Industry 2.0 August 2012

www.industry20.com August 2012 PRICE 100A 99 MEDIA PuBLICAtION VOLuME 11 IssuE 12

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OperatiOnsSeamless field-to-factory vision adds speed to your assets

ManageMentUnderstanding your customers’ needs can pay rich dividends

supply ChainComprehensive visibility can help mitigate problems

ExcellenceManufacturing

Complexity forOrganisational

Cut

www.industry20.com 3 industry 2.0 - technology management for decision-makers | august 2012

Despite massive expansion in capacities, and a slew of new companies setting up shop, the Indian manufacturing sector has

been unable to reach the 20 per cent share of the GDP. Pessimists will point to an array of factors that are hobbling industrial growth—from inadequate infrastructure and power, to regulatory and licensing matters, taxation snarls, labour problems and environmental restrictions. Many of these problems can be solved relatively quickly through quick and decisive action on the part of the government.

But there are some problems that are more intractable. The biggest challenge is to make the SMEs the real engine of the manufacturing economy—much like in China, Taiwan and Germany. In Germany, the so called ‘mittelstand’ companies account for nearly one-half of its substantial manufactured exports. Many of these companies have niche market leadership positions, and have actively adopted modern manufacturing techniques like lean manufacturing and TQM. The companies often collaborate with universities, and cluster them-selves around big manufacturers. Anoth-er secret to their success is that they are located in rural areas, and benefit greatly from the apprentice system that provides reservoir of skilled workers.

Indian SME manufacturers are tiny by world standards. Not only do they have to grapple with poor infrastruc-

ture and comply with onerous laws, many are also capital constrained. This means that they have low ability to invest in modern equipment or technol-ogy tools. Collaboration with education-al institutions or investment in innova-tion is virtually nonexistent. Nor do they have access to a trained workforce.

Consequently, many Indian SMEs exist in commoditised manufacturing activities—with resulting low margins. Economic downturns and swings in commodity prices often hit them hard, and business failure rates are high.

One way to fix the situation is to identify a few sectors in which there is an opportunity to achieve world-class standards. And then create the ena-bling ecosystem through a combination of financial incentives and appropri-ate legislation. Mandate public-funded research and education institutions to effectively transfer knowledge to the SME sector through innovative schemes, and completely revamp the Industrial Training Institutes (ITIs).

Look at ways to encourage the software industry to collaborate with the manufacturing industry to trans-fer knowledge and best practices from around the world, use advanced tools and planning solutions, and help SMEs embed software into products to create innovative offerings. SMEs will also need to learn to cooperate and col-laborate, and adopt agile strategies to remain relevant to customers. Else, they are headed for oblivion.

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Wither SME Manufacturing?

VOl. 11 | ISSUe 12 | AUGUST 2012

www.industry20.com2 august 2012 | industry 2.0 - technology management for decision-makers

contents

departments

advertiser index

National Instruments ..................IFC

Mitsubishi ......................................03

Panasonic ......................................05

Schneider .......................................07

BRY-Air Asia ..................................09

Reillo PCI India Pvt Ltd .................. 11

Ace Micromatic ..............................13

Powerbuild ......................................15

CHEP ............................................16-A

Omron ............................................56

Elcon ............................................. IBC

GW Precision ................................ BC

Editorial .......................................... 01

Advertiser Index ............................02

Industry Update ............................04

Techwatch ......................................12

Product Update .............................54

18 Unleashing Manufacturing ExcellenceRigid organisational structures and coordination problems can become a major obstacle to achieving manufacturing quality, flexibility, speed and cost-effectiveness. However, they can be overcome by using an optimal design; nurturing a skilled and engaged workforce; and by set-ting in place the requisite supporting systems and governance models

COvER STORY

needs better, manufacturers are also improving their own products— and cutting costs

48 moving to a digital World Most consumer-facing businesses

are now using digital tools to get closer to customers. But few organisations are close to completing the challenging journey to a holistic, integrated business model, with shared assets and platforms. A look at how leading companies are tackling this problem

opinion47 thriving in adversity To be a successful leader you need to

employ positive thinking. Set realistic goals to reduce stress, and maintain an optimistic outlook

sector update26 Biscuits Cookies Make the Cut

Insatiable demand propels robust expansion of the biscuits market and attracts international brands

27 Cold Chains Logistics sector expands cold

storage capacity, and upgrades infrastructure and transportation technology to meet evolving customer demand

facilities & operations28 Linking the Field to the

Factory Manufacturers are securing a competitive advantage by seamlessly linking ordering systems, production, fulfilment and delivery

supply chain36 eye on the supply Chain While the benefits are clear, achiev-

ing effective supply chain visibility is hard. However, new developments in communication and collabora-tion technologies are enabling the key building blocks for establishing and maintaining information flows through the global supply chain

management & strategy42 Collaborating for success

Manufacturing companies

are increasingly collaborating with customers to build relationships and revenue. And by meeting customer

Cover Design: Manav Sachdev

FA_Car_Industry2.0＿H.280mm × W.210mm＿8月号

www.MitsubishiElectric.inMITSUBISHI ELECTRIC INDIA PVT. LTD.

Emerald House, EL-3, J Block, M.I.D.C., Bhosari, Pune, 411-026, Maharastra State, IndiaTel: 91-20-2710-2000　Fax: 91-20-2710-2100

Mitsubishi Electric – Optimizing production flowin the global auto industry.

Mitsubishi Electric’s iQ Platform's centralized control improves both efficiency and quality on automobile assembly lines. Through unified control of PLCs, HMIs, inverters, servos, numerically controllers, robots and other systems, the iQ Platform fully integrates data sharing for a completely seamless production line.

The IQ platform is thefirst to combine all key typesof automation inone controller for optimalmulti-discipline data control.

Electro-deposition tooltemperature control PLC

Electro-deposition boothtransport PLC

Air conditioning control PLC

Air conditioning control PLC

Temperature control PLC

Mixing control PLC

Central control roomCentral control room

All booth integrative PLC

Micro PLC HMIModular PLC

VFD AC servo CNC

Automation MumbaiDate: Sept 7 - Sept 10, 2012, Venue:Bombay Exhibition Center (BEC), MumbaiVisit Hall No.5, Stall No.L13-14, L35-32

industry update


Research firm Gartner has identi-fied the top supply chain organi-

sations in Asia based on factors like revenue growth, return on assets (ROA), inventory and peer opinion. Of the top 15 supply chain organisa-tions, five are headquartered in Japan (Canon, Honda, Komatsu, Seven & I Holdings, Toyota), four in Korea (Hyundai, Hyundai Heavy Industries, LG, Samsung), two in China (Huawei and Lenovo), one in Australia (Wool-worths), one in India (Tata Motors), one in Singapore (Flextronics) and one in Taiwan (ASUSTeK). Samsung leads in Asia Pacific which is dominat-ed by high tech, consumer electron-ics, automotive, retail and industrial products companies. Four companies entered the list for the first time in 2012.

“Our regional rankings help to capture issues and best practices that are unique to each region,” says Debra Hofman, Managing Vice Presi-dent at Gartner. She said there were a number of notable trends in Asia Pacific affecting supply chain lead-ers that included a focus on growth and low-cost innovation; growing but unpredictable demand with associ-ated demand management challenges; shifting supply bases that require sup-ply chain redesign; growth in intra-region trade; rapid inflation, rising and volatile costs and tighten-ing labour market that combine to pose increased risks.

Supply chain leaders like Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, Wilmar International and Wesfarmers did not make it to the list because they did not get enough votes.

According to Gartner Research Director Debashis Tarafdar, the Asia Pacific supply chain leaders have maintained momentum in the difficult economic environment by re-configur-ing their supply chains while staying focussed on a demand-driven strategy. “Companies leading the top supply chains in Asia Pacific have demon-

strated capabilities in demand management, operational excellence and innovation,” he pointed out. “They are using best practices including demand sensing and shaping, segmentation and collabora-tion, to help manage demand volatility and deliver predictable results. To measure supply chain performance, they select the right metrics that are aligned to the company’s overall business objectives. They also build resiliency into supply network design, and implement risk management strategies.”

Samsung has Asia-Pac’s Best Supply Chain

Players in the highly competitive logistics sector are looking to protect innova-

tions through the use of patents. German major, DHL, has registered more than

1,843 patents since 2002, including its GoGreen service. DHL’s patent management

team is part of its solutions and innovations group that studies short-term market

requirements and builds a base for new developments. “The innovations…in most

cases are driven by new technologies,” remarks Petra Kiwitt, Executive Vice Presi-

dent for Solutions and Innovation at DHL.

Transport Corporation of India (TCI), the Rs 2,000-crore Indian firm, has started

off with two patents. “As the business dynamics of the logistics sector become

more competitive, patents represent a new challenge for technology management

in the logistics industry. A few logistics companies have started to understand the

value of patents and are actively in the process of patenting their business practices

and technology,” explains Vineet Agarwal, Joint Managing Director of TCI.

Ashok Leyland is evaluating the possibility of launching

a hybrid version of its Optare buses in India. The company holds a 75 per cent stake in UK-bus maker Optare. “But consid-ering the fact that electric buses are expensive, it is not viable for the Indian market. We could introduce a hybrid alternative,” says Dheeraj Hinduja, Chairman, Ashok Leyland.

“We have been working on alternative fuels with our CNG buses. We are doing a lot of work on hybrid vehicles,” adds R Seshasayee, Executive Vice-Chairman.

Logistics Majors Seek Patents

Ashok Leyland Mulls Hybrid Buses

1 13 Samsung Electronics

2 31 Hyundai Motor

3 42 Tata Motors

4 43 L Group

5 45 Huawei Technologies

6 57 Woolworths

7 69 Toyota Motor

8 76 ASUSTeK Computer

9 81 Hyundai Heavy Industries

10 94 Seven & I Holdings

11 104 Honda Motor

12 111 Canon

13 116 LG Electronics

14 118 Komatsu

15 121 Flextronics International

APAC Rank World Rank Company

industry update


FARO Technologies has announced the

Vantage, a laser tracker that combines new

features and a portable design. The Vantage is 25

per cent smaller and 28 per cent lighter than its

predecessor. Faro has included a new in-line optic

system to improve long-range measurement by

45 per cent, and has added WiFi to the device to

eliminate tethering to laptops. Along with standard

shipping cases, the Vantage is packaged with an all-

new backpack and roller board that can be stowed

in a standard airline overhead compartment.

Two of the new features found only in the Vantage—SmartFind and MultiView—increase productivity by reduc-ing measurement time. The SmartFind system responds to simple gestures from the operator and allows the Vantage to

Container Corporation of India (Concor), a public sector unit under the Ministry of Railways, has

planned to set up three logistics parks in West Bengal at an estimated investment of Rs 150 crore. The company plans to set up 15 such hubs across the country. Sanjay Swarup, Group General Manager of Concor, says that the company has identified land at Durgapur, Dankuni and Siliguri for developing these multimodal facilities. Each park will require nearly 100 acres of land, and will have facilities like warehouses, container yards and cold chains.

“The land acquisition process is on for these parks. While the Railways will provide the land at Durgapur and Dankuni, we are in talks with the West Bengal Government for land in Siliguri,” Swarup explains. In addition to the three parks in West Bengal, Concor has identified three locations in Andhra Pradesh; four in Odisha; one each in Maharashtra, Gujarat and Rajasthan; and two in Uttarakhand, for setting up such facilities.

Bharat Heavy Electricals (BHEL) has commissioned a 5 MW grid-connected solar power plant at Shivasam-

udram. Set up at a cost of Rs 62 crore, this is the single largest solar photovoltaic (PV) power plant in Karnataka. It is owned by the state-owned power producer, Karnataka Power Corporation (KPCL). For the Shivasamudram pro-ject, BHEL’s scope of work included design, manufacture, supply, erection and commissioning of the solar power plant. In addition, BHEL will also operate and maintain the solar power plant for three years.

The solar power plant has been synchronised with the main grid, and the DC power generated by the solar panels is converted into AC by inverters and fed into a 66 kV grid through transformers. Crystalline silicon photovoltaic tech-nology has been used and the SPV modules are manufac-tured at the facility in Bangalore. The company also has a R&D unit in Gurgaon to support its operations in semi-con-ductors and solar photovoltaics.

Concor Plans Logistics Parks BHEL Commissions Solar Power Plant

Alstom’s thermal services business

has bagged a contract worth

nearly Rs 344.5 crore (€53 million) to

renovate NTPC’s gas turbines at its

657-MW Jhanor-Gandhar Gas Power

Station Stage-1 project in Bharuch,

Gujarat. The contract has been

awarded to Alstom (Switzerland) and

Alstom (India). Alstom India’s share

from the contract would be about Rs 22.6

crore (€3.50 million). Alstom

was the original supplier of turbines

to the project.

The refurbishment contract

involves the supply, installation and

commissioning of turbine parts. While

the components will be produced at

Alstom’s global manufacturing facilities,

the services in India will be provided by

Alstom India. The project is scheduled

to be completed over a period of three

years. The gas turbines at the Jhanor

Gandhar power plant have been in

operation for over 15 years, and will

operate for another 15 years with

the same output after the parts are

replaced, according to Alstom.

Alstom Gets Gas Turbine Renovation Contract

FARO Develops New Laser Trackerquickly find the desired target whenever its beam is lost or broken. The MultiView system utilises two integrated cameras that let users point automati-cally to any specific and difficult-to-reach targets.

The Vantage’s TruADM technology provides the accuracy needed for every day, real-world applications where the differences between absolute distance measurement (ADM) and interferometer (IFM)-based measurements are, for the most part, insignificant. Unlike technologies that require an IFM system to assist their ADM

system, FARO’s TruADM simplifies the process. Enhanced, predictive algorithms in this patented, fifth-generation technology allow quicker capture of dynamic measurements by simply scanning with the target.

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industry update


Geometric is now offering a pay-per-use nesting solution for material optimisation.

NestLibOnline.com is useful for occasional users who need a solution for nesting and optimisa-

tion of cutting of flat materials. It can be used by cabinet and furniture makers, carpenters and wood working consultants, small factories with sheet metal and wood-cutting machinery, foam product manufacturers, textile and leather product manufacturers, and packaging product manufacturers.

The software offers true shape automatic nesting to optimise material utilisa-tion, and fits two-dimensional shapes on larger 2D sheets. Nested layouts are instantly generated once the 2D DXF parts are uploaded, and the desired sheet sizes for nesting are selected. The results are displayed in PDF or DXF formats. Nesting jobs can be queued without waiting for the nesting process, and the nest-ing report is automatically sent to the user’s email ID. A 30-day free evaluation version is available on the website http://www.nestlibonline.com.

Online Solution Optimises Material Cutting Integrated Valve Control

Simplifies Installation

IT Spend in Indian Manufacturing to Grow

Alfa Laval has developed a new

valve control unit called Unique

Control, consisting of an integrated

automation unit and actuator. Quick

and easy to install, it eliminates the

need for separate automation units

for flow control. Unique Control is

designed to handle all applications,

and is available as an option for Alfa

Laval butterfly valves. An intuitive and

fully-automatic setup greatly shortens

installation time, and users can set

it themselves to be normally open or

normally closed.

