Why Manufacturing Needs Transformation Today?

Excellent Engineering Works (EEW) became a Vendor of leading Two-wheeler Manufacturer, HHL in 1998. By 2008, it had become DOL (Direct On Line) supplier & won many awards. In 2018, it had factories in four locations close to the plants of HHL with a total turnover of over Rs. 300 Cr and around 900 employees. But Mr Sunil Kumar, Founder & MD of EEW, who had turned 50 a few months ago, was in a dilemma. Some of the issues bothering him were:

• EEW was one of the two suppliers of Motor Cycle Handle Assembly to HHL with 60% share. Two months ago, he was asked to lower his prices by 4% because HHL was adding a third vendor who had agreed to supply the same assembly at 7% less price. EEW would now get 45% share and new Vendor will get 15%. Mr Kumar had calculated that unless he thought of something, his net profit would be zero.
• EEW had 165 CNC machines in its 4 plants. He had received data in the previous month that 7-10% CNC machines were idle in any given shift because of Operator Absenteeism. His plant head in Haridwar had insisted on hiring an extra 10% workers to ensure that no machine was idle. This was an extra cost. In addition, the quality of newly hired skilled operators was poor and this resulted in accidents and poor quality.
• Mr Kumar got weekly updates from all four plants about average OEE, Line Stoppages, Rejection PPM, Fines/Debit notes from the customer. It was extremely upsetting for him to see erratic & poor OEE, frequent breakdowns & line stoppages, debit notes from HHL for poor quality detected during assembly and escalating tool costs.

Mr Kumar had started thinking that he was running the business for the customer, his employees, his vendors, his bank, and everyone else BUT himself!

The above case illustrates the major problems faced by manufacturers today which is making it absolutely essential to transform rapidly. These problems are summarised below:

• Profitability under pressure from demanding customers as well as aggressive competitors
• Shortage of skilled machine operators.
• Sub-optimal or unsatisfactory performance of Machine shops with poor OEE, frequent breakdowns, high rejections & unpredictable cost per component.

Industry 4.0 is the latest buzzword and is being hailed as the solution to transform manufacturing. However, Generic Industry 4.0 solutions which extract data from machine to Apps in the Cloud and present analysed data as dashboards on personal computing devices fall short on three counts:

1. They need highly experienced managers with necessary domain skills to initiate action and observe and document the results.
2. They can bring about incremental improvements but cannot transform factories.
3. They cannot solve the growing problem of shortage of skilled operators.

They cannot solve the growing problem of shortage of skilled operators.

• What needs to be done first? After all, revamping your manufacturing model can’t be done in a single go.
• Which process needs automation first?
• How to ensure efficient output from your transformed processes?

Since these questions require deep knowledge and proven solutions, it is best to consult experts so as to ensure a smooth and profitable transformation. Through its track record of more than 3 decades, Marshall Machines has built a reputation in the manufacturing industry for providing super-optimized machines & automation solutions which are not only cutting-edge but affordable as well.

How is Marshall the ideal partner to carry out Transformation?

Marshall has made huge efforts in R&D which resulted in 12 Patents filed in cutting edge technologies.

What are the solutions for Transformation?

Marshall recommends THREE Tools for Transformation:

Super-Optimized Machines: The intensity of profit/loss of a manufacturing unit significantly depends on the efficiency of its machines. Machines, if not optimized properly, will surely affect the production in the long run. Inefficient use of raw material, more than required idle time between production cycles, etc., are small factors – of inefficiently optimized machines – that lead to losses. Marshall’s super-optimized machines eliminate this problem, resulting in better performance.

Single spindle and double spindle machines from Marshall ensure rigidity, speed, productivity, and tool life, providing benefits like:

• Better Surface finish and longer tool life.
• Prolonged accuracy.
• Heavy rate of metal removal.
• Improved positioning repeatability.

Affordable Automation: Again, speaking about the cost of total automation, it simply is not an issue. After all, you can’t transform your entire processes in a jiffy. So, it is better to understand what needs automation first. In order to understand the affordability of automation, let’s take an example of a common process in every manufacturing unit, Load Management. With the introduction of SmartLoad technology, load management has become easy for manufacturers that have adopted it. It is very compact, safe for humans, and reliable. Its load/unload time is shorter, and above all, it is 50% cheaper than Gantry/Robot-based automation. So, an efficient application of automation can definitely prove to be affordable either in the short run or the long run.

Marshall’s automation solutions like “UBER + SmartLoad 10-20”, “UNO + SmartLoad 10”, and “ROBOTURN Series” provide five advantages to manufacturers:

• Reliability
• Compactness
• Safety to humans
• Economical
• Fast

SMARTFAC: Marshall’s smart Industry 4.0 solutions for closed loop operations in manufacturing eliminate three most prominent problems:

• A significant decline in skilled personnel.
• High-quality demands by customers.
• Inefficient production due to poorly optimized machines.

If you, as a manufacturer, face any or all three of the problems faced by M/s Excellent Engineering Works and feel the pain felt by Mr Sunil Kumar, MD EEW, then please get in touch with us here and start your journey towards TRANSFORMATION.

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