i-factory : Digital Manufacturing
At a glance
Focus: i-factory: Digital Manufacturing
Challenge: There was heavy dependency on operators/supervisors to collect and collate data at the end of each shift, resulting in data that was operator-dependent and inaccurate — with the exact causes of varying production trends never clearly identified, prompting Blue Star to pursue IoT-based data monitoring.
Approach: In line with industry trends and Blue Star's digitization journey, the approach was to bring data from shop-floor to top-floor in real time — running Proof of Concepts with two vendors, shortlisting one, and taking a collaborative path involving the Manufacturing team, IT team, and an implementation partner for application development and hardware integration.
Impact: The team at Blue Star is in the process of collecting and interpreting the data to draw inferences, through which specific improvement projects have been identified — with quantified results expected in the coming months. Early benefits already achieved include improved data accuracy, shop-floor-to-top-floor visibility, clearer identification of improvement areas, utility/maintenance alerts, reduced failure rates, and identified opportunities for energy conservation.
Blue Star Ltd.
Blue Star is India's leading air conditioning and commercial refrigeration company, with an annual revenue of over ?4600 crores (over US$ 682 million), a network of 32 offices, 5 modern manufacturing facilities, 2800 employees, and 2900 channel partners. The Company has 5000 stores for room ACs, packaged air conditioners, chillers, cold rooms as well as refrigeration products and systems, along with 765 service associates reaching out to customers in over 800 towns. Blue Star's integrated business model of a manufacturer, contractor and after-sales service provider enables it to offer an end-to-end solution to its customers, which has proved to be a significant differentiator in the market place. In fact, every third commercial building in India has a Blue Star product installed.
Business challenge
There was a lot of dependency on operator/supervisor to collect and collate data at the end of the shift.
Over a period, it was observed that the data was operator dependent and inaccurate. Exact reason for varying production trends was not identified upfront. So, we started IoT for data monitoring.
Industry 4.0 solution
In line with industrial trends and digitization journey, our approach was to bring the data from shop-floor to top-floor on real time basis. We explored the various platforms to bring the data from machines to an online platform, we did Proof of Concept with 2 vendors, shortlisted 1 and moved ahead.
Resource allocation
Blue Star followed a collaborative approach with the Manufacturing team, IT team and an implementation partner worked together to develop the solution. The partners helped Blue Star with the application development and hardware integration, as the data captured needed to be put into a systematic format to draw meaningful conclusions.
Change Management
Change management took place by taking the operators & staff into confidence, and explaining them the benefits of the digital system, and how it will enhance their productivity and reduce the workload/fatigue as well as save time of the user.
We at BlueStar have 3 applications on IoT:
Production monitoring - OEE (A, P, Q)
IMS - Intelligent maintenance system
Condition monitoring & Energy monitoring
Converting the data into meaningful insights, was the innovative part wherein we could check the status/data on real time basis with accuracy and also take necessary actions. Not many companies in India have implemented this in the manufacturing sector at such a large scale.
Plant-wise Production Page
Detailed Machine Status
Downtime Reasons update
Quality Update
Summary Dashboard
Production Reports
Downtime Reports
Intelligent Maintenance System (IMS)
Energy Monitoring System (EMS)
Auto Mailer and SMS notifications
Key benefits
| Area | Outcome |
|---|---|
| Quality | Data accuracy |
| Visibility & Analytics | Visibility from shop-floor to top-floor |
| Operational Benefit | Areas for improvement became very evident |
| Downtime & Reliability | Alerts for utility and maintenance |
| Downtime & Reliability | Reduction in failure rate |
| Energy & Sustainability | Identified areas for energy conservation |
| Visibility & Analytics | The team at Blue Star is in the process of collecting and interpreting the data to draw inferences through which specific projects have been identified for improvement and the results would be quantified in coming months. |
Technologies used
Change management and implementation
To over these challenges, the following steps were taken –
Connecting to conventional machines (old presses/SPM)
Adoption of advanced systems
Failure/drop in network could result in data loss, which was a risk to the business
Retrofitting the machines with smart sensors in the conventional machines
Training & motivation sessions for the employees helped in changing their mindsets. This helped in smooth transitioning of the company and factory become digital and paperless.
Ring type network created to suffice for network loss, wherein another line will take care if primary line is down.
DAQ - Data Acquisition Modules were used to store data.