Even though costs are increasing,

manufacturers are updating and

automating their business processes.

IDC Manufacturing Insight predicts

that the manufacturing IT spend will

grow to $8,781.8 million by 2016. The

sector expected to spend the highest

on IT in 2012 automotive, followed by

chemicals and consumer products.

“With increasing costs and

uncertainty in the world economy,

manufacturers across the region are

increasingly focussing their efforts on

productivity and efficiency,” says Dr

Christopher Holmes, Head, Interna-

tional, IDC Manufacturing Insights.

Holmes continues, “From a technol-

ogy perspective, we will see compa-

nies move to clearly establish the link

between technology and efficiency to

driving out cost and becoming more

productive. There is greater interest

in looking beyond ERP, as companies

seek to leverage technology to deliver

value to the enterprise, with increased

focus on more specific applications

to support manufacturing operations,

supply chain management and prod-

uct lifecycle management. We are also

seeing more interest in newer tech-

nologies like business intelligence and

mobile as companies seek to leverage

these for enhanced productivity.”

Small Vehicles to Propel Indian CV Market

Rockwell Secures Order from Lauren-Jyoti

The small commercial vehicle (SCV)

and light commercial vehicle (LCV)

segments are entering a rapid growth

phase, and the trend is expected to con-

tinue for the next 5 to 10 years according

to Frost & Sullivan. The combined sales

of SCVs and LCVs reached 353,620

units during 2010-11, and the sales vol-

ume is anticipated

to hit 827,920

units by 2015-

16. SCV

goods

carri-

ers are

expected to account for around 70 per

cent of this volume.

The Indian CV market is polarising

towards the SCV and LCV segments,

and the market share of medium CVs

(MCVs) is declining. This trend is intensi-

fied by many factors. For instance, the

restriction on medium and heavy CVs’

entrance into metro cities has made it

necessary for logistics companies to

procure SCVs and LCVs for within-city

delivery of goods. The availability of low

cost LCVs with high power and gross

vehicle weight (GVW) capacities has also

eaten into the market share of MCVs.

Lauren-Jyoti, a joint venture between Lauren Engineers & Constructors of the USA and Jyoti Power Structures, has awarded a $1.9 million order to Rockwell

Automation. Rockwell will provide PlantPAx-based power plant distributed control system (DCS) solution with solar field local controller panels for Godawari Green Energy in Rajasthan. “This win is significant because it provides us the opportu-nity to set industry standards for concentrated solar power plants,” remarks Terry Gebert, Vice President and General Manager, Rockwell Automation Global Solutions.

Lauren-Jyoti is constructing a green field 50 MW concentrated solar power plant for Godawari Green Energy. The plant will be one of the first utility-scale solar thermal power plants commissioned in India. “This solution, support and collaboration will enable us to integrate widespread solar field control with main plant control to achieve better uptime and reliability,” says Siddharth Agrawal, Director, Godawari Green Energy.

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BMM Ispat has ordered core systems for an electri-

cal steel plant, from Siemens VAI Metals Technologies. The steelmaking plant is part of a new integrated production complex at Hospet, Karna-taka, and is scheduled to go

into operation at the end of 2013. BMM Ispat is expanding production capacity at the Hospet site by two million tonnes per year, and is setting up a flexible bar mill with an annual capacity of 850,000 tonnes. The crude steel for these prod-ucts will be produced in the new electrical steel works.

BMM Ispat is ordering an electric arc furnace specially designed for combined charging of hot metal and direct-reduced iron (DRI). Siemens will be delivering the mechani-cal and electrical equipment for the electric arc furnace with a tapping weight of 110 tonnes, a 110-tonne ladle fur-nace, a vacuum degassing plant and the alloying and addi-tive systems. The electric arc furnace, the ladle furnace, the material charging systems and other auxiliaries are being equipped with a de-dusting system. The scope of the order also includes entire Level 1 automation and process automa-tion (Level 2) systems, furnace transformers and a dynamic compensation system.

In a separate deal, a Siemens VAI Metals Technologies consortium has secured an order from the National Min-eral Development Corporation (NMDC) for the supply of a complete LD (BOF) steelmaking plant. The order size is approximately €290 million. The steel works will be built at Nagarnar, Chhattisgarh as part of an integrated production complex with an annual capacity of approximately three mil-lion tonnes of steel. The project is scheduled for completion by mid-2015. NMDC has already ordered a sintering plant from Siemens for the Nagarnar project site.

For the integrated steelmaking plant, Siemens will be in charge of the design and the turnkey supply of two LD (BOF) converters, two 175-tonne desulfurisation plants (HMDS), two ladle furnaces (LF), and a RH degassing plant. The project scope of supply also includes the material handling systems, the primary and secondary de-dusting systems, a gas recovery plant and a water treatment plant. The project will be executed in collaboration with SEW Infrastructure and Mukand Engineers, who will be responsible for the civil works, the manufacturing and the erection of the steel struc-tures, as well as for general erection of equipment.

Siemens will supply the complete basic (Level 1) and pro-cess automation (Level 2), and the completed plant will com-ply with environmental standards in India as well as Europe. NMDC is India’s largest manufacturer and exporter of iron ore. It mines approx 30 million tonnes of ore each year.

Siemens Secures Multiple Steel Plant Orders

industry update


PTC has signed a definitive agreement to acquire Servigistics,

a developer of service lifecycle management (SLM) software solutions, for approximately $220 million in cash. Transaction is expected to be completed in September. The acquisition will enhance PTC’s existing portfolio of SLM solutions that includes capabilities in the areas of warranty and contract management, service parts definition, and technical information. Servigistics is recognised as a technology leader in complementary areas such as service parts planning, management and pricing, field service management,

PTC Acquires Servigistics

Siemens Develops Low Power DriveIntergraph’s India Centre Reaches a Milestone

Hyderbad-based Intergraph

Consulting (ICC), an engineering

and geospatial software development

facility for Intergraph, has completed

25 years of innovation. According to

the company, the 850 people strong

ICC has contributed significantly

to the organisation’s growth and

development, and has been a key

asset for Intergraph.

Intergraph develops plant design,

information management and

geospatial engineering solutions in

Hyderabad using the latest tools

and technologies. For Intergraph’s

Process, Power & Marine (PP&M)

division, ICC has made significant

contributions the 3D plant and

marine design software used by

process, power, ship, and offshore

companies globally. ICC also

plays a key part in the research

and development of geospatial

and public safety solutions for

Intergraph’s Security, Government &

Infrastructure (SG&I) division.

S iemens has unfurled Sinamics V20, an inverter designed to perform simple drive tasks. This variable frequency drive is available in four sizes,

and covers the power range from 0.12 to 15 kW. The compact inverters can be connected directly in line, or alternatively mounted as a push-through installation in addition to the conventional wall-mounting method. With an in- built interface display (Basic Operator Panel), this user friendly inverter enables easy on-site commissioning and operations. Further, it has simple menu driven steps from power up till motor run.

The inverter is equipped with an energy-optimised control mode (ECO Mode) for increased energy efficiency, which automatically adapts the magnetic flux in the motor to the prevailing operating point.

Pre-built connection and application macros facilitate application-specific settings for quick commissioning and maximum performance. Features such as wide voltage range, better cooling design and a coated PCB increase the robustness of the inverter and ensure reliability even in harsh industrial environments.

Speaking on the occasion of the launch, Ralf Michael Franke, Chief Executive Officer, Drive Technologies, Siemens AG said “With its unique features, the SINAMICS V20 is targeted at industries that need robust, fast, cost-effective installation and hassle free operation. With superior energy efficiency, reliability and high availability, this drive contributes directly to the profitability of an enterprise.”

returns and repair management, and service knowledge management.

“Over the past few years, Servigis-tics has earned a reputation for help-ing companies maximise their global service businesses through increased profitability, cash flow, and customer loyalty,” explains PTC’s President and Chief Executive Officer Jim Heppel-mann. “Their customers are at the leading edge of a global trend to take service from a cost centre to a profit centre, and SLM technology has been a critical driver.”

For manufacturers, getting their service strategy right presents a multi-billion dollar, high-margin revenue

opportunity to differentiate themselves in the market from their traditional product-oriented competitors. As an enabling technology, SLM helps manu-facturers and their service network partners optimise the customer experi-ence by ensuring service is systemi-cally planned, delivered, and analysed to continually improve performance and maximise customer value. Yet, few manufacturers have either a coordi-nated strategy or the integrated tech-nology suite needed to capture this new market opportunity—with many manufacturers realising as little as 25 per cent of the total service value in their products’ service lifecycle. By adding Servigistics to its portfolio, PTC aims to deliver a complete system for the service lifecycle.

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techwatch


Conductive, Elastic Conductors with Silver Nanowires

Researchers from North Carolina State University have developed

highly conductive and elastic conduc-tors made from silver nanoscale wires. These conductors can be used to devel-op stretchable electronic devices.

Stretchable circuitry would be able to do many things that its rigid coun-terpart cannot. For eg, an electronic ‘skin’ could help robots pick up delicate objects without breaking them, and

However, the first step is to produce conductors that are elastic, and are able to effectively transmit electric sig-nals when deformed.

Dr Yong Zhu, an assistant professor of mechanical and aerospace engi-neering at NC State, and Feng Xu, a PhD student in Zhu’s lab have devel-oped such conductors using silver nanowires. The new technique devel-oped embeds highly conductive silver nanowires in a polymer that can with-stand significant stretching without affecting the material’s conductivity.

“This development is very exciting because it could be immediately applied to a broad range of applications,” Zhu says. “In addition, our work focusses on high and stable conductivity under a large degree of deformation, comple-mentary to most other work using silver nanowires that are more concerned with flexibility and transparency.”

“The fabrication approach is very simple,” explains Xu. Silver nanowires are placed on a silicon plate. A liquid polymer is poured over the silicon substrate. The polymer is then exposed to high heat, which turns the polymer from a liquid into an elastic solid. Since the polymer flows around the silver nanowires when it is in liquid form, the nanowires are trapped in the polymer when it becomes solid. The polymer can then be peeled off the silicon plate.

When the nanowire-embedded polymer is stretched and relaxed, the surface of the polymer contain-ing nanowires buckles. The end result is that the composite is flat on the side that contains no nanowires, but wavy on the side that contains silver nanowires. After the nanowire-embed-ded surface has buckled, the material can be stretched up to 50 per cent of its elongation without affecting the conductivity of the nanowires. The buckled shape of the material allows the nanowires to stay in a fixed posi-tion relative to each other. “In addi-tion to having high conductivity and a large stable strain range, the new stretchable conductors show excellent robustness under repeated mechanical loading,” Zhu says. C

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The silver nanowires can be printed to fabricate patterned stretchable conductors

Clay Coating Could Replace Conventional Flame RetardantsIn their search for better flame retardants for polyurethane foam used in home

furnishings, researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology

(NIST) have literally hit a clay wall. The team has developed a thick, fast-forming

coating containing flame-inhibiting clay particles. It adheres strongly to the Swiss

cheese-like surface of polyurethane foam, which is used in furniture cushions, car-

pet padding, children’s car seats, and other items.

“We can build the equivalent of a flame-retarding clay wall on the foam in a way

that has no adverse impact on the foam manufacturing process,” explains NIST fire

researcher Rick Davis. “Our clay-based coatings perform at least as well as com-

mercial retardant approaches, and there’s room for improvement. We hope this new

approach provides industry with practical alternative flame retardants.”

To date, researchers have built up coatings by stacking thin layers in pairs that

are held together by basic electrical attraction.

With no clay present a thick coating is formed rap-

idly, but it isn’t a fire retardant. With clay in every

other layer, either the coating is too thin or the clay

content is too low to be an effective fire retardant.

The NIST team tried something you would ex-

pect not to work: trilayers consisting of a positively

charged bottom topped by two negatively charged

layers. Under most circumstances, the two nega-

tive layers would repulse each other, but it turns

out that hydrogen bonds formed between the

two negative layers and overcame this repulsive

force. The resulting trilayer yields a thick, fast-

forming, and high concentration clay coating on

polyurethane foam. This nanocomposite coating is

10 times thicker, contains 6 times more clay, and

achieves this using at least 5 times fewer total lay-

ers than the traditional bilayer coatings.

“The eight trilayer system thoroughly coated

all internal and external surfaces of the porous

polyurethane foam,” the team reports.

Cre

dit

: N

IST

Above, untreated polyure-thane foam catches fire from a nearby heat source. Below, foam treated with a novel clay-filled coating did not ignite when exposed to the same heat source. Instead, a fast-growing protective layer, called char, forms on the surface

stretchable displays and antennas could make cell phones and other elec-tronic devices stretch and compress without affecting their performance.

techwatch


New Way to Control Structure of Titanium Dioxide

North Carolina State University

researchers have developed a new

technique for controlling the crystalline

structure of titanium dioxide at room

temperature. The development should

make titanium dioxide more efficient

in a range of applications, including

photovoltaic cells, hydrogen production,

antimicrobial coatings, smart sensors

and optical communication technologies.

Titanium dioxide most commonly comes in one of two major

‘phases’, meaning that its atoms arrange themselves in one of

two crystalline structures. These phases are ‘anatase’ or ‘rutile’.

The arrangement of atoms dictates the material’s optical,

chemical and electronic properties. As a result, each phase has

different characteristics. The anatase phase has characteristics

that make it better suited for use as an antibacterial agent, and

for applications such as hydrogen production. The rutile phase

is better suited for use in other applications,

such as photovoltaic cells, smart sensors

and optical communication technologies.

“Traditionally, it has been a challenge

to stabilise titanium dioxide in the desired

phase,” says Dr Jay Narayan. We have now

developed a technique that precisely

controls the phase, or crystalline structure,

of titanium dioxide at room temperature—

and stabilises that phase, so it won’t change when the tempera-

ture fluctuates.”

The process begins by using a widely available sapphire sub-

strate that has the desired crystalline structure. Researchers

then grow a template layer of titanium trioxide on the substrate.

The structure of the titanium trioxide mimics the structure of

the sapphire substrate. The titanium dioxide is then grown on

top of the titanium trioxide template layer. The technique works

because of a process called domain matching epitaxy (DME).

Making Every Surface a Battery

Researchers at Rice University have developed a lithium-ion battery that

can be painted on virtually any surface. The rechargeable battery created in the lab of Pulickel Ajayan, Materials Scientist at Rice, consists of spray-painted layers, each representing the components in a traditional battery.

