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Digital Transformation: Technological Revolution in Manufacturing Industry

Digital Transformation : Technological Revolution in Manufacturing Industry

Digital transformation has brought a new era of technological revolution in the manufacturing industry. Digital transformation helps in utilizing data of every activity of manufacturing process.

Digital transformation impacts all the process from raw material to finished goods. It helps in making the process systematic and helps in generating a revenue.

Benefits of Digital Transformation

There are tremendous benefits of Digital transformation, brief is as follows:

  1. Quality:

    Machine learning algorithms are applied in the process of production from where production process data is generated. This helps in predicting the defects in the production line, also it helps to predict the root cause of defects if any.

    Thus, it helps in maintaining the quality in production line as well as it helps to save a lot of time which can be used for productive process.

  2. Cost:

    Capturing and analyzing data at all points of the manufacturing line which includes production line and manufacturing data. Analyzing data helps to identify new cost saving opportunities.

    Inventory management can be done with the help of IIOT. Inventory management helps to further reduce the wastage in the industry which indirectly impacts the cost of production.Safety & Security

  3. Safety & Security:

    For digital transformation sensors are to be placed at different points of a process to analyse the data which can intimate in advance of any irregularity.

  4.  Customization:

    Nowadays customization is a key to unlock the requirements of customers. It can be easily achieved with digital transformation. With digitization manufacturing lines can offer a wide customization options to customers while remaining competitive in price.

  5.  Productivity:

    Analysing of data helps in better and faster processes. Since real time data is available with the help of IIOT which further is used for reducing the downtime and increasing the production rate.

    Pre information of data is helpful for preventing malfunction in the production line.

  6.  Cloud Computing Platform:

    Industrial cloud applications are used for capturing and accessing the data which is fast, helpful for easy updates and can be accessed on mobile or desktops as per the convenience.

  7. Advanced Analytics:

    IIOT has the ability to receive constant information from sensors and respond with analysed data in real time. It makes machine learning very powerful tool in providing benefits in production through IIOT.

    IIOT has helped with predictive maintenance, the behaviour can be very well understood of machines with their real time data. The machines can be well identified with accuracy for the errors and malfunctioning.

    Digital transformation is vital aspect for IIOT implementation in a manufacturing process. The digitization should cover all the aspects of Industry which includes production, development, delivery, quality and analysis.

Solution to Big Losses of Manufacturing Industry : OEE

Solution to Big Losses of Manufacturing Industry :OEE

What is OEE?

OEE is basically the metric for benchmarking progress, improving effectiveness, improving the productivity and identifying losses. It is calculated as :

OEE= Availability x Performance x Quality

There are six big losses which occur in manufacturing units while production. It is considered that OEE is used to minimize those losses. The major losses are:

  • Availability Loss

a. Unplanned Stops

b. Planned Stops

  • Performance Loss

a. Small Steps

b. Reduced Speed

  • Quality Loss

a. Production Rejects

b. Startup Rejects

How to Improve Production Losses?

OEE basically aids to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of the manufacturing system. By OEE we can take the reporting in a manner that no manual intervention is there and the system is calculating the real time report of manufacturing.

By OEE we can calculate the performance of individual alongwith availability of raw material.

In Brief:

  1. OEE helps in reducing the cost of quality manufacturing in a stipulated time.
  2. It increases the effectiveness of the production.
  3. Production rate also gets improved.

How OEE works?

Sensors are placed on the machinery and they measure the relevant parameters such as temperature, pressure etc while the production line is working.

There are two ways:

  1. OEE
  2.  IIOT

    Benefits:

    OEE is useful when it helps to take the better decisions regarding how and when production line should progress.

    The concerned person can check the relevant data at any given point of time and take the decision as per the same.

     

    Direct Analysis:

    The data reaches the concerned person without manipulation and in the format as desired. No more heavy files to access for analyzing the data.

Traceability

Traceability

Traceability is the process of maintaining records of all the materials and individual parts from raw material to a finished product where a UID helps to identify a part, a batch or a finished good. In manufacturing process, the activity of collecting and managing information is known as traceability. The information is collected right from the acceptance of a raw material to shipment of that product.

We provide Automotive Industry Solutions. The solutions are provided for the following lines say Production, Inventory, Vendor etc.

Let’s take an example of Production line. On a assembly line, there are various parameters which are calculated:

traceability

 

From the above parameters Efficiency and Automation is further divided as:

OEE

 


Automation

Here by smart monitoring we refer to making the data digital through digitization or digitalization. When we convert the data from reports to computer, it is said digitization. When we convert the data from hardware such as push buttons to HMI , it is called digitalization.

 

Digitization

Whether it is digitization or digitalization , it depends upon the ground level equipment available on the assembly line. Now a days the digitization process is done with the help of Industry 4.0.

