Content of Process Industrial Engineering ONLINE Course Module
Industrial Engineering Case Studies - Industrial Engineering ONLINE Course
Industrial Engineering ONLINE Course
Productivity Improvement Project News - Knowledge Bank
Some of the companies have offered productivity enhancing products and solutions to other companies apart from implementing them in their own organizations where applicable.
ArcelorMittal
2019 News
The Lean Six Sigma methodology has been chosen in 2013 as a tool to stimulate the continuous improvement culture within our organization. Lean is mainly identification and elimination of existing waste, while the Six Sigma provides the company with the tools to eliminate irregularities, deviations and unnecessary activities in the process. Both methods increase productivity, they increase the quality of work and the satisfaction our Clients and employees.
Implementation of this program allows to transform our organization to highly productive process oriented Service Center in which each employee is actively contributing to continuous improvement initiatives.
https://bcoe.arcelormittal.com/blog/post/leansix-sigma-white-belt
Vaibhav Singla
Bajaj Auto
Productivity improvement in BAJAJ Auto Using co-bots of Universal Robotics
Bajaj Auto, India’s motorcycle maker, has teamed up with Danish company, Universal Robots (UR) to drive operational efficiencies across the Chakan (Pune), Waluj (Aurangabad) and Pantnagar (Uttarakhand) plants.
The company has installed close to 120 collaborative robots or co-bots by Universal Robots, across its three plants. These co-bots are deployed to perform tasks such as deburring, decal applications, vision applications, machine tending, welding, sealant applications and bolt tightening, among others.
The co-bots, with their 3kg to 10kg payload capabilities, are suitable for two-wheeler manufacturing operations and their component suppliers.to handle the small and medium size and weight of the assembly parts. Bajaj Auto was a visionary in terms of realizing the utility of our co-bots on their shopfloor operations to enhance and drive their productivity and it was the first automotive company to implement the concept of collaborative robots on their assembly lines in India.
In 2010 Bajaj Auto had first contacted Universal Robots for for multi-modelling production automation in welding, painting, assembly and skilled operations like fettling, decal and others. A two-wheeler assembly line has a typical pitch dimension of one metre and therefore compact and lightweight robots are to be used. First, 30 co-bots were purchased to study their impact in terms of productivity and output.
Later, Bajaj Auto, ordered more co-bots in knocked down form and assembled them at its Akurdi facility starting from November 2011. This helped in bringing down the costs of these industrial robotic arms (including the software and hardware setup) by 35-40 percent. The 3kg to 10kg payload co-bots ranged between Rs 12 lakh to 20 lakh per unit including their entire setup.
Productivity Benefit
Overall automation including UR’s co-bots, helped Bajaj Auto over the past year to increase production from 507 vehicles per person per year (V/P/Y) to 804 vehicles per person per year, which is a 58.5 percent increase YoY. All UR co-bots that Bajaj Auto assembles and has installed so far are of 5kg payload category. The company (BAL) has also given access to these co-bots to some of its key suppliers to improve the processes at the suppliers end too.
Vireshwar Yadav
Bayer
Industry 4.0 and Corn Production at Bayer Crop Science:
Using modern techniques in production of hybrid corn varieties and in Quality Testing
What Does the Internet of Farming Look Like in Practice?
The farm implements soil scanning techniques as a basis for variable planting density, in-field digital monitoring of the yield, and crop scanning technologies to support optimum timing and variable rate application of fertilizer and crop protection products. IoT keeps a track of health of the harvest.
https://www.cropscience.bayer.com/innovations/data-science/a/what-does-internet-farming-look-practice
Birla Cement
Bosch
Industry 4.0 - Digital Bosch plant in Blaichach, Germany
Dell
Fujitsu
4 July 2019
Fujitsu’s New Technologies Reduce the Cost of AI Solution Creation for Visual Inspection Applications
Fujitsu EMEIA
Fujitsu Laboratories of Europe’s new technologies dramatically cut the costs of creating AI solutions for visual inspection applications, including manufacturing, infrastructure maintenance and healthcare
The innovative new technologies do advanced automatic unsupervised defect detection (typically 80-90% automatic discovery of regions of interest) with significantly faster AI-assisted dataset training and labelling (factor of 50 to 100x than previously achievable)
The new AI-assisted GUI, LabelGear, enables high quality labeled datasets to be created rapidly and cost-effectively, overcoming limitations associated with traditional deep learning methods
The novel solution uses a new type of defect detector that is trained on normal (non-defective) data, reducing dataset creation costs as well as enabling the detection of previously unseen patterns.
