‘Smart Factory’ for Better Asset Utilization and Cost Effectiveness

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Smart Factory speroni
Smart Factory speroni

Hard work becomes effective only when it is done in a smart way. To put this into a manufacturing perspective, this “smart way” is to put the entire or part of the factory in an automated system termed as ‘Smart Factory’. In ‘Smart Factory’ machines communicate with each other and take a timely decision without human intervention based on past statistics to develop present and future quality based execution.

It is imperative to adapt to the change for survival as well as growth and hence manufacturers need to be flexible in manufacturing pace; manufacture fast before the life of the product gets over. A country like India where humans are in abundance and demand is high, fulfilling this becomes a need of the hour. 

Hence, we have no scope for human depended operation, it has to be system Driven operations.

In today’s changing market dynamics, both manufacturers and manufactured products are moving very fast where product life cycle is reduced and cost is decided by the consumer, putting every manufacturer’s feet on toes.

The Director of Speroni India, Ravindra Moolya quotes, “Indian manufacturing sector has grabbed global attention for its potential for growth. However, to achieve to bring the potential to fruition and achieve global competitiveness, Indian manufacturing needs to walk the smart way with Smart Factory which delivers benefits galore to the manufacturers. “

As per Indian manufacturing scenario, the present generation of manufacturers is very futuristic where they are very interested to adopt and alter the manufacturing from old to new technology. And definitely, the organizational decision making will be different by adopting advanced technology for future quality products.

As for application area sales, marketing planning, manufacturing, quality, packaging, stores, logistic, dispatch, and feedback – every department can come under the purview of the smart factory concept.

Coming to the benefits, there are many, of which, flexibility in manufacturing is the biggest one. ‘Smart Factory’ offers better asset utilization and recovery scope by which manufacturers can offer better cost for customers. For Indian manufacturing which is the cynosure of the global market, pricing of the products is still an issue where some of our neighboring countries are able to achieve better results. With Smart Factory in Indian manufacturing, this gap can be bridged.

There are some factors deterrent factors, though to fast implementation of the Smart Factory throughout manufacturing.

Firstly, awareness of the Smart Factory is not prevalent and it is catching up with Indian manufacturers slowly than required. The initial cost of adopting technology also plays a major role in this price-sensitive Indian market.

Secondly, the lack of infrastructure to facilitate the implementation of Smart Factory is a major factor.

Thirdly, there is still a dearth of skilled manpower to handle the Smart Factory in India. Ironically, India is one of the largest in terms of engineering graduates passing every year but the orientation of the students to the next generation technologies still lack due to poor industry-academia collaboration.

Often, technological up gradation is subjected to the question of viability in the face of axing manual labor.  But actually, this should be seen as a strength and not as a counter effect. With Smart Factory while the intervention of manual labor will be less, human intelligence will be much sought after. Besides, the new generation of the workforce will be oriented to adapt and learn advanced technology to achieve super fast growth, individually and also with companies’ growth. Hence the operating team will also become “Smart Operators”

For arriving at such juncture, awareness built up is of pivotal importance. Indian manufacturers should focus on cost-effectiveness that Smart Factory delivers and not just the cost up front. Secondly, infrastructure development needs to be streamlined with better networking and consistent internet access ad speed. Thirdly, we need trained manpower to successfully reap the benefits of the bestowed technologies at the shop floor.

 To give an example Speroni Spa which is a global leader in measurement, presetting and tool management solutions, has been successfully implemented Smart Factory. They run their machine on holidays such as Saturday and Sunday as they get special incentives for working on holidays this is converted to profit.

I strongly believe for Speroni India, this is just a beginning and there is an advantage of a learning curve – from others mistake and implement using their experience –(especially I talk about a progressive manufacturing country), we get extra millage of making things faster.

As a contribution for Indian Industry, we took initiative for educating our customers. We invested on concepts like EMT – Efficient Manufacturing Technology way back in 2014 and Zero Stock Machining in 2015 To make Indian manufacturing Smart & Seamless which saves the resources and uplift productivity. By this, Industry can become more competitive.  We keep on investing with such new technology-based learning, as we know Indian challenges better than anyone else does. 

As mentioned above, we have no option to reduce the cost, we believe reducing the price is not an alternate but effective utilization of asset is the only solution; hence Smart Factory is the smart way forward.

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