Machine tool industry has to keep pace with Industry 4.0 and IIoT

#Machinetool #IIoT #MGMotor

Vivek Gosain, MG Motor India

Mr. Vivek Gosain is a passionate automotive professional with 28 plus years of experience, 24 years in Auto OEMs across Honda Cars, General Motors and is currently working at MG Motor. He has played a crucial role in the Launch of more than 15 New vehicles with 3 auto majors in his career span. Mr. Gosain is a technical expert in all Vehicle manufacturing and Quality processes and is hands on in New transformations in Automotive industry like Industry 4.0 (Smart Manufacturing), Autonomous/ electric vehicles and IoT based technologies. He is passionate about entrepreneurship development and mentoring young engineers and management students.

Machine tool industry is the backbone of industrial development for any country. It directly reflects the health of the manufacturing sector, Automotive Industry included. The machine tool industry strives to develop the best technology to meet user expectations and productivity.

Over the last two decades almost every machine tool manufacturer has focussed on delivering higher RPM or higher feeds of machines. Earlier the focus was more towards ensuring accuracies. Both of these are very important features of any machine tool to produce quality parts as well as maintaining higher productivity.

The Challenges:

With more dependence on the machine shops there are challenges to manage a large number of machines and in getting real time data, managing vendor deliveries, sharing data for collaborative manufacturing or concurrent engineering. It’s a big challenge to maintain their real time scheduling, downtime, productivity, quality track, their preventive maintenance schedules, consumables stocks, manpower scheduling etc.

Machine tool industry has to keep pace with Industry 4.0 and IIoT:

Adapting to New technologies like Artificial Intelligence for accurate metal cutting, advancement in Laser technology, migration from CNC to DNC (Distributive numerical control) would ensure that most of the challenges are resolved.

Technological advancements in Additive Manufacturing would give a completely new Dimension in affordable and accurate components for the Automotive Industry. Though mass production through Additive manufacturing machines and Large components continue to be a Challenge..

Today, the Automotive Industry continues to face the recessionary trend. While on one end the industry is making a shift towards Electric Vehicles and Newer technologies like Autonomous vehicles, on the other hand, there is the pressure of Cost of Manufacturing and Cost of direct Material procured. Hence, expectation is to have lower cost of Tooling and Components which helps Auto OEMs overcome Challenges of launching New products at Lower cost thereby be competitive and offer Value product to the Customer. The Machine Tool industry has to align itself strategically and technologically with the OEMs to ensure the growth of the Automotive sector.

About MG Motor:

Founded in the UK in 1924, Morris Garages vehicles were world famous for their sports cars, roadsters, and cabriolet series. MG Motor has evolved into a modern, futuristic, and innovative brand over the last 96 years. Its state-of-the-art manufacturing facility in Halol, Gujarat, has an annual production capacity of 80,000 vehicles and employs nearly 2,500 workforce. This facility was set up in record 19 month with state of the art production lines. The Plant is designed with Lean concept, and scalable Automation to ensure efficient manufacturing with Quality, keeping the Capex under control all this time.

MG in India has a flexible manufacturing facility to manufacturing different types of vehicles - IC Engine based, Hybrid vehicles based and Electric Vehicles from Powertrain perspective. It does also manufacture diverse architecture vehicles like Mono-cock and Body on frame types. MG is currently on a fast lane to enhance its Production capacity to reduce the delivery time of its vehicles to the expanding customer base.

MORE FROM THE SECTION