Visual inspection is the principal method adopted in analyzing images, with the purpose of identifying regions of interest. In manufacturing, this approach is used to identify defective products or defective areas in a product. In infrastructure maintenance applications, it is used to find cracks in bridges or holes in the road, while in healthcare it can be used to find patches of unhealthy tissue. By automating visual inspection, analysis time can be greatly reduced and a substantial cost overhead removed. In addition, it delivers more consistent results, by reducing the variations caused by different human interpretations. For example, 100,000 images would need to be inspected in order to create a dataset containing 100 defects (average defect rate of 0/1%), and 1 million in order to create a more reasonable dataset with 1,000 regions of interest. Fujitsu Laboratories of Europe’s combined AI solution overcomes both of these issues, enabling high quality labelled datasets to be created rapidly and cost-effectively. The new technologies can be used separately or together, with the anomaly detection technology used directly to detect any type of deviation from what is considered as the norm and LabelGear deployed to assign the required labels if the solution requires the type of deviation (or defect) to be specified.
Once provided with a high volume of low-cost and easily available defect-free samples, the new defect detector technology is able to rapidly work out what to look for automatically. This simplifies and accelerates the creation of machine learning solutions, as well as enabling the detection of previously unknown anomalies. Combined with the new AI-assisted GUI, LabelGear, a powerful new visual inspection tool was engineered that can be applied to a wide variety of tasks, reducing costs, improving accuracy and accelerating the overall process.”
Potential applications include manufacturing, where cameras are placed at key points on a production line, continuously monitoring product quality and identifying any potential defects. In the steel industry for example, where a 2km long steel coil is produced every hour, some 70,000 images are used to capture the surface of a single coil and over 1 million during the course of a day. With Fujitsu’s automated unsupervised solution, 80-90% of the defects can be automatically identified and assigned appropriate labels, covering around 200 types of defects that need to be recognized.
In healthcare, where the solution can be used to diagnose and screen for abnormalities, such as chest abnormalities (using X-ray scans). In the US alone, around 150 million such health checks are performed each year. Fujitsu’s automated unsupervised visual inspection technologies can take up the task of identifying and indicating abnormalities in X-rays.
Hitachi
Case Study of Improving Productivity and Reducing Work Improvement Costs
Value Creating Innovations in Smart Manufacturing Value Chains
Huawei
Intelligent Manufacturing: Connections for Success
Flexible manufacturing based on digital technologies is now becoming the norm. Intelligent, connected systems enable machines and humans to collaborate on "mass customization", where factories maintain the efficiencies of mass production while quickly creating personalized products for highly specific customer needs. Manufacturers are also beginning to extend their after-sales service and increase customer engagement. With an ecosystem of equipment, devices, and sensors communicating in real time, manufacturers are empowered to create exceptional customer experiences and build long-term relationships with users. Instead of moving production to lower-cost locations, siting production hubs closer to markets and investing in intelligent manufacturing technologies are seen as more sustainable solutions. Intelligent manufacturers need to find the right balance: between using existing talent and new technology; between outright profit and impact on the environment Predictive maintenance is a case in point. It boosts productivity by avoiding the need to shut down plant and equipment to fix failures or for unwarranted routine maintenance. But to accurately predict when maintenance is necessary, data about in-service equipment and actual operating conditions must be available and analysed in real time.
https://www.huawei.com/en/industry-insights/technology/digital-transformation/manufacture
Vishnu Hurkat
Merck
March 2020
Merck's New LANEXO™ System to Improve Scientists' Productivity in the Lab
Merck launched LANEXO™ Lab Inventory, Safety and Compliance Management System, a new digital laboratory informatics solution designed to drastically reduce Scientists' time in labs recording data and improve data quality and traceability.
25 percent of time of scientists is spent managing data of reagents use and results — taking scientists away from bench research. Efficiency in this task will give scientists more time to focus on their research and analytics work and less on administrative tasks, which ultimately leads to faster drug development. LANEXO™ System is first-in the market to improve the efficiency of this task.
Laboratory informatics is the application of data using a platform of software, data management tools and equipment that allow scientific data to be captured and interpreted for immediate use, and then stored for future research and development purposes. Merck also is the first to offer radio-frequency identification (RFID) labels which auto-register open dates and calculate expiry dates. The cloud-based LANEXO™ System can be easily set up and rapidly integrated into existing lab workflows. It includes mobile (Android) and web applications and is designed for use in highly regulated analytical and research labs in pharmaceutical, quality assurance / quality control and industrial testing markets.
Vikrant Yadav
Panasonic
September 2019
Productivity Solutions from Panasonic System Communications Company Europe
Panasonic System Communications Company Europe introduced a major new B2B solution called Gemba Process Innovation to help its consultancy and system solutions customers in the manufacturing, logistics and retail sectors innovate to improve productivity and customer satisfaction.