“This flexible approach allows all kinds of new design and integration possibilities for storage devices,” said Professor Ajayan. “There has been lot of interest in recent times in creating power sources with an improved form factor, and this is a big step forward in that direction.” Neelam Singh, a Rice University graduate student, and her team spent painstaking hours formulat-ing, mixing and testing paints for each of the five layered components—two current collectors, a cathode, an anode and a polymer separator in the middle. The materials were airbrushed onto ceramic bathroom tiles, flexible poly-mers, glass, stainless steel and even a beer stein to see how well they would bond with each substrate.

The researchers reported that the hand-painted batteries were remarka-

bly consistent in their capacities, within plus or minus 10 per cent of the target. They were also put through 60 charge-discharge cycles with only a very small drop in capacity, Singh said.

Each layer is an optimised stew. The first, the positive current collector, is a mixture of purified single-wall carbon nanotubes with carbon black particles dispersed in N-methylpyrrolidone. The second is the cathode, which con-tains lithium cobalt oxide, carbon and ultrafine graphite (UFG) powder in a binder solution. The third is the poly-mer separator paint of Kynar Flex resin, PMMA and silicon dioxide dispersed in a solvent mixture. The fourth, the anode, is a mixture of lithium titanium oxide and UFG in a binder, and the final layer is the negative current collector, a commercially available conductive cop-per paint, diluted with ethanol.

“The hardest part was achieving mechanical stability, and the separa-tor played a critical role,” says Singh. “We found that the nanotube and the cathode layers were sticking very well, but if the separator was not mechani-cally stable, they would peel off the

Pho

to: J

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Ceramic tiles coated with battery paints, and then heat-sealed, power a series of LEDs spelling out ‘RICE’ in an experiment. The lithium-ion batteries can be painted on virtually any surface

A new technique allows researchers to control the phase of the titanium dioxide by modifying the structure of the titanium trioxide and sapphire substrate

substrate. Adding PMMA gave the right adhesion to the separator.” Once painted, the tiles and other items were infused with the electrolyte and then heat-sealed and charged.

Singh said the batteries were easily charged with a small solar cell. She foresees the possibility of integrating paintable batteries with recently reported paintable solar cells to create an energy-harvesting combination. As good as the hand-painted batteries are, she said, scaling up with modern methods will improve them by leaps and bounds. “Spray painting is already an industrial process, so it would be very easy to incorporate this into industry,” Singh said.

techwatch


Nanostructures Enable Better Self-cleaning Surfaces

Many plants and animals have tex-tured surfaces on their body for

manipulating water. Some textured surfaces are designed, for example, to improve adhesion, while others may enable the collection of water from fog in arid regions. The lotus leaf, in particular, is the most widely known for having a textured surface with self-cleaning properties.

The surface of the lotus leaf has a hierarchical structure—combin-ing micrometre and sub-micrometre features—that makes it difficult for water droplets to spread. As a result, water droplets form tight spheres that easily roll off the leaf, picking up dirt particles en route. Such functionality can be useful if applied to textiles or windows.

Linda Yongling Wu at the A*STAR Singapore Institute of Manufacturing Technology and her co-workers have developed a fast and cost-efficient way to fabricate large-scale super-hydrophopic surfaces on silica—and mimic the lotus leaf. The researchers used a laser to carve out a microstruc-tured template that was then used to pattern a sol-gel coating. Nanoparti-cles were subsequently bound to the surface of the cured sol-gel surface to create a second level of hierarchy. The fabrication methodology can be adjusted to achieve different degrees of micro and nanostructures.

In addition to the new fabrication methodology, Wu and co-workers considered various ways to optimise the water repellency of the textured surface. They found that increasing the surface roughness increases the true

Snakeskin Inspires Abrasion-resistant Materials

Cre

dit

: © A

*STA

R

The surface of a lotus leaf has bumps in size of about ten micrometres and spikes of below one micrometre that help it shed water

The bodies of snakes are exposed

to constant friction forces, but

has to last until moulting takes place.

“The skin of snakes therefore has to

be optimised against abrasion wear,”

explains Dr Marie-Christin Klein of Kiel

University. With Stanislav Gorb she ex-

amined the skin of four snake species:

sand boa (Gongylophis colubrinus),

the king snake (Lampropeltis getula

californiae), the rainbow boa

(Epicrates cenchria cenchria) and the green tree python (Morelia viridis), which

inhabit different environments to find the secrets to abrasion resistance.

“We found out that the skin architecture differs depending on habitat.

However, all show a gradient in material properties. This means that the skin

of all species has a stiff and hard outside and becomes more flexible and soft

towards the inside, even though the skin differs in thickness and structure

depending on species,” explains Klein. The four snake species achieve this

mechanical effect by developing different cell types. A material that has a tran-

sition from a stiff outside to a flexible inside can distribute an impacting force

over a larger area, therefore, decreasing the force on one single point. Materials

like this are like a flexible amour.

Possible application areas can be found in the medical engineering sector, in

which friction could for instance be optimised for artificial implants. Furthermore,

the propulsion and conveyer technique market could profit from the abrasion

minimisation findings, since lubrication would be needed less often.

area of contact between the liquid and the solid, enhancing its intrinsic wet-ting properties. However, if the sur-face features are small enough, water can bridge protrusions leading to the formation of air pockets; the wettabil-ity of such a nanostructured material is then calculated as a weighted average of the wettability of the pure material and that of air. These two effects are known respectively as the Wenzel and Cassie-Baxter states.

The researchers derived an equa-tion for calculating the surface contact angle between a water droplet and a silica surface with a certain degree of roughness. They found that there was a transition between the Wenzel

to the Cassie-Baxter state, as surface structuring enters the nano dimen-sion. The researchers found that for an optimum super-hydrophobic effect, the Cassie-Baxter state must dominate the surface structure to allow a mas-sive 83 per cent of the surface state to be involved in air trapping with only 17 per cent of the liquid drop surface actually in contact with the silica itself. The researchers hope that their find-ings will generate new ideas for mak-ing innovative self-cleaning materials. “We are now developing the tech-nology for real applications, such as easy-clean coating for solar films and structured surfaces for personal care products,” says Wu.

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ExcellenceUnleashing

Manufacturing

Organisational issues can become a major obstacle to achieving manufacturing quality, flexibility, speed, cost-effectiveness, and a competitive

advantage. However they can be overcomeBy Frank Lesmeister,

Daniel Spindelndreier, and Michael Zinser

Imaging by Manav Sachdev

cover storycover story


Most manufacturers have come to accept that change is a constant. Increasingly global operations, evolving production networks, mergers and acquisitions—all contribute to a growing complexity that can extract a high cost if it is not actively managed. But improvement efforts tend to focus on the operational aspects of manufacturing, such as production processes, the shop floor, and logistics. Often overlooked is the high cost of organisational complexity: the matrix structures with multiple interfaces, the proliferating roles and responsibilities, the many management layers that have built up over the years, and an organisation structure that is no longer aligned with a company’s manufacturing strategy. These issues are often at the root of performance problems. Ignoring them can be a major obstacle to quality, flexibility, speed, cost-effectiveness, and competitive advantage.


cover storycover storyNo single solution will fit all manufacturing

organisations. A company’s industry, markets, customers, products, internal capabilities, com-petitive position, and overall strategy will inform any decisions—and there will always be trade-offs. But an effective manufacturing organisation requires three things: an optimal organisation structure; a skilled, engaged workforce; and supporting systems and governance.

The Optimal Organisation Most companies wrestle with how best to organise their manufacturing operations at both the corporate and the plant levels. Typical questions at the corporate level include: Should we centralise manufacturing responsibility and decision-making, or give regional and local plants greater autonomy? Should decisions that affect product divisions be made globally or locally? How can we make sure that process and

technology standards are implemented across business units and globally? To what extent should engineering, maintenance, quality, asset management, and other functions be integrated into the manufacturing organisation? How do we minimise overhead among similar plants with similar products?

At the plant level, critical questions include: What responsibilities should be given to plant managers? Which plant activities should be cen-trally coordinated? How should plants be organ-ised below the plant manager level?

To answer these questions, The Boston Consulting Group analysed organisation structures in a wide range of industries. Our goal was to determine which factors drive manufacturing performance and to identify overall best practices in organisation design. Our analysis revealed the optimal setup for specific industries based on strategic business drivers,

Exhibit 1 Strategic Drivers Affect Organisational Choices

Organisational Choices

StratEgic OrganisatiOn Degree Of Plant rOles anD drivErS Design functiOnal integratiOn resPOnsibilities

High economies global setup standardised production system lead plants or centres of scale with integrated industrial of excellence; if one engineering product per plant, independent plants

High economies standardised production system with lead plants or of scope integrated industrial engineering centres of excellence

High significance global setup integrated planning and scheduling lead plants or centres of asset utilisation to balance demand volatility and of excellence control global volumes

standardised production system with integrated industrial engineering and management of assets and maintenance

High impact of High level of standardisation with lead plants personnel costs integrated industrial engineering

High degree global setup standardised production system lead plants of complexity with integrated industrial engineering and standardised assets with asset management

High importance of regional or local setup independent plants proximity to customer close to customer High number of region regional or local setup independent plants -specific products

High number of customer-oriented setup lead plants or centres customer-specific on global or regional/ of excellence products local level

Highly skilled centres of excellence engineering and production workforce required

High importance of global setup standardised production system lead plants or centres production know-how with integrated industrial engineering of excellence

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and we created organisational guidelines to point companies in the right direction.

Start with StrategyA company’s manufacturing strategy must be aligned with and support the overall corporate strategy. These strategic considerations will drive decisions about how best to set up manufacturing operations. (See Exhibit 1)

To this end, we believe the manufacturing strategy must consider the following three fac-tors: economics, markets and customers, and technologies and skills. Economics. How critical are scale, scope,

efficiency, utilisation rates, complexity, labour, and other cost drivers that affect overall manu-facturing economics? The importance of these factors will vary by industry and company. For instance, scale is typically integral to companies in the automotive, chemical, metal, and fast-mov-ing consumer-goods industries. The chemical and metal industries also tend to seek economies of scope, so that multiple products can share com-mon pre-manufacturing steps.

Standardised processes are critical to compa-nies seeking scale and scope. For companies in asset-intensive industries such as the automotive, pharmaceutical, and building materials industries, asset utilisation is a key consideration. When high asset utilisation and economies of scale are required, manufacturing is best set up as a cen-tralised corporate function. Markets and Customers. How important

is it to be close to end-user markets and to have products that are customised for specific regions or customers? For instance, automotive suppliers, as well as companies making engineered products or specialised chemicals and metals, all offer a large number of customised products. For compa-nies in the building materials industry, proximity to customers is critical. A regional or local manu-facturing organisation tends to be more effective than a global one for these types of companies. Technologies and Skills. How important

are specialised engineering skills, technologies, or production capabilities? Companies that make customised products, such as those companies noted above, require specialised processes and technologies that are often specific to individual plants. As a result, centralised control and shar-ing of best practices is less important to their manufacturing operations.

Choose the Right StructureTo help determine the best setup for your

Exhibit 2 Industry Characteristics Drive Manufacturing Decisions

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conSUMEr goodS

aUtoMotivE

OrganisatiOn Design

OrganisatiOn Design

OrganisatiOn Design

OrganisatiOn Design

OrganisatiOn Design

OrganisatiOn Design

functiOnal integratiOn






Plant rOles

Plant rOles

Plant rOles

Plant rOles

Plant rOles

Plant rOles

DuraBlES

pharMacEuTIcalS

OEM

METalS

fMcg

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SupplIEr

MInIng

centralised

centralised

centralised

centralised

centralised

centralised

Decentralised

Decentralised

Decentralised

Decentralised

Decentralised

Decentralised

low

low

low

low

low

low

standalone

standalone

standalone

standalone

standalone

standalone

High

High

High

High

High

High

network

network

network

network

network

network

BUilding MatErialS

cHEMicalS/pHarMacEUticalS

EnginEEring prodUctS

MEtal and Mining


cover storycover storycompany, look at how different industries typi-cally organise their manufacturing operations. As shown in Exhibit 2, certain factors are more important in some industries than in others and lead to different organisation setups.

The key strategic drivers that we discussed above—economics, markets and customers, and technologies and skills—affect structural choic-es in three critical areas: organisation design, degree of functional integration, and plant roles and responsibilities. Let’s look at each of these areas more closely. Organisation Design. Companies must

decide whether manufacturing decisions—such as product allocations or capital outlays—should be made on a global, regional, or local level, and whether manufacturing should be set up as a centralised corporate function or as a part of each business unit. (For illustrations of decisions that should be made at the corporate level and at the plant level, see Exhibits 3 and 4) As a general rule of thumb, a global organisation makes sense if scale or standardisation are major cost drivers, specialised production capabilities are needed, or the manufacturing strategy has a major impact on the overall business strategy.

Our research shows a trend across industries toward creating a global manufacturing organisation with centralised decision-making for products, technologies, and processes. Beyond

the potential scale effects, this approach makes it easier to share best practices and speeds up performance improvements—critical benefits in today’s fast-changing, fiercely competitive global economy. But this solution isn’t always the right choice. For instance, companies that must create different products for different markets will usually find that a regional or local organisation allows them to better focus on—and respond more quickly to—the needs and requirements of local customers. Degree of Functional Integration. Deci-

sions about whether to integrate related func-tions—such as production control, planning and scheduling, IT, quality, maintenance, engineering, and asset management—within the manufacturing organisation can have a major impact on opera-tions. Integration can lead to fewer interfaces, better communication, faster decision-making, and greater synergy. Companies in asset-intensive industries, for instance, can achieve higher levels of utilisation by integrating maintenance, asset management, planning, and scheduling. As a result, manufacturing operations have less down-time, greater asset productivity, more balanced utilisation across the plant network, and fewer bottlenecks along the supply chain.

Similarly, an integrated engineering unit can identify new performance levers, promote production standards, and encourage the sharing

Exhibit 3 Three Types of Organisational Decisions Should Be Made at the Corporate Level

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OrganisatiOnDesign

Degree Of functiOnal integratiOn

Plant rOles anD resPOnsibilities

Products Processes

Functional

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Hybrid

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divisional

Board

Mfg Mfg Mfg

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planning and Scheduling

production controlling

Maintenance Management

industrial Engineering

asset Management

independent plants plant network

it

procurement Qualitylogistics (in and outbound)

Lead plants


of best practices. Integrating quality functions is usually more effective at the plant level, where total quality management (TQM) can engage workers in continuous improvement efforts. Lean initiatives—with their total-productive-maintenance (TPM) approach—also show the power of integrating maintenance activities at the plant level. Plant Roles and Respon-

sibilities. Decisions about how to set up plants and allocate production are also critical to overall manufacturing perfor-mance. When cross-plant mate-rial flows are absent—such as when the product portfolio is varied or highly customised to specific regions—there will be limited cross-plant synergies. In these cases, plants can be run independently, steered by centrally defined performance metrics. But when materials flow across plants and knowl-edge and standards are shared, a plant network with dedicated roles for each plant is the opti-mal setup. For instance, if spe-cific production skills are criti-cal, make certain plants lead plants or centres of excellence for particular processes or capa-bilities in order to concentrate this knowledge, set standards, and share best practices.

