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Building mission-driven machines Increasing global competition, varying market demands and regulatory mandates require manufacturers of industrial machinery to continuously innovate, develop new products and optimise their production processes. To achieve these goals, manufacturing enterprises need a PLM platform that enables them to improve the productivity of NPD process, so as to operate faster, deliver better with consistent product quality and minimised lifecycle costs. A report on the round-table events on this topic, conducted recently, in Bengaluru and Pune.

To be successful in today’s competitive global business environment, manufacturers need to build mission-driven machines that are smarter, more functional and easier to maintain. On the other hand, today’s new product development (NPD) process is comprised of hundreds of decision points and parallel work flows across multiple disciplines that take place in a global context. To balance this effectively, manufacturing enterprises need a product lifecycle management (PLM) platform that enables them to flourish in this complex business environment by making smarter decisions and better products. In this context, EM along with Siemens PLM Software had organised round-table discussion events in Bengaluru and Pune, to deliberate on this topic. IMTMA was the Knowledge Partner for the same.

With the theme of “Building Mission-Driven Machines –

From bid to delivery”, the round-table discussion was moderated by Shekhar Jitkar, Publisher & Chief Editor, EM.

The panelists of this discussion were S R Chandramauli, DGM - Design & Development (Special Products), Ace Designers; Raju Sagi, Head - Product Engineering & Development, BFW; Ganapathiraman G, Vice President & GM (South and South-East Asia), ARC Advisory Group; Mohini Kelkar, Managing Director, Grind Master Machines; Santanoo Medhi, Managing Director & CEO, Premium Transmission; and Srinath Koppa, Technical Director, Siemens PLM Software.

T K Ramesh, CEO, Micromatic Machine Tools and Gautam Doshi, Advisor, IMTMA, delivered the keynote speeches in Bengaluru and Pune, respectively. Ramesh discussed the importance of knowledge to drive more business, recommending

Megha RoyFeatures Writermegha.roy@publish-industry.net

Srimoyee Lahiri Sub-editor & Correspondentsrimoyee.lahiri@publish-industry.net

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everyone to upgrade his own skills & knowledge levels, create collective value and deliver it to customer. “Creativity & innovation is the foundation of success for manufacturers. Competitive knowledge has a competitive advantage, for example, technical knowledge, market knowledge and process knowledge. PLM is all about managing this knowledge. It is extremely important to manage this knowledge and innovate,” he added.

On the other hand, Gautam Doshi, Advisor, IMTMA, spoke on the challenges of generating quotations on time, meeting customer demands on time, along with offering precise commitment to delivery. “An appropriate speed & infrastructure are required to address these challenges.” He further stresses on what can be done to make the information-flow better, decision-making effective and ultimately bring speed in the operations.

Strategies for efficient manufacturing

Industrial machinery manufacturers are constantly challenged to adapt to new circumstances. Many manufacturers find themselves facing an increasing number of new requirements such as demand for more flexible machines that can be rapidly adapted to new products as formats, as well as for machines that can be easily integrated into existing plants. To address these challenges, manufacturers need to create a highly efficient product development and manufacturing environment that fosters continuous and measurable product and process innovations.

Jitkar asked the panel to suggest strategies to achieve these tasks in long term. Commenting on the same, Ganapathiraman opined that investments should be made on the latest technologies, be it for machine tool or electronic products manufacturing. “The need of the hour is consistent technology upgradation. Technology is one of the biggest factors driving the Indian manufacturing industry. Also, one of the ways to survive the competition is increasing the volume, which is a major challenge in India. We expect a CAGR growth of 9 to 11% in the economy in the next five years depending on market conditions. With this, technology is all set to take a huge leap in the coming years.”

On the other hand, Kelkar opines the importance of being customer oriented. “We don’t have standard products in our company. We develop grinding, polishing and deburring

machines for various applications. So, we have been more customer-oriented from the beginning. Since we supply to a huge variety of industry sectors, customisation becomes important. Thus, modularisation is vital here. Also, we have created a databank that is easily accessible to the design, sales and marketing people, so that one can select the right module and thus customise and prepare the quotation fast. Preparing quotations should not take time in any company. If the relevant data is made available fast, one can offer customised solutions sooner,” she believes.

