Dasarathi G V
Director in Leanworx
Dasarathi has extensive experience in CNC programming, tooling, and managing shop floors. His expertise extends to the architecture, testing, and support of CAD/CAM, DNC, and Industry 4.0 systems.
Key Takeaways :
Industry 4.0 helps improve ROI by reducing machine downtime and improving production quality.
ROI from Industry 4.0 can be achieved within weeks or months depending on the investment and solutions implemented.
Focusing on low-hanging fruit like operator behavior can yield quick improvements in capacity utilization.
Industry 4.0 software provides data and insights to identify and address root causes of production issues.
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Industry 4.0 ROI - how much is it and how long does it take ?
Industry 4.0 ROI from monitoring production and productivity is always assured. The time to achieve full ROI can extend from just a couple of weeks to a few months, based on the capital cost of the equipment being monitored.
This is how it is achieved:
- Reduction of machine downtime due to work ethics issues – late starting, early stopping in shifts, extended break times.
- Reduction in machine downtime due to systems issues – machine breakdown, no raw material, high setup change times, high part load times.
- Higher productivity because of incentivization of operators.
- Better quality because of improved insight into rejection quantities and reasons.
- Reduced CapEx on new machines. Production from existing machines is increased, instead of buying new machines to add capacity.
Capacity utilization is low particularly in HMLV (HIgh Mix Low Volume) production, and OEE is typically 40 to 50 %.
The prime cause of this is that decision makers (everyone from the supervisor to the CEO) get inaccurate data from machines, and get it too late to act upon.
– Data to decision makers is paper-based, via a chain of people
– It is inaccurate, depends on people’s memory and honesty
– It reaches decision makers after 24 to 30 hours.
What is the investment in Industry 4.0, and what is the return on investment ?
The investment can be as a monthly or yearly SaaS (software as a service) payment, or a bigger one-time payment followed by smaller yearly payments. Either way, you can get a good product that boils down to Rs. 100 per day per machine.
Here is a list of machine types, and how much downtime you need to recover the investment. MHR is the machine hour rate.
- CNC lathe (MHR Rs. 200): 30 minutes.
- CNC VMC (MHR Rs. 600): 10 minutes
- CNC HMC (MHR Rs. 1000): 6 minutes.
E.g., On an HMC, you have recovered your investment if you reduce machine downtime by just 5 minutes per day with the help of the Industry 4.0 system.
Such downtime reductions are easily achievable.
How long does it take ?
Low hanging fruit: 2 weeks to 1 month, to improve capacity utilization by 15%.
High hanging fruit: 2 to 3 months to improve capacity utilization by 10%.
How can ROI be improved using Industry 4.0 software for machine monitoring ?
Step 1: Reduce the downtime.
Step 2: Improve the quality – reduce rejections.
Step 1: Divide total downtime into low and high hanging fruit.
Low hanging fruit
Downtime caused by work ethics problems: production starting late and stopping early in shifts, break times extending beyond the allotted time, etc.
High hanging fruit
Downtime due to management issues: no raw material, high setup times, machine breakdown, high first-part inspection time.
The division typically is 30% low hanging fruit and 70% high hanging fruit.
Machine downtime - reducing the low hanging fruit
Production starts late (typical 30 minutes) and stops early (typical 30 minutes). The operator takes unscheduled breaks during the shift, and extends meal and tea times beyond their normal times (typical 15 minutes).
Downtime is 15%, 1.25 hrs. in an 8-hour shift
How to reduce machine downtime due to poor work ethics ?
Leanworx industry 4.0 software has a report showing late start and early stoppage in shifts, and hourly production report that highlights low productivity hours.
Print these and put them up on the shop notice board every morning. Everyone gets to know everyone else’s behavior, and the problem goes away in just 2 weeks. This means a capacity increase of 15 %.
Machine downtime - reducing the high hanging fruit
These are caused by system issues, beyond the control of the operator.
- High part unload-load time
- Machine breakdown
- No raw material
- High setup times
- High inspection time
Downtime due to high part unload and load times
This occurs when the time to unload a completed part and load a fresh part is consistently more than the standard time allotted for it. E.g., actual time is 1 minute on average, but time spent is 30 seconds.
The possible causes are: poor skill level of operator, operator fatigue, etc.The possible solutions could be: improving operator skill level by training, improving mechanical aids to reduce operator fatigue, etc.
Leanworx manufacturing 4.0 software has reports that show details of individual cycles and the downtime between cycles. You can analyze unload-load times and pinpoint causes of high times using these reports.
Downtime due to high setup times
During setup changes, the actual setup time can be more than the standard time allotted.
The possible causes are fixture maintenance issues, poor fixture design or poor operator skills.
Possible solutions are improved fixture design, auto work offset probe on CNCs, modular tooling, quick-change tooling, operator training.
Leanworx shows setup times for each part change as a report. You can use this to determine long or erratic setup times, then analyze and fix the issue.
Downtime due to machine breakdown
This can be caused by frequent breakdowns, long time to fix breakdowns, or long time to respond to breakdowns.
Leanworx automatic ticket creation and breakdown alerts on mobile phones. Frequency of breakdowns can be reduced by Leanworx’s preventive maintenance features, and autonomous maintenance features.
Trends of maintenance KPIs (MTTR, MTTA, MTBF) help in improving maintenance systems.
Waste due to part rejection
Rejections result in loss of raw material and of processing time. The cost of the processing time also includes the cost of operations that were before the operation in which the rejection occurred.
Rejections may be because the machine does not have the required process capability, because of a poorly trained operator, etc.
Reports from Leanworx will tell you the quantum of rejections, their reasons, who the operator was, etc. This will help you focus on the main causes and eliminate them to reduce rejection losses.
Considering the very rapid and assured Industry 4.0 ROI, you can go ahead with your factory 4.0 plans without thinking twice.
Learn more about how Leanworx can help you increase the industry 4.0 ROI. Book a live demo today
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