Manufacturers can also get more from their production networks by matching asset characteristics with the needs of specific products and custom-ers. For instance, some plants are designed to produce a small number of products at high volume for greater economies of scale. Others are designed for flexibility, with short changeo-ver and ramp-up times that are best suited for products with volatile or unpredictable demand. By defining plant roles, consolidating products with

The Importance of People and Governanceachieving a high level of manufacturing performance requires a skilled, engaged workforce and governance systems that drive and sustain excellence

Management leadership and visibility help create a culture of trust, cooperation, learning, and

continuous improvement. having the right people in the right roles at the right time is also

critical. given the global shortages of skilled labour, this requires strategic workforce planning—a

type of planning that involves defining needed jobs and skills, estimating likely hiring and

attrition rates, and addressing any gaps that must be filled. Often, manufacturing organisations

have too many of the wrong types of skills or people. But when it comes to trimming the

organisation, most companies focus more on reducing their workforce than on streamlining

their management ranks.

‘De-layering’ these organisations can help flatten the reporting pyramid and increase spans

of control, which lowers costs and improves efficiency and effectiveness. De-layering is more

than just a restruc-

turing or cost-

cutting exercise.

It also leads to

improved manage-

ment performance

and accountability,

more efficient de-

cision-making, and

greater job satis-

faction. Knowledge,

cultural changes,

and corporate

values also spread

throughout the

organisation more

quickly and easily

because there are

fewer layers of

management.

finally, the right

incentives are im-

portant to encour-

age the right be-

haviour. In addition

to cost or quality

performance, plant

managers could be

rewarded for such

factors as service

levels, the health

and safety of their

people, sharing

of best practices,

and compliance

with production

standards.

SitE ManagEr linE ManagEr

Organisational Direct or dotted-line Manufacturing team Parameters reporting; plant ownership structures; task allocation

Leadership ‘Go Gemba!’ ‘Go Gemba!’ Behaviour Kaizen initiatives; Kaizen initiatives; collaboration among cross-line collaboration; manufacturing related guidance and development functions and headquarters; of foremen and best-practice sharing across teams on shop floor plants and business units

Accountabilities Individual: improve overall Individual: line perfomance; financials by lowering sustainable implementation costs and reducing working of standards; cross-training capital; improve quality, and competence development service levels, staff of staff; engagement and engagement and capabilities, satisfaction of line staff health and safety Shared: secure, reliable Shared: timely product delivery product delivery for customers and component supply

Metrics and First-pass yield; on-time Overall equipment effectiveness; Targets delivery; cycle/throughput time; changeover times; quality; accident levels; COG1 ; direct/indirect costs working capital/inventory; direct/indirect costs; CAPEX

Decision Rights Owns: execution of Owns: optimisation of manufacturing strategy operating processes; at plant; personnel decisions; enforcement of standards; improvement initiatives; lean-manufacturing tools; high-level planning line stoppages; personnel (eg, Kanban, segmentation); decisions on shop floor inventory levels Can veto: investments Can veto: line personnel decisions

Influences: manufacturing Influences: investments; strategy; supplier selection inventory levels

Sources: Bcg approach; Bcg project experience1cOg refers to manufacturing costs only (costs of marketing and sales are not included)

Companies Should Define Individual and Shared ResponsibilitiesExample: site manager and line manager


cover storycover storysimilar characteristics, and exploring ways to reallocate products across the network, compa-nies can achieve greater cost savings, flexibility, and efficiency.

Managing the Trade-offsEach design choice involves trade-offs that can affect cost, product quality, cycle times, and service levels. Companies with a decentralised or divisional manufacturing organisation, for instance, typically have a harder time sharing best practices and can lose synergies. A centralised coordinating function can offset these drawbacks by sharing best practices across the company and creating consistent standards and metrics. In this

way, a divisional setup with concentrated knowl-edge of certain products or regions can coexist with unified standards and a high degree of shar-ing best practices across the company. A divisional manufacturing setup can also greatly complicate interactions with a centralised R&D unit and ham-per design-to-cost efforts. Companies can offset these drawbacks—and sharply reduce produc-tion costs over time—by defining manufacturing requirements early in the manufacturing process through better communication.

Some companies take more of an out-of-the-box approach to managing trade-offs. A microchip manufacturer with enormous cost pressures, for instance, had stringent requirements for qual-ity and process reliability. Moreover, because its business was asset intensive, asset productivity and scale were critical. To meet these challenges, the company made all its manufacturing plants identical, down to the smallest detail, so that each one makes the same products in the same way—a rather extreme approach to central governance. As a result, the company can diagnose and fix

problems quickly, and it can rapidly implement improvements. Its plant network is also extremely flexible—production can be shifted as needs, volume, or economic conditions change, and any bottlenecks are shortlived.

Another example of an out-of-the-box approach to managing a trade-off: An automobile manufactur-er with a global production network wanted to avoid the excessive overhead and backlogs that can result from having headquarters steer the plants and implement global standards inflexibly. The company decided to establish regional ‘mother plants’ that support local projects, train staff, set up employee exchange programmes, and manage five-year per-formance road maps. Headquarters can now focus

on the bigger picture—developing major change programmes that the mother plants can implement.

Each company must decide which trade-offs to make based on its individual situation, markets, competitive environment, and industry benchmarks. Moreover, a company’s organisational choices require the right people and skills to be truly powerful.

In today’s fast-moving, increasingly complex global environment, companies must rethink not just their manufacturing operations but also their manufacturing organisations. The high-performance organisation is lean, flexible, and strategically aligned. The right organisation design, an engaged workforce, and effective governance systems result in sustained manufacturing excellence—and a pow-erful source of competitive advantage.

Michael Zinser is Partner & Managing Director in BCG Chicago office. Frank Lesmeister is Principal and Daniel Spindelndreier is Partner & Managing Director at BCG’s Düsseldorf office.

Reprinted with permission. Copyright © 2012 The Boston Consulting Group, Inc.

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Exhibit 4 Two Types of Organisational Decisions Should be Made at the Plant Level

sector update


India has an ardent engage-ment with biscuits. All day long people reach for these

tasty, filling snacks, sometimes to satisfy hunger pangs and often just to savour these flavourful treats. In 2011, market research firm Euromonitor International stated that the biscuit indus-try was the largest and fastest growing of all sectors in the fast moving consumer goods (FMCG) category. A 2011 report of the Development Commissioner of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises pegged India as the world’s second largest producer of biscuits, after USA. Bread and biscuits together account for

CookiesMake the Cut

Insatiable demand propels robust expansion of the biscuits market and attracts international brands By Sangeeta Shaukand

cent. In fact, Parle’s glucose biscuit, Parle-G was the world’s largest selling biscuit brand in 2011, according market research firm Nielsen.

However, in terms of value, Britannia is ahead of the pack. ITC’s Sunfeast has a significantly lower market share of 11 per cent. Other important companies in the industry include Surya Foods and Agro (Priyagold); Cad-bury India (Bytes); and Glaxo-SmithKline Consumer Healthcare (GSKCH), owners of the Horlicks brand of biscuits. Other small but important players in the biscuit industry include Bakeman, Kwal-ity, Champion and Dukes.

Britannia has, in recent years, shifted focus to healthy, low-fat cookies. The company decided to remove 8,500 tonnes of transfats from its biscuits, even though the company was under no regula-tory compulsion to do so. In fact, it is the only biscuit manufac-turer in India to have taken such a step. Over the last few years, Britannia has also fortified many of its products with vitamins and micronutrients. Currently, half of its products are fortified.

Though the biscuits busi-ness has so far been dominated by Parle Products, Britannia and ITC, multinationals such as Kraft, PepsiCo, Britain’s United Biscuits and GSKCH are rapidly moving in. Oreo, the 100-year old brand of Kraft Foods has entered the Indian market, while United Biscuits is quickly expanding its McVitie’s brand. GSKCH has extended its established health drink Horlicks into biscuits for toddlers.

Meanwhile, Britannia has expanded its NutriChoice range from plain vanilla digestive bis-cuits to spiced-up variants, as well as diabetic options. ITC, too, has launched variants like Marie Light and Marie Light Orange.

80 per cent of all baked foods in India. Although bread and biscuits are produced in almost equal quantities, the value of bis-cuits is 112 times more than that of bread, according to the report.

The biscuit industry has recorded double-digit value growth between 2008 and 2011. Valued at more than Rs 11,000 crore, the industry is being propelled by higher per capita consumption of biscuits. Britan-nia, Parle and ITC’s Sunfeast together own close to 80 per cent market share of the branded biscuit segment. Britannia leads the pack with 35 per cent, fol-lowed closely by Parle at 33 per

sector update


Refrigerated storage sector expands capacity, upgrades infrastructure and technology to meet customer demands By Ruchira Mittal

Keeping perishable products—food, fruits, vegetables, milk, ice cream and medicines—fresh and wholesome is the goal of the

cold chain industry. According to the Ministry of Agriculture’s Directorate of Marketing and Inspec-tion, India has a nearly 5,400 cold storages with an aggregate capacity of 26 million tonnes. Of these, 4,875 are in the private sector, 400 in the coop-erative sector and 125 in the public sector. The country has a wide variety of cold storages, includ-ing bulk cold stores that house single goods like potato, apples and raisins. Most are basic in terms of facilities, though some have facilities for sorting, grading, packing and pre-cooling for horticultural produce like grapes, mangoes, pomegranates and papaya. A few specialised facilities exist for pro-cessing and freezing commodities like fruits and vegetables, ice cream, butter and poultry products.

In the last decade, a number of large distribu-tion centres with cold chain facilities have come up close to places like Mumbai. The Planning Com-mission forecasts that India’s Rs 15,000-crore cold chain industry will reach Rs 40,000 crore through increased investments, modernisation of exist-ing facilities, and establishment of new ventures through public-private partnerships (PPP). Growth of the food industry from $100 to $300 billion is expected to drive the expansion of cold chains.

The reefer transportation business in India is about Rs 1,100 crore, with estimated 25,000 refrig-erated vehicles operated by 250 transport opera-tors. These vehicles transport perishable products nationwide, with the bulk of the business coming from the milk industry. The pharmaceutical indus-try, especially the Rs 1,000 crore vaccine segment, also gives good business to the cold chain sector. Vaccines require unbroken refrigeration from the time that they are made to the time that they are used. Large companies like Bharti Walmart, Reli-ance Retail and Aditya Birla are investing heavily in their supply chain logistics and infrastructure. According to the Global Cold Chain Alliance’s Indi-

an Cold Chain Expo, the Indian cold chain industry needs to transport 336 million tonnes of perishable goods each year. It said an important development is the movement of refrigerated wagons through the railway network under the PPP model.

The Ministry of Agriculture has collaborated with Fresh and Healthy Enterprises (FHEL), a fully-owned subsidiary of government-owned Container Corporation of India, to form an ambitious special purpose vehicle (SPV) for the cold chain sector. The government is also setting up a National Centre for Cold Chain Development (NCCD) to provide impetus to the industry. More recently, the gov-ernment has put on fast track a plan to create an additional 15 million tonnes of storage capacity through PPP mode. The National Horticulture Mis-sion has sanctioned 24 cold storage projects with a capacity of 140,000 metric tonnes. An additional 107 cold storage projects with a combined capacity of over 500,000 tonnes have been approved by the National Horticulture Board. The 2011-2012 Union Budget has also granted infrastructure status to the cold chain sector making it eligible for viability gap funding or PPPs. The budget also exempted air-conditioning equipment used in cold chain infra-structure from excise duty. A study by CRISIL esti-mates that India needs to invest Rs 65,000 crore on cold storage facilities and refrigerated trucks.

Coldis Comforting


Manufacturers can gain an advantage by seamlessly linkingordering systems, production, fulfilment and delivery

facilities & operations

the Field to theFactory

Linking


tion and resulting transparency between the field and its many interactions with customers on the one hand, and the ability to excel at production, fulfilment, and service on the other.

Adopting a field-to-factory vision and then aggressively going after strategies to fulfil its objectives is actually beyond best practices as it has been defined in many research circles. It’s beyond searching for the best of what others have done. It’s defining your own best practices as they relate to becoming a global competitor; where speed, not spending, and timing, not tentativeness, mark your strate-

gies for growth. Becoming a world-class competitor includes making the decision to move away from being myopically inward focussed and striving to see the outside world such as what’s happening in the field with your channels, customers, partners, and own sales force. This includes: Intensifying your focus on each

customer interaction. In every interaction with the customer, his/her trust must be earned. You must intensify your focus on the fact that every critical moment has to underscore the fact that your company in particular val-ues and aligns internal systems

Speed is a competi-tive asset, and hav-ing visibility from when a quote is first produced to when

the final product is shipped is what matters most. Harvesting demand starts with this clear view through your company’s value chain. To ignore it by leav-ing out a critical step is to leave money on the table.

AMR Research, a consulting firm that specialises in analysing the effects of increasing the vis-ibility of demand signals through global manufacturing enterpris-es, has found a strong correlation between the extent of integra-


facilities & operationsto deliver exceptional service. Bringing solutions—not just

technology to your clients. Cre-ate systems that allow your prospects to progress at their own pace. This strategy is true for product evaluations, trials, and purchases. Also, during the trial period, build clear visibility throughout the entire value chain of your company. Giving clients visibility into

order history as well as each spe-cific order’s progress. Creating systems that benefit all clients by delivering the status of a custom-ised order as it travels through manufacturing and fulfilment and also has the ability to quickly summarise order history by product or business unit is what happens when a field-to-factory vision gets turned into reality. Integrating all customer-facing

systems in the field to ensure accuracy, reliability, and trans-parency. The need for providing transparency across quoting, pricing, manufacturing, and ful-filment systems—with a focus on how to best surpass customers’ expectations at every interac-tion—is critical. This is at the

heart of field-to-factory strate-gies and where several manufac-turers are finding a sustainable competitive advantage.

Curing the MyopiaThomas Friedman, in his best-selling book, The World is Flat: a Brief History of the 21st Cen-tury, speaks of the need for every service and manufacturing company to view themselves as global competitors. According to Friedman, the first step is to cure inward or myopic views of sales and service performance by embracing the fact that every company is a global competitor, and each has to harness speed, accuracy, and agility as com-petitive weapons to survive in an increasingly competitive world. The best companies are pursu-ing pre-emptive and aggressive growth using field-to-factory strategies and initiatives as their competitive weapons.