How to improve the productivity of NPD process, so as to operate faster, deliver better with consistent product quality and minimised lifecycle costs?…..this is the question for every manufacturer today. In this context, Jitkar asked the panelists to brief on the innovative solutions for achieving success in NPD. On this, Chandramauli suggests, “Product development happens under two circumstances: when there is demand and when demand is created. The industry should try to focus on innovating products, to help create demand. To do this, we need to work closely with the user segment and know their requirements. A research on the latest developments on advanced tools is required. We should also focus on the development of high technology consumer products which should be cost effective. All these aspects need to be studied

“Modularity, standardisation, cost advantage and building faster machines can bring the required benefits to manufacturing” Raju Sagi, Head - Product Engineering & Development, BFW

“Sheer lack of technology and advanced tools has wiped out many companies in the past. Manufacturers should invest in region-specific customer feedback for a better understanding” Ganapathiraman G, Vice President & GM (South and South-East Asia), ARC Advisory Group

“The industry should try to focus on innovating products, which are new to the market” S R Chandramauli, DGM - Design & Development (Special Products), Ace Designers

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from the customer perspective and mapped down to design specification with a quality function deployment scheme.” He also underlined the importance of testing the products after assembly and development, which is not addressed strictly in the Indian market as compared to other global markets.

In case of the Indian machine tool sector, over the years, the industry has witnessed a transition from small to big companies with the development of various products in different sectors. As per Sagi, the Indian machine tool industry has majored in developing standalone machines over the past few decades. “Over the period of time, manufacturers have received an improved feedback for accuracy, reliability and quality of products, while meeting customer requirements. Now, we have reached a stage when we should strategise a series of machines, from small to big, in the same configuration. Any product developed as a series will have a consistency in its quality, productivity, aesthetics and commonality between all the machines. This is one of the areas where we are falling short in India as compared to the global manufacturers. Modularity, standardisation, cost advantage and building faster machines can bring the required benefits to manufacturing” he averred.

Towards new product development

According to Koppa, to understand the manufacturing process is important. By leveraging technologies such as 3D technology and product data management, the lifecycle level can be reduced till the production level is achieved. “For commissioning & servicing, there are ways to optimise the entire process. So, virtual commissioning makes the supplier-customer transparency easy. Even before the person goes to the commissioning level, it can be already practiced and proven. So, this shortens the commissioning process at the clients end and no resident engineer is required. For service management, we need to predict the parts which can go wrong. Predictive maintenance is thus important,” he said.

Constant technology innovation and customer demand for the latest technologies combine to play extra pressure on today’s industrial machinery manufacturers. These pressures require manufacturers to add new features in their existing products at a very rapid pace. When Jitkar asked about improvising on existing products by adding more features, Ganapathiraman said, “In today’s scenario for new product development, manufacturers can’t survive without having proper tools. Sheer

ParaMEtErs ConvEntional HigH sPEEd MaCHining

spindle speeds, rpm 4,000 8,000 ~ 50,000

axis feed rates, mm/min 10,000 2,500 ~ 60,000

rapid feed rates, mm/min 20,000 20,000 ~ 60,000

accelerations, g -- 0.5 ~ 2.0

Inputs from Dr Nageswara Rao Posinasetti, Professor, Department of Technology, University of Northern Iowa, on the comparison of conventional and HSM parameters

lack of technology and advanced tools has wiped out many companies in the past. Manufacturers should invest in region-specific customer feedback for a better understanding and then further invest in new technologies and tools”.

Moving on, Koppa suggests that the examination of the innovation process quickly determines the need for transformation. “Successful innovation requires companies to facilitate open innovation, enable collaboration both inside and outside of their organisational borders and instill discipline across their lifecycle processes. Siemens PLM Software provides a PLM platform, especially designed for industrial machinery manufacturers that unify both the product and production lifecycles,” he said.

Product costing & bidding

Mostly bidding of industrial machinery includes product and lifecycle cost. The challenges faced by the manufacturers are how to drastically reduce the time to develop new industrial equipment, while ensuring that these machines can operate at close to 100% uptime. Equally important, the basis of competition is shifting towards delivering excellence in service and parts management.

