Going digital, coordinating better
Posted by egovernance on August 14, 2006
Going digital, coordinating better
http://www.expresscomputeronline.com/20060814/management01.shtml
Digitisation has enabled heavy manufacturing companies bring about better co-ordination between teams and ensure faster product development, says Abhinav Singh
Digitisation is helping companies overcome several problems. Heavy manufacturing companies like the Tata Power Company’s Strategic Electronics Division (SED), Larsen and Toubro’s (L&T’s) LTM business unit and BHEL’s (Bhopal) Switchgear division are all enjoying the fruits of going digital, having digitised their manufacturing processes. These companies find it easier to speed up new product development (NPD) and make better prototypes in a collaborative environment, than the manual process. Timely release of Bill of Materials (BOM), and tight interface with Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) and the ERP systems are the other benefits, which the SED of Tata Power is reaping as a result of increased digitisation. Similarly L&T is being benefitted by data-sharing in a collaborative environment and better visualisation through a digital approach.
Collaboration is key
Heavy manufacturers are witnessing improved collaboration as a result of digitisation. Take for instance BHEL’s (Bhopal) Switchgear division which specialises in the designing, manufacturing, installation, commissioning and servicing of switchgears. It offers a wide spectrum of switchgears catering to applications such as power station auxiliaries, power distribution, process industries, rural electrification, opencast mines and electric traction in railways. These switchgears have many components attached to them.
Digitisation has resulted in better design collaboration and management of the engineering designs of the switchgears and their components, ensuring faster end-product development.
In the case of Tata Power’s SED, which focusses on the aerospace, and defence market in India there has to be effective coordination between its design and development centre in Mumbai, and the manufacturing division at Bangalore. Hence, a central repository of data has been created which is visible across the design and manufacturing teams spread across Mumbai and Bangalore. This has led to improved collaboration between the two teams.
After digitisation there has been an increase in the re-use of design components as the older product designs can be accessed instantly and used for other projects with similar requirements. Vinod Yadav, Deputy Manager, SED, Tata Power Company says, “Now there is a tight interface between the PLM and ERP systems. The BOM released from the PLM systems automatically goes to the ERP, and this has streamlined the manufacturing process. Due to this the time taken to create a BOM (consisting of both electrical and mechanical parts) has come down from three to four hours to under 20 minutes.”
He adds, “Prior to digitisation there were delays as the engineering drawings and other manufacturing-related information had to be physically couriered to our manufacturing plant in Bangalore, which took 12 to 15 days for one particular requirement. This has been reduced to a few minutes.”
Accurate prototyping
Digitisation has resulted in better visualisation and accurate prototyping which in turn has brought about substantial reduction in design cycle time as all datasheets and specifications of parts used in the earlier designs are available online and can be accessed by different manufacturing and designing teams in a real-time environment. Prior to digitisation there was no co-ordination between the teams as designing and manufacturing data was not available in real-time.
For L&T’s LTM unit which offers a wide range of rubber and plastics processing machinery and custom-engineered products, post-digitisation the time taken to manufacture a prototype has been halved.
“Developing a prototype now takes four to six months, as compared to eight to 12 months that it used to require earlier. Old engineering drawings are now stored systematically and their retrieval is faster”
- T M Mohamed Ibrahim
Assistant Manager
R&D, LTM Business Unit
Larsen and Toubro
T M Mohamed Ibrahim, Assistant Manager, R&D, LTM Business Unit, L&T explains, “Developing a prototype now takes four to six months, as compared to eight to 12 months that it used to require earlier. Old engineering drawings are now stored systematically and their retrieval is faster, unlike the pre-implementation scenario when it took one or two days to retrieve a drawing from different departments.”
The company is also realising the benefits of the 3D environment. Ibrahim points out, “The 3D environment has led to better visualisation and analysis of assemblies. Better visualisation is possible by viewing the solid models and reviewing the project status with colour codings.”
Digitisation has also led to accurate prototyping at the Switchgear division of BHEL (Bhopal). Digitisation has ensured efficient monitoring of workflow as information is flashed on the screen and any changes made are immediately highlighted. This makes the drawings error-free as the display helps avoid duplication and enables proper interpretation. Earlier, error-ridden prototypes were being manufactured sometimes, resulting in longer production cycles and loss of money. Now accurate prototypes are generated using digital manufacturing systems.
It has also become easy to approve processes online, thereby ensuring faster production cycles. Approvals that used to take a few days now take a few minutes as the manufacturing information is shared on a real-time basis. Managing the variants of the BOM is easier and has resulted in reduction of design cycle time because information is reused to the extent possible.
The Switchgear division has also been able to incorporate functions such as production planning into its digital system since data-sharing is concurrent and in real-time.
Faster time-to-market
“With digitisation there has been 30 percent improvement in the final delivery cycles. The document transfer and change processes have become faster which has led to this improvement,” says Yadav.
After digitisation heavy manufacturers have also observed that there is data integrity in their systems. Some organisations like Kennametal Widia have been able to speed up the NPD by 50 percent due to the online availability of design data, reuse of existing variants, and flexible search capabilities resulting in meeting customer deadlines.
As every process is automated through digitisation, the manufacturing process has become more reliable. The planning managers in heavy manufacturing firms can now track all engineering tasks online without interacting personally with individual users. They can also follow up pending tasks online.
Users can update the status of pending engineering documents as and when a document is completed. The planning manager and users are automatically intimated about critical and near-critical tasks.
Digitisation has changed the way heavy manufacturers operate. As 3D digital environments get deployed, more innovation can be expected in the near future.
| How digitisation helps | |
| The company | Benefits |
