AEM helping industry brave tough times

Applied Electro Magnetics Pvt Ltd (AEM) of Noida is helping the automotive industry face the ongoing recessionary trends by monitoring production accurately and improving productivity.

While a number of leading component makers like Sona Koyo, Clutch Auto, Asahi Glass and Jay Bharat Maruti have already put in place AEM’s automated production monitoring systems (APMS), many more like Tata Motors’ gear plant in Pimpri, Kirloskar Engines and even companies from the small and medium sector are seriously evaluating the benefits of APMS.

The APMS can monitor various assembly lines of a shopfloor in an automated manner and logs the production of each assembly line on a real-time basis. Parameters such as rejection, rework and manpower efficiency are also logged.

The APMS consists of a machine networking unit and a data logger. The benefits include elimination of human error in noting down production units, on-line real time production update, automated counting items produced etc. “It is difficult to determine why machines are down in a plant — was it a result of human failure, did the machine actually break down or was there some other problem? What we do is that we pick up the pulse from the machine and determine at what rate the machine is producing a product. Also when a machine is down, we find out the reason why it is down. If it has been down for 10 minutes, it sends an alarm to the supervisor informing him of the same. And when the duration is longer, the data is flashed on to the supervisor and his seniors. A small device with an in-built GPRS facility picks up the pulse from the machine and relays it on to a central server or a central data controller which can again be connected through LAN to anyone sitting anywhere. Basically, it determines the production pattern in a plant,” says Upender Bhati, head of business development, AEM.

Within the automotive segment, AEM operates in two areas — vehicle tracking units and the APMS. The company also produces a range of products for the defence sector and at present 95 percent of its business is derived from the Indian Air Force. It is an OEM supplier of vehicle tracking systems to Tata Motors for the Novus range of trucks, to the Gurgaon-based ORG mapping company, Taco Mobis and has also tied up with Ashok Leyland and Eicher. With facilities in Himachal Pradesh and Noida, AEM makes around 5,000 units a month and caters mainly to OEMs.

“I am not eliminating the human presence in a plant at all. I am eliminating the interference of human beings in data manipulation or data collection. We deployed this system in Sona Koyo around four years ago. At JBM we deployed it around a year ago. Sona Koyo managing director Dr Surinder Kapur monitors the progress of his eight plants across India from his room. He gets feedback every minute and can virtually see the production of each machine in each plant in the country. This way he tracks the human as well as machine performance in his plants and thus the production pattern across his plants. We have received lot of positive feedback from him. Priced between Rs 25,000 to Rs 28,000, this technology is so affordable that even SMEs can go in for it,” notes Bhati.

Huge potential

Bhati feels that it is the right time for Indian auto component companies to go in for the APMS, especially given the economic downturn. Citing an example, he says that a North India-based manufacturer of plastic parts had its entire consignment rejected and the company was unable to find out who was responsible for the production. “Our APMS would have been able to extract data for the past four to five years. They could have identified the machine and thereby avoided any future mishap,” says Bhati.

“The problem with the management is that they do not know the actual production going on ‘alive’. So I can make a machine alive by giving the production pattern and the production data to anybody sitting in the office anywhere. Most machines are not very intelligent. So what we do is we take the codes from the production logic control (PLC) and figure the production pattern. Once I know the production pattern, I can feed the management as to what production is going on at a given time,” he adds.

Furthermore, an APMS can help determine the cause of a sudden breakdown or production stoppage. “The PLC helps us determine how the machine performs and thereon we pick up the pulse of the machine, which helps us determine the production pattern of the machine,” he explains.