When Jitkar asked, how to estimate the lifecycle cost accurately, Medhi opined, “If a manufacturer starts with QFD,

“The feedback from the service is quite important. Transparency between the supplier and customer helps to plan a cost structure efficiently” Mohini Kelkar, Managing Director, Grind Master Machines

“Condition monitoring system is a good solution. It gives an advanced warning to the machine, giving rise to smart machines” Santanoo Medhi, Managing Director & CEO, Premium Transmission

“Successful innovation requires companies to facilitate open innovation, enable collaboration both inside and outside of their organisational borders and instill discipline across their lifecycle processes” Srinath Koppa, Technical Director, Siemens PLM Software

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the design mode of failure can be easily found. Given that the machine will be obsolete someday, some module will die earlier, and some later. So, finding out the designed failure mode is important. Accordingly, over the long time, the spare or service parts can be accommodated. For example, for the car manufacturers, every 30,000 km, there are break-pads, and for every 5,000 km, there are air filters. This has come from designed failure mode, and that is how one needs to plan servicing. So, when an operation fails, he has to replace the machine. As such, every 1000 hours, the required parts should be changed.

He also believes that through this process, one can estimate the total lifecycle cost, assuming the cycle time. “That is the cost per unit of our machines. One should make sure that the servicing of the machines should be done correctly. Also, the data should be kept updated. So, if it will be 3,000 hours of servicing, one can take out the defective component and it can be increased to 5,000 hours, further reducing the lifecycle cost. But replacing the filter and other parts becomes wastage of information source of knowledge. Manufacturers should take that part back and analyse it how far was it close to failure and then use it for improving the design,” he added.

Speaking on the running cost, Kelkar avers, “In our machines, the running cost is much higher than the machine cost. Running cost is really important and if it is more than other machines, then the cost of machines is more than the other machines. So, the equipment cost doesn’t matter. Also, the feedback from the service is quite important. Transparency between the supplier and customer helps to plan a cost structure efficiently. At times, machinery manufacturers try to cut down the cost and figure out a margin. The companies ignoring this important factor face difficulty.” Suggesting a framework for these costs, Koppa opined that there are tools for all these costs, but extrapolating the costs can become a different business model. “Today, even the Indian air force is thinking of buying fighter jets. They are asking to buy 50,000 flying miles rather than buying the product. Thus, the concept of product as a service is an extrapolation. Once the framework is there, one can build the entire lifecycle cost. These are different business modules to push towards scalable growth,” he suggested.

On the other hand, Sagi said, “Product cost is determined before the development of the machine. Off late, all MNCs are going into the product life cycle cost. They practice the analysis and knowledge of maintenance cost, running cost, consumable

cost, before making an investment. In India, we are yet to follow such practices. We have to get into the estimation of the product lifecycle cost scientifically. Based on the product levels cost per component is to be decided.”

Just-enough machines

When asked about the concept of building mission-driven machines that are smarter, more functional and easier to maintain, Ganapathiraman opines, “Smart machines are expected to be the future by enabling the connectivity, directly to Internet of Things. It helps in closed loop PLM. Smarter machines are gaining momentum in Europe. We expect the same in India, where one gets connected to the manufacturers as well as the end user, that aids in a better product lifecycle design. It also helps the OEMs controlling the inventory with the smart machine information.”

According to Chandramauli, the concept of smart machines is known as modularity. “How can we make the products modular is the main constraint. From manufacturers’ perspective, this helps in developing the product and ensuring cost effectiveness.” Adding further, Medhi informed that, today, modularisation is done by suppliers. They are adapting parallel processing which can reduce time. “Condition monitoring system is a good solution. It gives an advanced warning to the machine, giving rise to smart machines,” concludes Medhi. ☐

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“An appropriate speed & manufacturing infrastructure is required to address the current challenges” Gautam Doshi, Advisor, IMTMA

“Creativity & innovation is the foundation for becoming a successful manufacturer” T K Ramesh, CEO, Micromatic Machine Tools

“Manufacturers need to create a highly efficient product development and manufacturing environment that fosters continuous and measurable product and process innovations” Shekhar Jitkar, Publisher & Chief Editor, EM

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