Manufacturing Today and CISCO hosted a roundtable on smart manufacturing.
BY TEAM MANUFACTURING TODAY
CISCO presented the Manufacturing Today Think Turf series on ‘Making the Shop Floor Smart for Manufacturers’, which saw a fabulous response from the industry. With an exclusive group of 10 manufacturing heads, from multiple industry genres, participating in the event, topics such as Internet of Things, Smart Manufacturing, Skill Development, Investment in Technology, Predictive Analysis, Remote Monitoring and Low Cost Manufacturing were explored extensively. BDB was the knowledge partner and provided a great platform to deliberate on issues that are at the crux of shop floor operations.
The panellists included Barun Panda, plant head, Lloyds Line Pipes; Procyon Mukherjee, president, central logistics function, Hindalco Industries; Girish Parundekar, GM, manufacturing engineering, manufacturing division, Blue Star; Khushru Vakharia, GM, works, motors, Bharat Bijlee; Hiraman Aher, VP, manufacturing operations (Nashik & Igatpuri), Mahindra & Mahindra; Ajay Baldua, GM, engineering, Raymond; Arun Gondkar, deputy GM, weaving, Raymond; Shrikant Savangikar, director, business excellence, quality & sustainability, SKF India; Bappa Bandyopadhyay, director, operations and projects, Henkel Adhesive Technologies; and Rajendra Charatkar, VP, manufacturing, Godrej Interio.
Vinay Dua, business development manager, industry solutions, internet of everything, Cisco Systems (India) Pvt. Ltd, remarked during his opening speech: “We are witnessing digitisation of all the assets in the organisation. Earlier just the PCs, laptops and servers were well connected, but now all your robotic arms and sensors are also part of the same network. A plant requires uptime close to 100%, so the selective use of technology must be done carefully.”
After an initial round of introductions, Manish Kulkarni, director, strategic initiatives, BDB India Pvt. Ltd, and moderator for the discussion, initiated the conversation, stating, “A huge amount of data is getting generated, but the potential impact of the industrial internet of things is going to be $11 trillion, of which manufacturing will be $3-4 trillion.” Each of the panellists then presented their views on challenges faced on the shop floor, issues relating to supply chain and the level of IT penetration and use of automation in a plant.
Savangikar shared his experience: “We have 20-22 machines in line, all interconnected and processes dependent. So if there is any quality problem in one, the next machine will not run. We need to integrate this, rather than trouble shoot.” Bandyopadhyay concurred, “In our processes, the operational and the process KPI’s are not available or transparent in a real time manner. This means that we may have the latest ERP systems, SAP and everything; we have the latest information, but these are not integrated. They are working as silos.” Mukherjee proposed the breaking down of these very silos. “All your equipments have to talk to each other. Human beings need to talk to each other! Remove the silos for customers as well, because you need to have a completely transparent understanding of customer processes.”
Panda added to this: “There are so many players in our industry, but hardly four or five major suppliers with 50% of total market share. So reducing operating cost becomes very important and smart manufacturing can help us. Real time data availability and analysis will resolve a lot of our manufacturing-related issues.” The sheer magnitude of data is also a problem. “We collect lot of data, but there is really no way to analyse it and come to a solution on an issue,” Vakharia lamented. Parundekar emphasised the importance of 6M, that is, man, machine, material, method, measurement, and material, along with handling time, tool, environment, health, and safety as well as visuals. “All these elements are to be addressed whether it concerns world class manufacturing, innovation, smart manufacturing or sustainability,” he said.
Charatkar commented, “When you are facing competition from the organised and unorganised sector, there are always challenges of making the supply chain more efficient. Gone are those old days where the customer could wait three to four weeks to get his furniture; we are talking about one or two day delivery, today.” Mukherjee gave the example of India’s mining sector, where a fine transportation system is in operation, today. From a government office, you can track any vehicle; it’s got a registration number and transit pass, all electronically done. This has been implemented in around 16 months’ time, and tracks every mineral moving in the country, he says.
The panellists were extremely frank when it came to sharing their company’s pain points, making for a rich discussion and exchange of ideas. Savangikar mentioned an issue that is reflected across Indian factories, when he said, “We joke that a machine can stop for two reasons; one, if it is very old or two, if it is very modern. If it’s very modern then the worker doesn’t know what to do, as he is very often a 10th Standard pass-out and can’t handle the intricacies of the machine.” He suggested making the systems and software user-friendly, like smart phones today, so that workers can own them and also perform preventive/ predictive or shut down maintenance on them. That’s where smart technology comes in.
Baldua proclaimed, “Raymond has implemented many technologies, like a wireless barcode system, which is a smart shop. But basically in textiles, the OEMs have close-ended software and to integrate that is a big challenge. We are trying to get vendors who can tap the data from machines and get it connected to our ERP system.” His colleague, Gondkar, added that although there are modern machines present, there is not much automation in the textile industry yet.
Solutions to common problems were also succinctly highlighted, with Aher contributing, saying, “At Mahindra, many initiatives have been taken. Production management is integrated almost all across. When an order is placed by the customer, we start manufacturing based on that, and that is communicated to our suppliers too. Similarly, we have an online quality monitoring system.” Tirthankar Mishra, director, sales, commercial, western region, CISCO, offered his expert advice. “In today’s age, you not only have to store data, but be able to retrieve it fast and then do real time analytics. So there are multiple parts coming together in this chain of smartness. We have built an entire smart manufacturing solution, which we call the connected factory solution to tackle this,” Mishra concluded.
With every plant head working toward the same goal – building an integrated network that connects the plant and business as a whole – the panellists met on common grounds, making for a robust roundtable experience. We bring you snapshots from the event.