Chennai: Gopala Krishnan CS, Chief Manufacturing Officer, Hyundai Motor India, and his staff would know a factor or two about driving a producing plant to its fullest capability. Amongst different issues, solely final 12 months they elevated the annual manufacturing capability of the Chennai plant by 54,000 models to eight.4 lakh autos. They’re anticipated to leverage the Chennai learnings and practices to boost the effectivity and manufacturing capability of the newly-acquired Talegaon plant, arrange by Basic Motors in 2008.
Hyundai accomplished its acquisition formalities in January this 12 months. The plant shall be essential for Hyundai’s subsequent section of development. It features a extra inexpensive crop of EVs beginning subsequent 12 months. Hyundai plans to start out manufacturing within the plant within the October-December quarter of subsequent 12 months.
Hyundai has to lift the Talegaon plant’s annual capability of 1.3 lakh models to create a cumulative manufacturing capability of 1 million autos with out including additional capability in Chennai. “Proper now we’re assessing and refurbishing (the plant). A separate staff is working there and we try to improve the services. We goal to make it one of many world’s greatest crops,” Gopala Krishnan advised ETAuto.
The Chennai plant is at the moment working at over 90% capability utilisation, and in that mild too the second plant turns into essential for Hyundai’s sustainable development technique.
SIAT initiative
A brand new paint store helped the Chennai plant’s effectivity increase. Equally vital had been the small automation initiatives, conceptualised, and delivered by workers because of the company-wide programme known as SIAT (Sensible Innovation Automation Staff). It helped the plant to roll out extra autos with the manufacturing traces remaining the identical.
The SIAT programme was launched primarily to supply a possibility to younger engineers and workers to showcase their progressive capabilities, and within the course of assist the corporate to be extra aggressive. “The way you interact younger millennials is essential. It’s best to at all times give them duties. This platform provides a possibility to check out their concepts,” Gopala Krishnan mentioned.
The SIAT members attempt to acquire ache factors from colleagues in numerous groups, and attempt to remedy them. They type small multi-functional groups, and discover options. Final 12 months 250 initiatives had been introduced underneath the SIAT initiative. Considered one of them, which the writer witnessed in motion, is a ‘Energy Free Synchro Trolley’. Because the names suggests, this trolley doesn’t devour energy, however mechanically strikes from one station to a different within the meeting line carrying the required components for putting in in a automotive’s physique, earlier than getting unhinged from the automotive physique and coming again to its authentic place following the legal guidelines of physics. This straightforward innovation is claimed to be decreasing operator motion and fatigue by 50%.
“How can I scale back the fatigue? How can I enhance the standard? How can I scale back the waste actions? These concepts get carried out by our personal individuals, on this yearly marketing campaign,” he mentioned.
Elimination of 4 Ds
A message workers and guests can see whereas exiting the automotive meeting space reads, “stunning work place, stunning thoughts, stunning automotive’. As occasions get extra aggressive, comfort and luxury of employees have gotten extra vital elements in attracting and retaining abilities.
Hyundai has recognized store flooring jobs that come underneath the 4 Ds of Soiled, Troublesome, Harmful, and Uninteresting, to implement new concepts to handle them. Jobs which might be deemed harmful are being checked out for automation. “One other one is how will you keep away from some not required areas like odor, noise or issue. Suppose an operator is assembling within the underneath physique. How will you assist with a wearable exoskeleton machine, for him to assemble comfortably, and scale back his fatigue,” Gopala Krishnan mentioned.
Skilling individuals for the digital age
As manufacturing crops additionally be a part of the digital revolution, there’s far more alternative for an organisation to faucet and thoughts huge information to boost effectivity. At Hyundai’s Chennai plant, round 2,000 machines are linked. They throw up “near 12 billion information factors”. To leverage these information factors, the corporate began coaching its engineers and information scientists. It additionally does information analytics initiatives, to foretell failures for instance. Workers are chosen and despatched to institutes like IIT Madras and Nice Lakes College to grow to be information scientists.
Citing an instance of leveraging digital expertise on the finish of the meeting line, Gopala Krishnan mentioned that with using digital information and expertise, attainable discrepancy patterns might be recognized, and failure predicted and thereby bettering high quality and manufacturing processes.
“Since 2018/2019, we’ve began creating our personal services, community, and infrastructure. We now have obtained a devoted staff and wherever there have been scope for implementing superior manufacturing options like IOT, AI, deep studying or ML (Machine Studying), we’ve carried out them,” Gopala Krishnan mentioned. And, expertise permits him and his staff to have round 150 dashboards for monitoring all linked machines and crops.
Sustainability drive
Hyundai has set 2045 because the goal 12 months to go carbon impartial. On the Chennai plant, Gopala Krishnan mentioned, by way of a rise in reuse, recycle, and upcycle, round 38% of carbon footprint discount has been achieved over the previous 5 years. This, he mentioned, interprets to round 1 lakh tonne discount of CO2 emission. And, waste within the plant is claimed to have been decreased by 19% over the identical interval.
A key hub
Over the previous 27 years, India has emerged as a key hub for Hyundai, as a manufacturing base and as a lot a market. It’s at the moment the third largest marketplace for Hyundai, after Korea, and USA. Final 12 months, the Korean chaebol gained 600,000 models, or 14% of its international gross sales from Hyundai model of autos in India. The worldwide main has 18 crops all over the world.
Like within the case of another international OEMs, Hyundai Motor India’s manufacturing practices additionally earned the staff alternatives to assist the guardian firm in manufacturing operations elsewhere. One of many alternatives was to assist arrange a brand new manufacturing facility in Mexico. “The International staff works collaboratively and gives us with a platform to work together often, share the most effective practices and take insights from our friends. Such discussions assist us to achieve worthwhile suggestions and provides us a complete understanding of our enterprise operations. This additional aids in creating sustainable plans for the organisation’s future development,” says Gopala Krishnan.
As a producing base, which Gopala Krishnan mentioned, has been applauded for being “passionate” and “agile”, India shall be much more essential for Hyundai within the coming years. And, the 2 crops should do their bit properly for Hyundai Motor India to maintain its place within the market podium too. With its closest opponents additionally lining up new manufacturing plans, India’s general manufacturing prowess can also be set to get a lift.