Let’s take a look at the implications of Thomas Friedman’s book on field-to-factory strategies, and how his insights can be applied: Focus on serving the custom-

er instead of price. Friedman stresses this point and shows several examples of how compa-nies that focussed on price-based strategies failed and those that focussed on field-based strate-gies succeeded. Focus on ‘the voice of the

customers’ over products. Friedman shows how companies that became myopically focussed only on products and how to produce them at a cheaper price were doomed to fail. However, those that embraced the voice of the customers and redefined their entire manufacturing approach succeeded. Rather than focussing on rival

companies, intensely compete against yourself. This promotes a broader product outlook and sets the pace in any manufacturing company to create solutions. Field-to-factory execution is the

path to competitive advantage. Through several examples, Fried-man shows that for a manufac-turing company to grow, it needs to add value for its customers, channels, partners, suppliers, buyers, and service partners. The secret to lasting competi-

tive advantage is to continually improve field-to-factory perfor-mance. Friedman’s research shows that when a company loses its connection with the field-to-factory process within its companies, the company loses the ability to stay competitive. Cost advantages are a mirage;

customer advantages are real. Friedman underscores this point again and again in his analysis of industries. Focus on turning information

into competitive strength. Mak-ing the most of a field-to-factory strategy includes transforming the relationships you have with customers, suppliers, logistics providers, and sales and opera-tions planning partners. Building a field-to-factory strategy has to

Figure 1Sources: AMR Research; Cincom CMBS Research

Sharing information in real time leads to field-to-factory best practices

Leaders Laggers

Customer Sharing

Usage

Supplier Sharing

Logistics Provider Sharing

Sales and Opera-tions Planning


start with looking at how to make communication between each of these constituents as efficient and in real time as the business model dictates. Figure 1 shows the results of surveys completed by AMR Research regarding their work on the leaders in Demand Drive Supply Networks (DDSN). This is a core concept of the broader field-to-factory strat-egies of many of the world’s best-managed fulfilment companies.

Why is it Critical?The ability to compete and win business, then fulfil orders accu-rately, reliably, and profitably, distinguishes manufacturers that grow from those that shrink or go out of business altogether.

The bottom line is that field-to-factory strategies—the ability to have a clear view of what’s happening in your channels and align manufacturing to sup-port its fulfilment—will make or

break thousands of manufactur-ers, according to AMR Research.To be pre-emptive and aggres-sive about your growth as a company is to embrace and excel at a field-to-factory vision. When you consider these facts, you’ll see that this concept is all about creating competitive strength.Table 1 includes several statis-tics that underscore the need for companies to adopt field-to-fac-tory strategies. The points below describe the specifics of how companies are relying on these strategies to compete globally. Between 70 and 80 per cent of

orders from manufacturers need further work when compared to the 20 per cent average across all industries. The complexities of capturing orders in manufac-turing environments makes field-to-factory strategies a ‘must-have’ capability. Only one in three orders can

be filled the first time. For one

Why Have Field-to-Factory Strategies

Table 1 Sources: AMR Research; Cincom CMBS Research

Trane, a subsidiary

of Ingersoll Rand,

is a leading provider of

applied air-conditioning

systems used in large

buildings. Each of these

systems is uniquely

designed based on the

characteristics and

location of the building.

The Trane system needs to meet the customers’ environmental

and air-quality requirements while operating efficiently.

This set of complex variables led Trane to pioneer the

use of intelligent, rule-based product-selection and product-

definition systems. The result is a product model that is built

through the field-to-factory process. This model is comprised

of ‘attributes and values’ that define every aspect of the

configuration, including performance specifications. Today,

this data model is the information backbone of customers’

product requirements.

Trane’s strategy was to develop a common information

model that would evolve through the sales and manufacturing

20% The order error rate across US industries

30% Perecentage of orders consumer products compa-nies don’t fulfil

4% Percentage of call centre cross-sell opportunities that result in a sale

42%

Percentage of companies that have one or moremergers or acquisitions in a typical year, and 70 per cent plan to make all product and service offer-ings visible to all sales channels

51% Percentage of companies that have more than oneorder-capture application

40% Percentage of companies that have multiple order-fulfilment applications. (US average is 5.3.)

37% Adequately integrated throughout their sales channels

heavy-truck manufacturer, only one order out of seven is filled correctly the first time. Think of the competitive advantage this manufacturer could attain from just a slight improvement? Field-to-factory strategies can deliver greater synchronisation and results. According to AMR Research,

Trane Makes It Work cycles and be relevant years after the product left the factory.

By constructing this model around a product’s attributes and

values, they created a common denominator that can be viewed

across a product’s life. This same product model provides the

basis for pricing, bills of material, manufacturing processes,

service, and forecasting a future product-option mix.

Results Achieved A common product definition model drives all business

processes. This provides a common language from the sales

engineer and the demand planner to the production technician.

Suppliers using the attributes and values of the product

definition produce customer-specific components. This

eliminates the need to create unique part-level engineering

drawings and purchase part numbers.

Manpower planning is based on product configurations. In a

mass-customised world made up of ever-changing mixes of

size options, labour forces can be overwhelmed by part num-

bers and engineering changes. By building the labour profile

around the key values of the product definition, the product

configuration can be used to optimise factory manpower.

� Monitoring incoming order configurations enables marketing

teams to spot market shifts and adjust near-term demand

shaping strategies.


facilities & operations51 per cent of companies have more than one order capture system, and in manufacturing companies, the average number of fulfilment systems is 5.3. Syn-chronising these order capture systems and creating a competi-tively strong and synchronised field-to-factory link is critical. Only one in three companies

that rely on indirect channels has systems that are integrated with each other. Integrating pricing, order capture, and fulfilment systems differenti-ates those companies that are capable of responding quickly to un-forecasted product orders. Think of field-to-factory strate-gies as the glue that unifies your company’s demand, supply, and product processes and organisa-tions. Typically, field-to-factory strategies progress through the steps of demand sensing, demand shaping, and defining profitable demand response or fulfilment. Figure 2 shows these steps in the context of the inter-section of demand, supply, and product areas of your company.

Sensing DemandThe new paradigm of selling is

to attract prospects, clients, and existing customers by enrich-ing them through knowledge. You get what you give, not what you demand. The field-to-factory strategies in this phase look to enrich prospects with excellent information first, and earn trust during sales cycles. To do this: Enable everyone in your

channels and direct sales force to always deliver value, and respond to prospects with ‘what’s in it for them’. Earn the title of trusted advisor. You do this by delivering exceptionally accurate, clear, and solid infor-mation. This is only possible with thorough integration of systems from the front office or field to the back office including ERP, pricing, fulfilment, and service. Quotes, pricing, proposals,

and responses to requests for information must be trustworthy. The performance of all systems needs to show evidence of being highly integrated. They must also deliver responses in real time from the field, and as a result, further strengthen the trust between your prospects and field or channels. Selectively use analytics to

deliver insights to prospect opportunities. Manufacturers are taking an all-or-nothing approach to analytics today with some going to the extremes of meas-uring everything. Many are also focussing on capturing data man-ually and posting Excel charts throughout their companies. With field-to-factory, the focus first needs to be on measuring what matters to your prospects, customers, and installed base.

Shaping DemandThe essential aspect of field-to-factory strategies is that they deliver accurate and insightful information at the time in the sales cycles when it’s needed the most—right at the time when prospects are deciding whether or not to purchase products. The focus on serving the prospect with clear and trustworthy infor-mation about how your company will perform later in the relation-ship is a very powerful competi-tive weapon. To shape demand, you need to: Give prospects a glimpse into

the extent of your company’s value chain. Being synchronised earns trust and sales and solidi-fies long-term relationships. For field-to-factory strategies to work, there must be a clear and strong link between the ‘field’ and production systems through-out your company. Enable your channel part-

ners, resellers, distributors, and sales force to provide identi-cal information to prospects. The Achilles’ heel of so many manufacturing companies that rely on indirect channels is the often conflicting and incom-plete information that is given to prospects. By taking a field-to-factory approach to the systems that serve the channels and sales forces of your company, you can alleviate the bottlenecks caused by inaccurate, conflicting and

Figure 2Sources: AMR Research; Cincom CMBS Research

How Field-to-Factory Works

Market-drivennot marketing-

driven

Building agile supplynetworks for cus-

tomer centric replen-ishment

Channel-driven-fulfilment

Demand-drivenreplenishment

Building productsthat drive demand

Demand sensing Demand shaping Profitable demand response

Demand Supply

Product


incomplete information. Write orders only for those

products and services that can be delivered. With systems report-ing back what’s available in both finished goods and what’s pos-sible to produce given produc-tion capacity, companies are only taking orders that they can fulfil profitably. There’s no longer the uncertainty of knowing whether an order is buildable or not, and if it is, when it will be produced. Build reliable sales pipelines by

starting with accurate informa-tion from production. Equipping the sales force with access to the critical pieces of information from your supply chain results in solid pipelines. Trane and Green-heck have especially demon-strated this. The complexities of products these companies sell underscore the critical nature of setting accurate expec-tations with customers early in sales cycles.

Profitable Demand ResponseAt some companies, field-to-factory is revolutionising selling strategies by enabling the entire process from sales orders to production in a single keystroke. When an order is input, it travels directly to production schedul-ing. The field-to-factory platform translates order lines and date question and answer data into order lines and characteristics for the bill of material. This ena-bles lean manufacturing even for highly customised products.

The companies that are accomplishing best practices in field-to-factory strategies are find-ing the following benefits, espe-cially in production workflows for configurable, high-end products: Accomplishing the essence of

lean manufacturing by automati-cally routing orders to produc-tion. This makes manufacturing processes as lean as possible

starts by trimming all unneces-sary steps in the order-capture, order management, and produc-tion-scheduling systems. This is the essence of the field-to-factory vision: the ability to place orders and have them scheduled and ultimately fulfilled electronically. Capturing engineering knowl-

edge so that it can be electroni-cally applied to quotes, orders, and RFPs. In companies that have taken this step, product introductions were on time 50 per cent more often, and the complex production engineering tasks were completed on time.

To make lean manufacturing truly lean, tools that are easily used by business managers need to be provided. In the case of Greenheck Manufacturing the ability of business managers to create product rules and con-straints has given them a com-petitive advantage in launching new products and maintaining existing ones.

Another major benefit of implementing a field-to-factory strategy is that your company won’t have to constantly change bills of material (BOM) in

response to the order’s chang-ing requirements. By using a field-to-factory solution strategy, manufacturers are able to gener-ate a BOM only once and use it throughout the production pro-cess. The solution includes sup-port for both production-level and engineering-level BOMs, synchro-nising workflows in the process.

Consolidating order-fulfilment systems significantly improves order accuracy and fulfilment. AMR Research states that, on average, the typical manufac-turer has 5.3 fulfilment systems. Consolidating these down to a single system that has an archi-tecture that can support multiple channels and synchronise orders is a strategy that is paying off across all industries. At the heart of this consolidation of order-fulfilment systems, is the goal of creating and perfecting a lean front-office globally.

Each manufacturer has a slightly different path to lean manufacturing, yet the bench-marks along the path are shared. In our experiences, we’ve seen manufacturers vary in their approaches to accomplishing

Demandforecast

Perfectorder

SCMcost

AP Inventorytotal

AR

Supplierquality

Supplieron-time

RMinv

Purchasecosts

Dir mtlcosts

Costdetail

Produc-tion

schedulevariance

Plantutilisa-

tionWIP + FQinventory

Ordercycletime

Perfectorderdetail

Factors Influencing Field-to-Factory Performance

Figure 3Sources: Sources: AMR Research; Cincom CMBS Research


facilities & operationslean-manufacturing goals. How-ever, the shared value across all of them is a focus on measuring their performance on the perfect order, supply-chain measures of performance, and multiple meas-ures of value and supply-chain performance. Figure 3 provides a framework of factors influenc-ing field-to-factory success. The approach of assessing, diagnos-ing, and correcting field-to-factory performance by demand sensing, demand shaping, and demand response needs to be part of any performance measurement.

Implementing the StrategiesCultivating channel partners, dis-tributors, and resellers is where the most profitable returns are being generated from field-to-fac-tory initiatives and strategies. Go after these strategies for quicker returns on channel investments so that your company will be able to harvest demand more effi-ciently and with greater accuracy than competitors. Look at the intersection of

manufacturing, sales, and pro-duction to make field-to-factory strategies work. Just as Green-heck Manufacturing looked to unify their sales and manufactur-ing responses to customers elec-tronically and accurately using engineering’s expertise, many manufacturers can find the same benefits. Look at the intersec-tion of these departments, the databases and systems used, and examine ways to streamline or even replace manual processes. Spend heavily on channel edu-

cation and product knowledge versus short-term incentives. Companies that are winning against competitors are using field-to-factory strategies to bring superior knowledge into their channels. Knowledge puts lasting pressure on competitors while incentives become addic-

Greenheck Fan Corp is a leading manu-

facturer of air-movement and control

equipment. Its flagship ventilation products

are typically found behind walls, in ductwork

or on the roofs of hospitals, office buildings,

hotels, restaurants, schools, industrial plants

and commercial buildings. Their function,

basically, is to move air in, out and around

a building. Greenheck has consistently

invested in expansion and new facilities to

better serve its customers. In recent years,

the company has increased its manufactur-

ing space, both in the US and overseas.

Greenheck was challenged with how to

achieve lean manufacturing while mak-

ing its quoting and ordering process more

synchronised with production. Challenges it

faced were:

Supporting the launch of new products

with solid product-configuration data.

Modifying product data over the shorter

life of many products due to the competi-

tive nature of business.

Providing full sales-cycle support, includ-

ing improving the user experience of

their existing configurator, and creating

additional cross-selling and up-selling

opportunities.

Streamlining proposal generation to sup-

port integration with CAD applications so

that CAD files can be output for configured

models as part of the production process.

Providing support for mobile sales and

configuration in both connected and

un-tethered environments as their sales

force spends time in the field working

with customers.

Greenheck focussed on synchronising

demand from the field directly with produc-

tion and attaining the first steps of their field-

to-factory strategy by integrating sales, engi-

neering, and manufacturing systems. Figure

4 shows Greenheck’s approach to accom-

plishing their lean-manufacturing objectives

using field-to-factory strategies. Greenheck

was able to take data once ‘locked’ in legacy

systems and use it more effectively.

Results AchievedGreenheck was able to accomplish the

following results by pursuing a field-to-

factory strategy:

Integration between legacy systems to

create more data independence, and as a

result, higher sales. This resulted in greater

accuracy of quotes and orders.

The ability to execute from a quote to

the completed product in a single step to

create high levels of customer trust. Being

able to fulfil orders accurately the first

time and with little, if any, delay.

Significant increase in order-fulfilment ef-

ficiency. Greenheck was able to eliminate

an entire series of order-fulfilment manual

processes, and therefore experienced a

significant increase in order-fulfilment

speed and accuracy.

Increased ability to meet customer needs,

when they are ready to buy, by providing

quoting, configuration, and pricing sys-

tems in both connected and disconnected

modes. This was a critical requirement to

support sales strategies, and meant that

quoting systems would need to be able to

replicate data easily between their laptops

and order capture, management, and

product-information databases that are

available only online.

Creation of a common set of rules that

allowed business managers to modify

product rules and options without having

to rely on IT. This provided Greenheck with

the speed necessary to keep up with the

many new product introductions they had

planned throughout the year. It also gave

business managers the opportunity to cre-

ate entirely new configurations based on

logic already defined.

