Smart factories to revolutionise global manufacturing practices

By OEM Update Editorial January 9, 2020 3:39 pm IST

As smart technologies and smart factories become the name of the game in manufacturing, Schneider Electric’s new smart factory launch in Bengaluru shows how businesses can constantly improve their processes and products and keep up with the changing times.

“Smart” is now the keyword in manufacturing. From smart technologies to smart cities and smart factories, companies are going the smart way to ensure that they stay at the top of the game. Recently, Schneider Electric launched its second smart factory in India at Bengaluru. The newly inaugurated facility demonstrates how the company’s EcoStruxure architecture and related suite of offerings drives process automation, increases operational efficiency and reduces costs in the industrial environment. Having two smart factories located in India reinforces Schneider Electric’s contribution to the Indian government’s “Make in India” programme that is designed to facilitate investment, foster innovation, enhance skill development, and build best-in-class manufacturing infrastructure in the country.

Talking about the need for smart factories, Javed Ahmed, Senior Vice President – Global Supply Chain – India, Middle East & Africa, Schneider Electric, said, “Today, the manufacturing segment contributes about 17 percent of our GDP. If we want to accelerate the growth of India and bring in more productivity and efficiency in the country, this rate has to rise from 17 percent to 35 percent. These technologies which are being implemented aim to showcase how to retain your customers by increasing productivity, efficiency, and validation of your business that will set the required pace and allow customers to explore more and more, because today we see India improving on a lot of parameters.”

Delving further on how Schneider Electric’s technologies are contributing to making smart factories a reality, Mourad Tamoud, Executive Vice President – Global Supply Chain, Schneider Electric, added, “Our technologies are providing a lot of efficiency and productivity to businesses. Schneider has increased its patents from 142 to 6,070. We work on the technologies and manufacturing practices that are being implemented outside in order to contribute to the global building blocks of manufacturing. Our products compete at the global level and symbolise trust and confidence. This is not only helping our partners, our ecosystem and India’s growth, but also us.”

At present, Schneider Electric has 24 factories in India. The company is designing global factories for global markets as well as the Indian market. Some of the factories like the one in Hyderabad meet global standards. With this kind of measures, the company has built an excellent manufacturing platform to serve Indian customers. It is pertinent for other companies too to develop smart factories so that they can harness the opportunities of economies of scale, efficiency, productivity, and stringent quality checks. In order to grow your business, it is vital to take advantage of the new, upcoming technologies and concepts such as smart factories.

One of the key aspects of Schneider Electric’s smart factories is that it has deployed several technologies to ensure that they are smart and digitalised. Smart factories can help businesses stay connected to their customers using digital tools, even for placing orders, increasing visibility for the customers and so on.

Also, with respect to logistics and order shipments, Schneider provides continuous status updates to its customers as to whether the order is packed, shipped, whether the invoice has been raised, etc. Javed Ahmed explains, “Our customers like the complete end-to-end visibility and transparency we have with them as it enables them to manage their planning centre, so that they too can plan their functions around those deliveries. In case there is a delay, we also send alerts to our customers. Moreover, for each order, they are able to rate the different aspects of our service, in terms of delivery, transportation, packaging, related paperwork and other issues. We use this information and analyse it to make improvements so that we can serve our customers better.”

He adds, “This is one aspect of how we are connected to the world. We have a deep understanding of our customers’ needs and of how we can serve them much better. Talking about our operations, one of the key benefits of our factories is that we are able to gain energy efficiency, for which we have deployed our EcoStruxure architecture. And we have been able to achieve almost 50 percent of energy savings year-over-year for the past 3-4 years.” Another key result area that can be addressed using smart factories is the operational efficiency of a product. Schneider has the necessary infrastructure to ensure that the company’s uptime is up and it is able to track its downtime and bottlenecks, and thereby improve the efficiency of its manufacturing plan. Javed Ahmed says, “We have quite a lot of digital tools for training too. We have deployed virtual training in our warehouses to allow our operators to function better. Before they start working, they can virtually learn how to use the different drivers, testing stations, etc. so that they go on to the plan and do their jobs in a much better fashion.”

Thus, it can be seen that smart factories are essential to moving into the digital world, where companies and customers can stay connected to each other, allowing companies to develop processes, products and services that cater to the needs of the latter better and meet global standards and competition. Live status updates given to the customer also help the companies earn and retain the customer’s trust and loyalty. Companies can also train their employees using virtual tools, reducing the risk of accidents and errors.

Schneider Electric is ranked number 11 in the global supply chain. Achieving this was no easy feat, as the company has deployed several quality tools through which the traceability of components, supplier management, process parameters and set-up are monitored. Smart factories allow businesses to collect and use such data to improve their processes, functions, and technologies.
Moreover, Schneider Electric promises a 99.95 percent uptime to all its customers, setting its technologies a class apart. There are almost 100 check points for each product before it leaves the factory. So at any point of time, the team can quickly go back and see which process worked better for a product, what kind of quality checks were done, etc. If it needs to improve on any aspect, it can quickly get the relevant feedback.

Smart factories also promote the sustainable use of resources. For example, waste water collected from Schneider’s factories is used for washing vehicles, etc., thereby making the company part of a circular economy. It also has a centre of digital innovation, where a group of people all over the world who are connected as a community are looking at technologies that can be deployed and can help with functional areas such as quality, productivity, and training to improve the processes.

With technology constantly disrupting our way of functioning, it has become necessary to harness the benefits of smart factories to ensure that businesses stay ahead of the competition and become more efficient, profitable and sustainable, while meeting global standards and improving manufacturing practices.

“One of the key benefits of our factories is that we are able to gain energy efficiency.
Javed Ahmed, Senior Vice President – Global Supply Chain – India, Middle East & Africa, Schneider Electric

“Our technologies are providing a lot of efficiency and productivity to businesses.
Mourad Tamoud, Executive Vice President – Global Supply Chain, Schneider Electric