. “Requirements, processes, and the environment are more volatile and continuously adapting than ever before. Any technology that is adopted at an infrastructural level that limits the nimbleness and the adaptability of the organization could spell disaster in the long-term,” warns Ramaswamy of CynLR.
While there are many different ways to support digital transformation throughout your company, Mathur insists that overall approach needs to be holistic. “To begin with, involve all departments in the process. You can’t keep digital transformation in a silo. Every department needs to take part in the initiative and be aware of the role they will play in the entire process. Remember, the human element is key in it on all levels.”
Disruptive eco-system
Unlike popular perception, digitalisation and smart manufacturing is not for the large conglomerates alone. Automation allows the makers to produce in small batches but with high productivity.
According to Gandhi, “The technology is evolving rapidly and hence also turning out to be a great leveller. It can actually help many of the manufacturers leapfrog and take on the larger and more established manufacturing setups with minimal investments.” Given the availability of technological skill-set and the entrepreneurial mindset, this ecosystem too will develop.
“It is only a matter of time,” he says with an air of finality.