With the coordination of engineering con-

tent and rules as shown in Figure 4, Green-

heck was able to significantly trim down the

number of exception orders handled. This in

turn helped to maintain higher margins on

custom orders, reduced the time required

for exception handling on the production

floor and by operations, and ultimately

opened up new product lines for growth.

Greenheck’s efforts to attain field-to-

factory strategies allowed it to maintain

its market share leadership in the United

States while adding more new products

than ever before.

The Road to Best Practice

through fulfilment. To predominantly focus on internal measures of performance first is to be myopically focussed. You will be the revolution that your customers want, and opportunities to serve them and grow your business.

This paper is courtesy Cincom Systems, Inc.

tive for channel partners, and they often become conditioned to only sell only what has an incen-tive attached to it. Aggressively manage leads

and their escalation through your channels. Don’t settle for just sending leads out and then waiting to see if sales happen. Work to re-engineer processes around leads to track them efficiently. Then find what best practices work for your organisation. Pursue best practices in quot-

ing and order capture. This translates into making the most of integration between your quot-ing and order-capture systems with pricing, supply chain, ERP, and services systems. Making your company as competitive as possible starts with a strong focus on unifying the channel-facing systems with internal sys-tems. Winning business against your competitors starts with

the ability to capture quotes without errors, and the skill to define a realis-tic expectation back to a client regarding when their build-to-order product will be shipped. The longest-

lasting benefits from field-to-factory go to those compa-nies that start with the goal of providing a clear workflow from the order to the production floor, alleviating all unnecessary manual steps.

To be competitive, manufacturers must become transparent from the field where orders and quotes are created, through to the factories where products are manufactured

Order lines,date question,

and answer sets

Field-to-factorysolution set

Order linesCharacteristics

Order BOM

OrderHeader Data

SAP

VC

Factors Influencing Field-to-Factory Performance

Figure 4Sources: Greenheck Manufacturing Company

supply chain

Supply chain visibility is hard to achieve. But by putting in five key building blocks, companies can effectively monitor global supply chains

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on theSupply Chain

Keeping an Eye

he benefits of supply chain visibil-ity have been recognised for over a decade, but solutions to date have fallen far short. Although warehouse management systems (WMS) have

provided good inventory visibility within facili-ties and enterprises, the real need is for visibility beyond the four walls. However, due to cultural and technological reasons, true supply chain visibility has eluded most companies.

Meanwhile, globalisation of supply networks and the rise of the consumer-driven value chain have greatly increased complexity and the need for supply chain-wide visibility. In fact, a recent survey by Aberdeen Group found that the top pressure to improve supply chain visibility came from the growth of global operations and sup-ply chains. “The increased complexity of global supply chains has led to longer lead times, more pipeline inventory, and the need to control down-stream and upstream logistics. This, in turn, has contributed to increased supply chain manage-ment costs,” says Aberdeen.

The need for supply chain visibility is espe-cially great for discrete manufacturing companies because of their higher propensity than other industries to outsource production and distribu-tion, and because the value of the inventory is high, thus tracking it is more critical. Moreover, without detailed visibility, they cannot understand and con-trol supply chain costs, inventory levels and lead times, nor react effectively to ever increasing vari-ability and disruptions.

www.industry20.com 37 industry 2.0 - technology management for decision-makers | july 2012

Never a Greater NeedSupply chain professionals have long had to bal-ance service levels against cost to arrive at the optimal supply chain formula for their company and customers. But both sides of this equation are under intense pressure, making the balance much more challenging to achieve.

On one hand, the emergence of the always-on, instant gratification culture (internet, mobile, social networks) has put huge pressure on companies to deliver products faster, with more personalisation, and at constantly lower costs.

At the same time, consumers are more fickle, with less brand loyalty, ready to snap up the latest new gadget over an ever-widening array of shop-ping options. Servicing this highly volatile, ever-changing demand requires discrete manufacturers to be much more agile than in the past.

On the other hand, in order to increase financial and product agility, discrete product companies are moving fixed costs to variable costs by outsourcing much of their production and distribution to con-tract manufacturers and logistics service providers. These contract manufacturers are often in many distant, low-cost countries.

Add in the rising demand from emerging mar-kets and suddenly supply chains are much longer and more complex. The killer is that distance and complexity are the arch-enemies of agility. So discrete product companies are caught in a Catch-22—they have leveraged outsourcing to aid financial and product agility, but that outsourcing has also hurt supply chain agility. The only way to

T

supply chain


tackle this paradox and restore balance is through global supply chain visibility.

Hurdles in SC VisibilityWMS applications have done a very good job of providing inventory visibility within a facility and across multiple in-house locations. ERP systems grew up as a source for collecting and managing financial and operational data across the enter-prise. These systems are internally focussed, however. They aren’t built to handle the multi-enterprise data necessary for global supply chain visibility. Nor do they have the level of supply chain detail required.

lacked the ability to use the visibility information to analyse alternatives and execute any result-ing workflows. To accomplish that they had to be tightly integrated to execution systems such as WMS and transportation management systems, something that was costly and seldom kept up-to-date with new releases.

Because of these limitations, standalone vis-ibility systems never flourished. Instead, a new class of cloud-based, multi-enterprise applications have emerged that make collaboration much easier and more cost-effective to implement and manage. These systems are built on five basic technology building blocks that together make global supply chain visibility possible today.

The Building BlocksMost high tech, automotive and other discrete man-ufacturing companies no longer make their own products. Rather, they assemble the many compo-nents made by their suppliers into finished goods to distribute to their customers, often through third party channels. Therefore, it is no longer Sony vs Samsung, or Toyota vs GM. It is their respective multi-enterprise supply networks competing.

Leading companies realise they need visibility across these vast supply and demand ecosystems if they are going to successfully compete, while main-taining acceptable inventory and cost levels. And that necessitates collaboration and real-time data sharing between supply chain partners. What’s more, it requires companies to quickly analyse and act on shared information. The building blocks described provide the foundation for this global supply chain visibility and execution.

1. ConnectivityConnectivity between trading partners across complex, multi-tiered supply networks is a lot more complicated than simply getting one computer to share data with another. Because there are typi-cally vast networks of trading partners with differ-ing systems, technologies and protocols, there is need for a communication network with a ‘univer-sal adaptor’—technology that can accept input from many disparate sources, translate it into a common format, and integrate it into supply chain execution systems for immediate action.

Historically, EDI/VAN networks were created to standardise this communication between trad-ing partners. But they were not built to handle the many-to-many interactions of today’s complex global supply networks, and were too expensive to deploy for all but the largest companies.

What’s required is ‘trading network’ technol-

To address this issue, standalone supply chain visibility applications appeared a decade ago to col-lect and display broad swaths of information. But these standalone visibility solutions never caught on for two main reasons. First, collecting relevant information from many supply chain partners is a major challenge due to disparate technologies and protocols that make collecting and normalising information difficult. And many supply chain part-ners were unwilling to share their data.

Second, even if the data was collected, these systems were mainly display mechanisms. They


ogy that serves as the hub of the many-to-many information and workflow exchange. This technol-ogy gathers and translates incoming transactions into standard formats to pass directly into execu-tion systems, such as warehouse management and transportation management systems. Especially for alerts and events, this ability to immediately take action is critical to minimising the impact of vari-ability and disruptions.

With trading network technology, the Internet replaces expensive VANs as the collection vehicle for data coming from all supply chain sources, thus making it economically feasible for smaller sites and partners which were previously blind spots in the supply chain.

Another aspect of connectivity that is often overlooked is that many smaller trading partners, or even your own remote storage locations, may not have the necessary underlying technology to provide needed inventory information or advance shipment notices. Cloud deployment of basic WMS and/or shipping capabilities can make these blind spots visible to the rest of the trading network at very low cost.

This combination of universal access, integration and enablement technology provides trading part-ner connectivity that was not available previously, solves one of the major stumbling blocks of past visibility efforts.

2. Data RepositoryOnce these vast sources of data are collected, there is a need to store this information in a secure repository for easy access, analysis and informa-tion sharing. This is more than a database issue. The repository must be accessible by the trading partners both for entering data through a collabo-rative portal when machine-to-machine interac-tion is not available, and to provide visibility to all network partners.

This latter point is critical for improved efficien-cy across the network. Too often trading networks are set up primarily for the benefit of the network host—the dominant member of the supply chain—but that limits the efficiency of the rest of the network. Everyone benefits when all have access to network information, provided proprietary informa-tion is secure from access.

For supply chain applications, repositories should reside within supply chain execution sys-tems. These systems are designed to hold and process the serialised LPN (licence plate number) and many other SKU attributes crucial to tracking parts, components, sub-assemblies and finished goods for discrete manufacturing. In addition, they

not only track this information when inventory is in the DC, but also when it is in-transit anywhere across the network. With today’s supply networks spread across great distances, visibility to inven-tory in motion is often more critical than knowing what is on hand at each site.

ERP and other generalised systems are not designed to manage the complex, often nested data attributes common with high tech, automotive and many other discrete industry products, nor do they adequately track inventory in motion. ERP sys-tems also do not have the ability to act on the data, responding to conditions, alerts and events with execution workflows.

3. Alerts and Event ManagementIn large trading networks, the sheer volume of data continually flowing through the network makes it impossible to react on a timely basis without sys-tematised help. In addition to normal transaction processing, a separate class of rules-based monitor-ing and workflow software is needed to continuously sort through the data, or sometimes the lack of data, to discern when out-of-parameter conditions occur.

For example, it might detect when a container carrying high tech parts fails to arrive at the desig-nated port or terminal on time; when inspection at a Tier 1 supplier uncovers faulty or damaged com-ponents, potentially delaying assembly; or when a natural disaster disrupts production or delivery.

For any of these and many other conditions, action must be taken immediately to limit cost impact and disruption to service. The first step is for the system to send out alerts to all affected parties notifying them of the problem. These alerts

supply chain


ate visibility to events is a key reason global supply chain visibility is so valuable.

Beyond visibility, however, event management systems should be able to react to pre-defined conditions through rules-based workflows without human intervention. Thus, integration with execu-tion systems is required. This greatly speeds resolu-tion to limit impact on supply chain operations.

But many times disruptions occur where pre-defined resolution workflows are not possible. In these cases, visibility must extend beyond just notification to an active search for alternatives. For example, you may receive an alert that criti-cal parts will not be arriving as scheduled. In this case you would want visibility to where these parts are currently available in your network, how many are available, or which alternate suppliers might have them. Thus, immediate event notification and global supply chain visibility go hand-in-hand to minimise the impact of disruptions.

4. Visibility and AnalysisAnother important component of supply chain vis-ibility is the ability to display the collected data in meaningful ways on a timely basis. Because the volume of data is so large, the system must sort through the data to provide the information in for-mats most useful for each user. These role-based displays may include charts and graphs, colour-coded alerts, summarised statistics, and pertinent details. The displays should be easily tailored for each user or role, including users at all trading partners, based on security levels and permissions.

Inherent in the ability to display meaningful information is the capability to analyse, segment and manipulate the data. Built-in analytics should sort, group, summarise, and perform calculations and comparisons in order to turn the mountain of data into easily understood and digestible information. In addition, users must be able to search and analyse the data to uncover trends, determine underlying conditions, and find the root cause of problems.

This is especially important for discrete manufacturers because so much of their supply chain is managed by third parties. Brand owners must have detailed visibility to what is happening within their trading partners’ operations to be able to understand inventory production, storage, shipment and cost considerations, as well as being able to react quickly to disruptions. Therefore, supply chain visibility display capabilities should have three basic components—configurable analytics; security by partner and user; and user definable, roles-based screen displays. Together, S

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may require acknowledgement of receipt, with automatic escalation if acknowledgement is not received within defined time frames. This immedi-


these turn network-wide data into actionable information for all trading partners.

5. Sourcing and ExecutionWhat differentiates today’s supply chain visibility systems from standalone or ERP-based visibility capabilities is their integration with supply chain execution systems. It’s not enough to see some-thing is happening in your network, you have to be able to take immediate action to overcome whatev-er problems or disruptions occur, as well as initiate corrective actions when negative trends are uncov-ered. Thus, visibility systems must be an integral part of your supply chain execution suite.

For example, in the parts shortage after the Japanese tsunami, not only did companies need visibility to alternate sources of supply, but also the ability to act upon that knowledge. This might entail placing orders for replacement parts with alternate suppliers, arranging expedited transportation from those suppliers or within your network, and positioning the distribution centre to receive and process the parts coming from these new sources.

Many other examples could be given, but the key point is that while visibility by itself is helpful, the real value comes from integrating visibility with execution capabilities to solve problems.

The BenefitsTrying to manage complex global supply networks without supply chain visibility is like steering a ship in dense fog—you can’t see the rocks and shoals until you’re on top of them, and by then it may be too late to save the ship, or your bottom line.

Today’s advanced visibility systems clear the fog from your complex global supply network so you can navigate around the rocks and shoals of disrup-tions, delays, and the myriad of other problems that beset supply chain operations on a daily basis. The benefits of global supply chain visibility can be grouped into three categories—information-shar-ing, avoidance, and recovery.

Information-sharing visibility covers scenarios where being able to see what inventory is in the network, where it is at any given time, and know-ing when it will arrive allows you and your trading partners to carry less safety stock typically used to buffer for uncertainties. Lower inventory levels reduce carrying costs and obsolescence while maintaining service levels.

This is also true for your customers. Giving them visibility to their orders as they progress through your pipeline allows them to be more efficient, making you a better partner to do business with.

Avoidance of problems, or the ability to handle small problems before they become big ones, is a major benefit of supply chain visibility. The longer problems such as late or lost shipments, product defects, or damaged goods linger in the supply chain, the more costly they become to correct and the greater the potential they will impact service levels. By being able to see the glitches that regu-larly occur, along with your options for resolving the problems and the ability to immediately react, you can minimise cost and service impact.

For example, if you have visibility to the fact a shipment will be two days late arriving at the port, you may be able to find enough inventory within your network to cover an order from a key custom-er, thus avoiding expedited shipping costs or disap-pointing the customer. Similar scenarios could be made for re-routing shipments or pre-positioning inventory to avoid an expected hurricane or winter storm. You probably have many examples from your own operations where visibility to problems and the options you have for resolution could sig-nificantly impact your costs and service levels.

Helping to recover from major disruptions is another important benefit of supply chain visibility. While these severe problems, like the Japanese tsu-nami, tornadoes, the Icelandic volcano, strikes, or geopolitical events only happen sporadically, their impact can be huge.

Being able to see the consequences to your sup-ply chain and the alternatives for recovery, togeth-er with the ability to execute alternative workflows, can be critical to your ability to lessen the impact, especially if it is a matter of getting to alternate sources before your competitors do. Supply chain visibility provides that window to the world to help you recover as quickly as possible.