In the production line , when we talk about a particular section, there are different factors on which production depends, these are:

1. Material available

2. Operator Efficiency

3. Record Maintenance

1. Material Availability

We have developed a software , named , VM Tool which takes the input data through ERP or manually  in its Library. This Variant Management Tool is also helpful in Inventory Management of the plant.

Say, we had raw material , x

Now , after production the raw material left is y

FCVMTool

Thus,

2. Operator Efficiency

Operator Efficiency is calculated through different factors, like OEE/ANDON & Efficiency. OEE is defined as addition of following factors:

Reporting

3.  Record Maintenance

Reporting is done in various ways:



Thus, tracing can also be known as tracing in the internal system.  Every product is marked with UID, and thus when a product is traced back , one can track the raw material of the product and  this is called genealogy.

track and trace

 

 

Leveraging the power of Digitization and Connectivity

Leveraging the power of Digitization and Connectivity

Throughout the old golden days the Factory Floor is being assumed as a place with lots of machines, raw materials, man power, reports etc.

The manufacturing industries use manual reporting system to check the output product report, to check the working efficiency of the machine, to check the downtime and to check the working of process of manufacturing. Since the manual reports utilize the manpower, manipulation may take place, manual intervention can be there, no real time data is available. To overcome these challenges digitization  come into the picture.

Digitization

Digitization means collection of data from non-intelligent machines irrespective of their makes, protocols over the common platform so that each machine on the shop floor can share the required data to another machine.

Thus, digitization helps in increasing the efficiency of the manufacturing process , which in return increases the productivity and makes the manufacturing unit cost effective too.

Thus , in recent times the Factory Floor are connected into more equipped with automation and new technologies which are more focused on quality and efficiency.

The Factory floors now have clarity, speed, more efficient, cost effective, more productive, Real Time Data and all this with minimal downtime. It has now become supercharged with Automation, Industry 4.0, OEE , IIOT.

IIOT

 

The thing which leads the whole process is digitization and connectivity.

It leads towards the interconnected manufacturing , less downtime and more cost effective and efficient manufacturing times.

SCADA

 

 

Variant Management

Variant Management

Challenge:

Now a days the products are becoming customized , it leads to increase in  no. of variants. Manufacturers have to  manage assembly lines , features for customized products which is resulting in increased errors, delays in meeting customer requests and extensive rework. This all is related to Variant Management in assembly line.

Every manufacturing unit manages variants, it can be with the help of Excel Sheets or Manually. It result in long working hours, chances of errors are more, variant may get interchange with other design which in result hampers the quality of the final product. Thus, arranging multiple variants on single assembly line is becoming a challenge.

Solution:

We offered our Variant Management Solution , through which the software will enable  to keep the check on production with its correct components.  This is done when barcode is scanned and matched with the RFID tag. In this the comparison is made via Plan v/s Actual.

Variant Management

Why Variant Management?

To preside over the power of reuse, reduce errors and delays and increase productivity.

In this manufacturers need to define Bill of material of a component and manage the variable in one structure rather than having individual structure. Reckers Mechatronics has designed the software, named  VM Tool , which enables one to save the variants in one structure called ‘LlBRARY’ which can save upto 5000 metrics.

Here is the dashboard of Variant Management:

SCADA SCREEN VARIANT MANAGEMENT

Advantages for the same are as follows:

  1. Plan vs  Actual can be easily checked and verified.

2. It helps to reduce the Rework.

  1. Options for each BOM is ready with the operator and can be checked also with the help of Tool.

Implementation

Firstly the data is saved in the ‘Library’ , which is build during development. It consist of the specification as per the design of the product. The Library fetches the data either through ERP or manually prepared reports.

 

VM Tool for Variant Management

There are various steps in implementation of VMS (Variant Management Software ). The steps are as follows:

  1. Order in a sequence.

2. Appropriate Information to concerned Individual.

3. Comparing Plan v/s Actual.

ERP is fed with the production plan, which is then fetched in Library , which is build during development of VM Tool. When the component comes on assembly line , the signal is transmitted to VM Tool  , the matrics related to the product comes on the screen, if it qualifies then marked as OK. Plan vs Actual is checked.

RFID TAG for variant Management

The barcode is placed on each component of the machine which is scanned and matched with the pre defined specification. ( present in the Library)

The  RFID tag is placed on each fixture which carries the unique identifier is related to the machine.

Component assembly takes place on one assembly line and engine assembly takes place on another assembly line. Further, both the components are combined to form a final desired product, which is on each stage qualified with Plan v/s  Actual.

 

Variant Management Reckers Mechatronics

ROI

The benefit of Variant Management system is to stop the Rework procedure which was time and cost consuming. Generally , customization can no longer be transferred to the customer, therefore the impetus of these losses comes on manufacturer.