The Panasonic Gemba Process Innovation teams work by understanding the customer’s challenges and working with them to re-evaluate each gemba; every area where core operations are undertaken. New processes and the latest technology solutions are then designed to improve effectiveness and efficiencies. Pilot projects, with key performance indicators, are run and optimized before full business roll-out.
https://www.realwire.com/releases/Panasonic-Introduces-Gemba-Process-Innovation
https://www.panasonic.com/global/corporate/cns/gpi.html (Case studies successful "Gemba Process Innovation" in client companies available)
https://business.panasonic.co.uk/solutions/gemba-process-innovation
Arzoo Tisekar, PGDIM 27
SAP
ɅRISTOTELES for Productivity Improvement of Renewable Energy Plants
Kaiserwetter continued to advance its IoT platform and developed ɅRISTOTELES 3.0 as an executive-level dashboard to aggregate and correlate technical, meteorological, and financial data to maximize the performance and minimize investment risks.
Earlier versions of ɅRISTOTELES already showed remarkable results for wind farms and solar parks. ɅRISTOTELES 3.0 makes artificial intelligence available on a daily basis safeguarding the performance of renewable energy assets. Based on SAP HANA and SAP Leonardo IoT technology, the ɅRISTOTELES architecture with its implemented machine learning algorithms has made early technical failure detection and surface alerts possible – allowing consumers to react in advance, and avoid negative impacts on their asset’s performance.
Implementing ARISTOTELES within wind turbines or solar inverter, the following was possible:
Build a unique simulation model of normal operating conditions for each wind turbine or solar inverter of a specific renewable energy asset,
Compare the model results against the current asset performance from real-time data of each installation, such as wind and rotor speed, pitch angle, solar radiation and temperatures, .
Watch the connected machines, identify anomalies, and detect potential failure, which may lead to the underperformance of a unit or even a breakdown.
This information allows Kaiserwetter to provide their clients with the assurance of minimized downtime risk and instead maximize their returns by providing them with the ability to act in advance to avoid any negative impacts on their asset's performance.
Proof of Return on Investment
Clients using the ARISTOTELES have found:
4-5% Increase in performance
97% Accuracy of early failure detection of wind turbines
These improvements provided clients with the visibility needed to support their decision-making process along with the necessary agility to take action in case of potential failures.
Vedant Saraf, PGDIM, NITIE
First published on 29 September 2020
Recent News- Birla Cement Group
ReplyDelete1) Extensive plantations are undertaken in and around mining, plant and residential areas. To reduce and control emission, parallel bag house and bag filters have been installed in Satna complex.
2) The Company has utilized 9,35,388 tonnes of flyash in 2008-09 alone, at its cement plants, thereby reducing clinker usage. This, in turn, has reduced GHG emissions at the plants, without compromising on the quality and strength of cement.
3) Green power: The Waste Heat Recovery System (WHRS) in Satna and Chanderia plants is constantly working on generating power from waste heat, vented out in the atmosphere, from preheaters and clinker coolers. Since the environment-friendly initiative does not generate CO2, it is called green power.
4) Installation of new energy-efficient grinding systems like Vertical Roller Mill (VRM) for raw mill grinding and Roll Presses for cement grinding. Continuous upgradation of technology through installation of latest energy-efficient clinker coolers and grinding systems like VRM and Roll Press.
5) Provision for waste fuel utilization with provision for bio-mass and municipal waste utilization as a fuel saving non-renewable energy resource.
6) A significant achievement of the quarter has been a turnaround in the performance of the Chanderia unit, despite low prices prevailing in the North markets throughout the year by a series of cost reduction measures and marketing initiatives. The Chanderia unit has systematically enhanced its capability of mechanical mining, thereby reducing dependence on purchased limestone, which has resulted in significant savings in the cost of production.
7) As a part of “co-branding” initiatives, the premium brands MP Birla Cement Perfect Plus and MP Birla Cement Ultimate are being manufactured at Chanderia for the North markets, Western MP, Gujarat and Western Uttar Pradesh. This had a notable positive impact on the unit’s profitability.
8) Consistent with the Company’s “Cement se Ghartak” strategy of focussing on the “Individual Home Builder” in the value-adding retail segment, there has been a thrust on increasing the share of “eco-friendly” blended cement.
9) Birla Corporation Limited is expanding the capacity of its Kundanganj plant by 1.2 million tons. The project is expected to be concluded in 2020-21. During the March quarter, the Company started railway despatches from the Kundanganj plant. Company started railway despatches from the Kundanganj plant. Rail connectivity will help ramp up despatches from the plant, reduce cost of delivery and expand the market served by it.
10) A 12.25-MW Waste Heat Recovery System (WHRS) is going to be commissioned at Maihar in the current quarter. Three solar power plants – one each at Maihar, Chanderia and Satna – are to be installed in the September quarter.
11) The Company has been steadily ramping up production at its SialGhogri coal mine in Madhya Pradesh. The production is expected to go up to the optimum level in the next financial year
Reference
https://www.birlacorporation.com/climatic.html (1-4)
https://www.financialexpress.com/industry/birla-corporation-posts-rs-256-crore-profit-in-fy19-up-66-from-last-year/1567727/ (5-11)
Syed Nawaz Mehdi (2004038)
Thank you for the comment. It will be useful to the readers.
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