Thus, today’s integrated global supply chain vis-ibility and execution solutions provide benefits on multiple levels. From saving direct costs through lowering inventories, to lessening or avoiding costs when reacting to problems large or small, visibility is a critical tool for managing your complex supply network. It also helps improve service levels and gain competitive advantage—items which are hard to measure, but crucial to success.

This white paper is courtesy RedPrairie Corporation.

An intimate understanding of customer needs is essential for developing useful services and products. The payoff can be increased market share and better profits

CollaboratingCustomers

with

Successfor


management & strategy

All businesses need to focus on its custom-ers. But how does this work in practice for industrial sectors,

where customers aren’t consum-ers, but businesses? In working with manufacturers, we’ve seen that it can be very difficult to find the right balance between meeting the specific needs of individual customers and being able to produce and sell effi-ciently, keeping costs down and growing margins. Fortunately, in many cases customers have similar needs.

Ingersoll Rand (IR) is one example of a manufacturer that is doing its homework. When IR introduced new R-Series rotary screw air compressors and C-Series centrifugal air compres-sors in early 2010, the updated versions were the result of exten-sive research on customer needs. IR surveyed 2,500 customers in the US, UK, Germany and China to understand how cus-tomers used the products to solve problems or create value.

Emerson Electric (Emerson) is also looking to tailor its develop-ment process to customers, but the company is taking a some-what different approach. Emer-son’s focus on customers begins with understanding some of the challenges faced by a particu-lar industry sector, with energy as one example. In an analyst presentation, the company talks about some key issues faced by the petroleum industry. Emerson describes these key customers as facing increasing complexity, as plants become larger, single facilities become integrated

complexes, and process automa-tion technology accelerates. At the same time 40 per cent of US petroleum workers are nearing retirement, new plants are being located in areas where there is a lack of experience, and years of experience are required to make risk decisions. Emerson’s response is to use what the com-pany calls a “Human Centred

Design development process”. If employees aren’t as skilled, then removing some of the complex-ity of using technology can help them do their jobs better. And when experience is lacking, embedding specialised knowl-edge within the solution can help customers overcome some of their staff challenges.

Gardner Denver, a global manufacturer of industrial compressors, blowers, pumps, loading arms, and fuel systems, saw that solar panel manufac-turers were having problems with pumps that used lubricant. Loss of the vacuum seal dur-ing the lamination process for solar panels sometimes caused air bubbles, a serious quality problem. They also listened to customers who said they needed a pump with greater capacity and reliability. The result was the Solar Screw System 1000, a two-stage dry vacuum screw pump,

which can produce more solar panels quicker, using less energy than the competition.

We believe under-standing and responding to what’s happening in your customers’ industry is a vital stepping stone to providing the value they are looking for.

Price to Long-term Value Business models in the manu-facturing sector are changing. In the past most revenues came from the production of com-ponents or end products. Now some companies also earn a significant amount from offer-ing services and solutions—and the trend is upwards. As indus-trial manufacturers look to serve customers better, many are now helping with training, installa-tion, on-going monitoring, main-tenance, or refurbishment of the products they sell. In the process they’re shifting the focus from price to long-term value. And some are even looking to support customers more broadly.

GE, one of the biggest US industrial companies, announced in its 2010 annual report that the company plans to expand service (and software) offerings above and beyond the compa-ny’s installed base. GE says “we Im

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If employees aren’t as skilled, then removing some of the complexities of using technology can help them


believe there is a $100 billion opportunity in software and ser-vices in infrastructure markets we know well.”

In the aerospace and defence (A&D) sector, some companies are already far along this road. Engine-maker Rolls-Royce now generates more than half of its revenues—over £5.5 billion—from service activities. That number reflects a 10 per cent compound increase over the past 10 years. How much potential revenue is out there? One UK trade organisation estimates that on average 12 per cent of UK manufacturers’ revenues are generated from services, although the specific percentage varies by sector.

While not every sector may be able to reach the 50+ per cent proportion seen at Rolls-Royce, that still leaves substan-tial room for growth. We believe that a strategy which includes enhanced service offerings may be most vital for companies in ‘higher-cost’ manufacturing territories. Our case study of Keenan System is a case in point. Ireland is not a low cost territory for traditional manufacturing. By developing a valuable services model alongside the traditional manufacturing model, Keenan has offset the higher cost of manufacture with a profitable services revenue stream.

Helping Customers One of the most important ways that industrial manufacturers can deliver long-term value to customers is by helping them increase their sustainability. In many cases, new equipment or machinery can make a major dif-ference to reducing the carbon footprint, by enhancing energy efficiency, and/or reducing emissions. Measuring energy efficiency is straightforward, and for many industrial manufactur-

ers, demonstrating the energy savings that customers can achieve (and resultant emissions benefits and cost savings) may be sufficient. Environmental life cycle analysis (LCA) goes one step further, and demonstrates the embedded carbon, waste or water inherent in the entire pro-duction process and supply chain of particular products.

Such an analysis allows com-panies to evaluate competing

solutions—and we believe it can be another way of demonstrat-ing the importance of focus-ing on long-term value, rather than initial price. For example, if a pump-maker can demon-strate that their pumps are both produced more efficiently and deliver a better outcome (per litre of water shifted) than the competition, they may be able to make a strong case for a price premium. We’ve found that doing a detailed analysis of one or two ‘flagship’ products may be less daunting than trying to track the performance of the entire prod-uct portfolio.

In some sectors, like chemi-cals, LCA is becoming increas-ingly common. There are challenges, though. In order to be reputable, LCA needs to be peer-reviewed. In helping our cli-ents approach the LCA process, we’ve found that performing one requires a thorough understand-ing of the entire supply chain, from raw materials to waste disposal—including the needs of your customer. It is also impor-

tant to understand how custom-ers compete in different markets, what the competition is offering, and where demonstrating a sus-tainability advantage can make a real difference. In our view, even if LCA isn’t the right solution, the holistic approach it fosters points to the advantages of collaborat-ing with customers (and supply chain partners too).

We know from working with a number of industry associations in the manufacturing sector that there is increasing interest, at a sector level, in developing LCA-based product carbon footprints, and sometimes full LCAs, for particular product types. This is because manufacturers collec-tively recognise that this data is needed to support their products in the market place against the environmental credentials of competing products.

Building GreenConsider the construction and building products industry. As governments look to decrease greenhouse gas emissions, they

There are many ways to cut manufacturing costs...VAVE doesn’t get as much press as some of these approaches



are increasingly eyeing the built environment. Improving the energy efficiency of homes and commercial properties can have a significant impact on overall emissions levels. But making it happen isn’t always straightfor-ward, especially when human behaviour enters the picture. For residential building, consum-ers must be willing to pay the initial premium that some kinds of ‘green building’ represent, or put up with the investment and inconvenience that go along with refurbishments. The situation may be simpler in commercial buildings, which face much great-er energy costs, and correspond-ingly bigger potential savings.

Industrial manufacturing companies are already develop-ing a whole range of products to help. They’re improving heating, cooling and ventilation (HVAC) systems, and lighting solutions. They’re automating building management to decrease energy usage. They’re developing smart energy solutions to allow the use of renewable power sources. All of these types of solutions show the importance of aligning R&D efforts with the use of the prod-uct—and potentially support-ing customers during its entire lifetime. While it makes sense to produce such systems as effi-ciently as possible, looking over the product lifecycle, the biggest potential for emissions savings is clearly during the use phase.

Helping the Customer’s ConsumersLooking across the supply chain is vital in other sectors too. While industrial manufacturers are pro-viding solutions to commercial customers, in many cases how consumers use products may also have a big impact. Take the forest, paper and pack-aging sector, which is currently going through a period of intense

Innovation isn’t confined solely to

big companies with even large R&D

budgets. Keenan System, an agricultural

equipment manufacturer, is a case in

point. The Irish group was established

around 30 years ago; its revenues have

ranged from €40 to 60m in recent years.

Those numbers may skyrocket, though,

if the company is able to reach the world

dairy market.

Keenan started by understanding a

customer need. They tracked the milk

output per unit of feed (feed conversion ef-

ficiency) of their machine customers. They

then developed innovative feed wagons

that help improve the nutritional efficiency

of dairy feed through a patented process.

The company has gone one step

further. It also offers customers compre-

hensive support, including nutritional ad-

vice, through its patented Performance

Acceleration and Control Enhancement

(PACE) Information Technology. The

PACE system monitors optimum feed

rations that consistently deliver perfor-

mance to agreed production targets.

PACE users can even track their herds’

performance.

What’s the bottom line? Potentially a 20

per cent improvement in feed efficiency,

which means a dramatic increase in profit-

ability for dairy farmers. It’s also good for

the environment. At a national and global

level, the potential accumulated economic

potential is massive. And it gets better.

Keenan’s equipment and feeding meth-

odology achieve great results, but using

the best possible mix of feed can make

them even better. That’s why the company

is collaborating with a feed company to

provide the optimal physical rations.

Working together, the feed company

and Keenan offer the ‘Gain Plan’ to

customers on 12 month contracts.

By partnering, Keenan is able to

access sales territories and farmers

it wouldn’t have been able to reach

before. They’re also building a customer

support network, to help continue the

collaboration with customers.

change. Demand for paper is changing radically as consum-ers increase their use of digi-tal media. That’s changing the needs of paper manufacturers.

While in the past a paper machine producing only one grade of paper may have been perfectly adequate, or even more efficient, shifting consumer demands mean paper-makers need greater flexibility—and that means they need paper machines which are able to switch which grades they produce. And while consumer demand for many types of paper is declining in mature markets, in emerging markets, some seg-ments are growing rapidly—for example, tissue, which is used in hygiene products.

Metso Paper is one company

that has responded to this cus-tomer need. They’ve designed a new low-cost tissue machine specifically for use in emerg-ing markets. The machine helps paper producers add incremental production where it’s needed—close to the consumers in grow-ing markets.

One-on-one Collaboration We’ve talked about the need to understand customer groups or industries—but what about the needs of individual custom-ers? Working directly with major companies can be an extremely productive way of driving innova-tion. As just one example, ABB pilots major design changes with key customers as a way of testing and improving them. When the company was looking

How Keenan is revolutionising dairy farming?


to improve its high performance drive systems, for example, it solicited the help of a leading elevator maker in Italy. That helped the company understand which features worked well, and which ones needed improvement —and generate visionary ideas for future innovation too.

From a sustainability perspec-tive, we see the ultimate goal as achieving a true step change in efficiency. One-on-one collabora-tion, where manufacturers and their customers jointly develop a solution that is less resource-intensive, is one route to that goal, although it’s by no means the only one, as our case study of Keenan System suggests.

Cutting Costs, Increasing EfficiencyThere are many ways to cut

manufacturing costs—Six Sigma, Lean, etc. While Value Analysis/Value Engineering

(VAVE) doesn’t get as much press

as some of these other approaches,

it can be a good choice for companies

who want to integrate their customers (and

suppliers) into the cost reduction process. VAVE

stands for a system of identifying and prioritising product functions, analysing their contribution to overall value and relative cost, and spotting areas for improvement.

We introduced one of our clients, a maker of pipes, valves and control equipment, to VAVE in 2010. The company was looking to update its product portfolio and trim costs. Together with the client, we set up workshops with their supplier network to work through the VAVE process —and we included customers too. That’s because engineers may not always be the best judge of which functions really bring customers the most value. Getting input directly from the people using the equipment helps to validate planned changes. It also underlines the importance the company places on meeting customer needs cost-effectively.

The result of our efforts? Significant opportunities to improve on bill of material (BoM) spend —the average savings across the products reviewed was 30 per cent of BoM costs—without jeopardising customer or supplier relationships.

Regardless of what methodology is used for cost cutting, these initiatives usually increase efficiency. It stands to reason that removing resource, cost, time and people from a manufacturing process may, in many cases, bring with it improvements in the carbon profile of the good produced, or the service supplied. Customers are increasingly interested in this aspect of performance. We think it makes sense to consider measuring and documenting it.

It’s not always necessary to be physically proximate to collabo-rate, though. As cloud computing and virtual collaborating tech-nologies improve, the opportuni-ties to work together are expand-ing exponentially. At PwC, we’re seeing first-hand that enterprises need to adapt their business models and operations to meet the enhanced expectations of the digital consumer and ecosystem. There are also lots of opportuni-ties to make internal changes for companies to collaborate more effectively with customers.

The Way ForwardSome manufacturers are already taking steps to increase their levels of collaboration with customers. We believe this type of approach will be fundamental to innovating smarter and developing a sustainable manufacturing business for the future. Companies who fail to collaborate with their customer may face loss of market share, more difficult routes to market, and challenges in maintaining recurring business. Quantifying results will be important too. One good choice may be lifecycle analysis to document the environmental impact of products designed with the customer in mind. And Cradle-to-Cradle design actually puts re-usability at the heart of the design process. Companies will also need to understand how to work together with customers around the globe. That could mean establishing or increasing a presence in new markets. For many, rethinking and redesigning their company’s use of digital technologies can also help jump-start collaboration efforts and enhance customer relationships.

This white paper is courtesy Pricewater-houseCoopers International Limited.

Environment lifecycle analysis (LCA) goes one step further and demon-strates the embedded carbon, waste or water inherent in the entire production process and supply chain



opinion


Last week my wife caught me “cata-strophising”. It was when my laptop’s screen died, and my desktop was also not working. All my key data was still in the hard drive, I had no way to access

it. I was reduced to waving my arms and using phrases like ‘my whole life is in that thing’ and ‘I‘ve had it’. I stopped when I realised that I was guilty of the exact thing that I educate people not to do.

While preparing for a presentation, I realised that the key reality-forming steps that bring us from where we are to where we prefer to be lies in the language we use. Not just language in the big, important messages we live with, but everyday, little realities that shape the big picture. Here are some ways that will help us thrive.

Learn to really, truly enjoy what you have: Joy in life is connected deeply with how we face each day, celebrating what we have, rather than what we don’t. If you drive a serviceable car, don’t let the flashy car that just went by make you feel a little green. Instead count the blessings that you don’t have to rely on public transport. If you’re stuck in a sardine tin of a commuter train, think about how you can enjoy reading a bit of the free sheet, and how this is much better than having to walk to work.

Think small to get big goals: In the field of Solutions Focus consulting, a powerful way of getting what we want in small steps, is to imagine the sights, sounds and feelings of what our per-fect world might be. Each is unique. By looking at what we need to do, instead of why what we do won’t work, we drive much more positive energy and motivation in getting what we want. But, only if we realise we need to make small, but specific steps based on solutions.

There is no such thing as reality: But only our own biased, perceptions of what is, as seen through our life experiences, cultural, educational and spirit-ual beliefs. By choosing to use language that fails to help us improve, we will never achieve our goals. If we get frustrated or concerned, should we be cata-strophising? Or should we ask special questions? In one of my programmes on transforming managers into leaders, we use what I term ‘power questions’. These questions will force us to re-look our situa-tion, or re-examine a set of beliefs. The result will be the loosening of previously rigid positions.

“You’ll never become a CEO?” Says who? On what grounds? This kind of power question has the ability to turn around naysayers, gives hope, and often transforms a shaken team into a determined one. When I look back on nearly two decades of mountaineering, there was always a defining moment. In each of these, the success of the trip almost always turned on the kind of beliefs we had of our abilities, the weather and challenges ahead. But the most powerful was our internal language we used to shape our future.

So, move away from ‘survivors’ as they are sometimes bankrupt of positive belief, and energy, preferring to feel sorry for themselves, and remain consistently negative. Instead, look to those who seem to be miraculously thriving. Even if they have lost half their investments, possibly their jobs, they remain resolute in finding solu-tions, dreaming and doing things that bring them closer to their perfect world.

David Lim, Founder, Everest Motivation Team, is a leadership and negotiation coach, best-selling author and two-time Mt Everest expe-dition leader. He can be reached at his blog http://theasiannegotiator.wordpress.com, or [email protected]

By looking at what we need to do, we drive more positive energy and motivation in getting what we want

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Positive thinking and setting realistic goals can reduce stress, and make you a more successful leader By David Lim

Thriving in AdversiTy

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In a world of growing digital empower-ment, consumer-facing businesses have had to become quick studies. Frontline managers see that digital technolo-gies offer the promise not just of more

cost-effective ways of doing things but of more meaningful and valuable relationships with cus-tomers. Richer communication channels and a wealth of customer data enable a new connect-edness, and there’s a powerful impetus to make the connections before a competitor—perhaps an entirely new one—does so.

Ironically, perhaps, these initiatives in dig-ital marketing, social media and the like are often the work of pioneering units at organisa-tions still largely anchored in the analogue age. As it happens, these digital efforts are ramping up just as another major trend is peaking. For most of these same companies, the focus over the last decade has been on globalising the business model and its constituent processes and services, from Finance to HR to Supply Chain Management. Migrating from local to regional to global models, they’ve reaped big

By John Jackson, Oliver Grange and Kevin Millan

Most consumer-facing businesses are now using digital tools to get closer to customers. Far fewer are close to completing the challenging but essential journey to a holistic, integrated model, with shared assets and platforms, and an overarching digital approach

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benefits in operational efficiency and scale.Now the stage is set for a major convergence,

whereby the globalised business model meets a digitised, increasingly customer-connected value chain. Instead of treating new digital efforts as isolated projects, companies have begun working toward a holistic, integrated global digital business model, with shared digital assets and platforms and an overarching digital approach that clearly sup-ports the business strategy. For those most adept

at implementing it, the model will deliver signifi-cant competitive advantage in the form of scale, speed to market, agility and closeness to the customer.

Imbalance of PowerTwo main drivers give this transformation urgency. Call the first a digital arms race. More and more companies are striving to put the large amounts of customer data they now possess to strategic use. Automakers, for example, through the use of GPS devices installed in the cars they sell, have been able to collect and monetise a wealth of data on customer driving habits.

Even more significant is the rapid shift of the technological balance of power toward the con-sumer. At the turn of the millennium, companies spent twice as much on IT hardware per employee as consumers spent. By 2008, the two sides had reached parity.

The explosion of social media has underscored this shift. There are now more than one billion social media users worldwide, including 256 million in China alone. And that has serious implications for business. A recent study by market research company AYTM showed that 58 per cent of Face-book users have ‘liked’ a brand, and that 39 per cent of Twitter users have tweeted about one. Given

the millennial generation’s proven enthusiasm for social and mobile media, all those metrics are likely to rise.

Yet whatever the urgency, it is no small task for an established organisation to thoroughly internal-ise a highly disruptive technology. Large, consum-er-facing companies of every kind—in consumer products, retail, financial services, healthcare and beyond—are facing a journey unlike any they’ve experienced in the past. As they embark upon this

journey, they’ll need to keep three key success factors, none of them technologi-cal, in mind.

First and foremost is leadership. Given the scope of this transformation, and the stakes involved, leadership must come from the C-suite. Though this may not be easy for senior executives who are still more at home with highly sequential, large-scale tasks than with the measure-test-learn dynamic of a digital culture, it’s a challenge that must be met. The CEO, CIO or whoever else takes the lead may delegate day-to-day management of the effort, but s/he must be invested in, and accountable for, its success.

Culture ShockThen there is the ability to attract and retain digital talent. Employees at the fast-moving companies that lead in the application of digital technologies tend to want different rewards from their jobs than those at analogue ones. The differences have less to do with money than with culture, and extend from attitudes toward innovation to the quality and flexibility of the work environment to what sorts of devices employees can use to do their work.

For traditional managers, opinionated, high-energy digital talent—often part of the same tech-savvy millennial cohort that’s driving change on the consumer side—can be difficult to direct. Many managers need to be retrained to understand digital metrics and the levers that can be pulled to drive a digital business.

Finally, leaders must understand the dynamic nature of the digital business model transforma-tion, which is very different from the decade-long, enterprise-wide ERP transformations that are still a point of reference for many. Since digital technol-ogy evolves rapidly, so must the model. Organisa-tions need to think big but start small, using the measure-test-learn/proof-of-concept techniques favoured by the likes of Google and Facebook, amplifying the impact of digital evangelists around the company as they accumulate their successes.

Businesses first need to understand what their current digital portfolio looks like when matched against their strategy and capabilities required to execute it



1 Ad hoc solutions.

Management is still

unaware or uncon-

vinced of the ben-

efits digital could bring to the

business. The extent to which

digital is adopted depends on

each department’s needs, and

the personal preferences of

key opinion leaders. Examples

of digitisation are scattered

throughout the business, in

discrete processes within some

departments or business units.

Compliance and data manage-

ment applications tend to be

the first to be implemented.

2 Digital Business

Processes. The second

stage still shows a fairly

disconnected, tactical

and unplanned evolution of

business processes. By this

point, a few pioneer depart-

ments have likely realised the

benefits that digital can offer

and transform part or most

of their business processes—

for example, virtualisation,

social media and Internet

applications. However, there

is still no overarching strategy

coordinating these efforts, so

redundant functions, systems

and platforms are common.

3 Cohesive Digital

Platform. By the third

stage, management

has seen the light to

some degree and has deployed

people and money to drive the

change, though the destination

is not always clearly defined.

Here, companies have devel-

oped an overarching platform

that supports and coordinates

the once-isolated digital

processes in the business.

Cross-functional processes

like new-product development

or asset management, for

example, can now benefit from

cross-enterprise synergies.

4 Digital Business

Model. Depending on

their particular busi-

ness model and strat-

egy, some businesses have

decided to take one more step

toward developing a fully-inte-

grated digital business model.

In this case, instead of waiting

for digitisation champions to

drive change from the bottom

up, the business implements a

holistic transformation. Every

business process is screened

and, where it makes sense,

moved toward digitisation.

In most cases, a delivery organ-

isation is created to drive this

change and provide the admin-

istration and maintenance that

the new systems will require.

That organisation reaches out

to internal business units to

understand their current needs

and to the wider business net-

work to understand the needs

of the future—and it executes

in market at scale with speed.

Making the

JourneyDigital

Finding the PathBy this time, most consumer-facing businesses have some experience with the basic issues. The talent management challenge in particular tran-scends sectors. But it’s also the case that each sector has its own dynamics, and that different companies within them are at different stages in the journey to a digital business model.

Among the most advanced sectors is consumer products. Here, the long-established multinationals that dominate the industry have been leaders in the move to drive common processes at a global level, particularly in the back office. So, it makes sense for them to look at driving a common approach in the front office as well. Their global footprints and global brands position them to get value out of digital technologies at scale more quickly than companies in many other industries.

Consider Procter & Gamble, the consumer

products giant has made significant investments in digital technology, in the internal and external networks through which its people access it, and in the delivery model through which they deploy it. It’s a commitment that starts at the top, with CEO Bob McDonald’s push to create a fully digitised company and his designation of P&G’s Global Busi-ness Services group as the company’s ‘transforma-tion organisation’.

The GBS group has moved beyond back-office processes and into the delivery of what P&G calls commercial services, which directly help win cus-tomers. A prime example, the virtual reality centres used by P&G teams around the world to create, test and optimise packaging, shelving and store designs. The centres feature life-size, high-resolu-tion screens, and consumer focus groups use them to assess virtual product representations. Sophis-ticated software creates a real-time record of how

As they shift towards an integrated digital business model, most companies move through four stages


participants react to product placement, shapes, colours and designs.

The combination of virtual research with physi-cal quantitative research enables P&G teams to understand consumer expectations and design and deliver products accordingly. Equally important, P&G shares the research with its retail partners, so together they can make smarter and faster decisions about what products and quantities are needed on store shelves. The company also uses its virtual-reality centres to build virtual 3D store environments, through which retailers can see how products or displays will actually look in their stores.

P&G isn’t just saving money and reducing cycle times for select products. The company is also embracing an approach to innovation that’s more like that of a software company. Google, for exam-ple, talks about its ‘fail fast’ mentality and being ‘always in beta’. It isn’t possible to do this if you have to make physical prototypes and test them in real stores—but it is in the virtual environment.

Competitive PressuresRetailers, for their part, face their own sector-spe-cific issues on their digitisation journey. For the big brick-and-mortar merchants, competitive pressures from pure-play online retailers (notably Amazon.com) pose a tough question: How do you move rapidly on the digital front without endangering the seamless, consistent customer experience that helps make the best dual-channel retailers—Apple being the paramount example—so successful?

Many retailers have treated digital as a separate channel, with separate leadership, organisation, capabilities and technologies. The approach is not

without some advantages, with @WalmartLabs, the Silicon Valley-based digital unit of the world’s largest retailer, providing perhaps the most dra-matic example.

After a comparatively slow start in online retail-ing, WalMart Stores has considerably augmented its digital marketing capabilities and talent pool by acquiring small firms focussed on social media and mobile applications, among other things. In early 2012, for example, it bought Small Society, an Oregon-based mobile agency whose past successes include an iPhone app that enables Zipcar custom-ers to quickly find and reserve a car. The challenge ahead (and not just for WalMart) will be to manage the total customer experience as mobile devices enable shoppers to link the physical and digital channels in real time as they compare prices and read recommendations while standing in the physi-cal store.

In general, it is in the marketing and fulfil-ment functions that retailers have made the most progress in moving to unified digital processes. In areas such as shopper experience, merchandis-ing, demand forecasting and content management, there’s still much work to be done.

Global expansion adds additional complexity for retailers. Initially, the favoured model combined central management of the digital channel with local management of the physical one, but this tends to fracture the shopping experience. Several retailers—WalMart, for example—have since moved to a regional model for both channels, giving up some process efficiency to improve the customer experience. Over time, the retailers will likely sort out which digital processes can be centralised and which require a regional touch.

Companies in life sciences encounter a different set of sector-specific complexities when making the transition to a fully-digitised business model. The phenomenon of digitally empowered consumers is much in evidence, with healthcare information sites such as WebMD among the most popular on the Internet. At the same time, phar-maceutical companies are part of a healthcare ecosystem that also includes doctors, providers, med-tech companies and government.

Digital technologies offer life sci-ences companies the possibility of deeper relationships with all these key stakeholders as the connections among them strengthen.

Digital technologies offer the promise not just of more cost-effective ways of doing things but of more valuable relationships with customers



The consumer relationship holds particular promise, presenting an opportunity to engage in a dialogue that goes deeper than a discussion of a particular product.

So far, this trend is most in evidence in the over-the-counter realm, where regulatory rules permit a freer exchange. A case in point is nutritionpos-sible.com, a recently launched website sponsored by Pfizer’s Centrum multivitamins unit. The content goes far beyond vitamins, ranging from expert com-mentary on nutritional issues to relevant material from WebMD and the Mayo Clinic to a nutritional diagnostic test. Consumers can get a wealth of information about personalised nutrition. Pfizer, meanwhile, gets a wealth of information about what its customers want.

Though a few life sciences companies have moved from a local, siloed approach for digital projects to a more centralised and coordinated one, many more have yet to do so. As initiatives like nutritionpossible.com prove their worth, however, that is likely to change.

Getting StartedWhile the journey to a digital business model will vary by sector and company, there are important commonalities as well. No matter what business you’re in, managing multiple platforms, negotiating with numerous software vendors and dealing with compatibility issues will consume time, money and energy. Hence, those companies that effectively embed digitisation into their business model, view all processes as being candidates for digitisation and enable the fast deployment of solutions at scale will have a key competitive advantage.

Businesses looking to gain this advantage will need to clearly define how they will innovate, implement, manage and monitor the application of digital solutions throughout the organisation—a significant change from working on separate solu-tions in various parts of the business.

Before beginning this journey, businesses first need to take a step back and understand what their current digital portfolio looks like when matched against their strategy and the capabilities required to execute it. Once this fact base has been estab-lished, it will be possible to take an objective look at all business processes and decide which of them can benefit from digitisation. This holistic approach should make it possible to find a balance between creating synergies from integration while also stay-ing relevant to digitally empowered consumers around the world.

What isn’t possible is to design the perfect end state at the outset. Indeed, planning a company-

wide transformation and locking in decisions such as platforms, software and providers too far in advance is a mistake. Learning through iteration will yield better returns than orchestrating a huge and complex transformation that may stay relevant only for a short time.

Given the speed of innovation and technol-ogy change, the principle to adopt is being fast to failure. Begin by identifying appropriate pilots and applying proof-of-concept techniques to test different options. This concept of continuous beta versions is what helps digital companies learn quickly and remain agile, and it can do the same for analogue organisations that wish to digitise.

Continuously harvesting quick wins while keep-ing an eye on the framework you’re building for the midterm and for the long term is challenging, to be sure. But it will prove important for consumer-facing businesses wishing to stay at the forefront of the digital revolution.

John Jackson is a senior executive in Accenture Strategy. He is based in London. Oliver Grange is a London-based senior manager in Accenture Strategy. Kevin Millan is a London-based manager in Accenture Strategy.

Reprinted with permission. Copyright © 2012 Accenture.

1 Identify a senior C-level leader to

sponsor and drive the process

2Document and define all current

digital projects and map them

against the key capabilities required

to enable the business strategy

3 Identify projects to act as proof

of concepts to kick-start the

process

4Manage services operated by

multiple providers (both internal

and external) to the business

5Maintain strategic ownership and

management of digital processes

and unify services for end users

6Ensure accountability as a

service provider to the business

(to drive down costs and improve

service)

7Monitor and measure the perfor-

mance of service providers and

proactively manage the mix

8Provide a consistent manage-

ment framework across digital

services and service providers

9Drive digitisation for key cross-

functional processes

Steps toGettingStarted


product update


GenSwiss has introduced

the new Multidec Back-tool

holders for turning operations

on the sub-spindle and from an ID tool position. Each

holder is centre height adjustable to + 0.20 inches, a

critical feature for machines without a Y-axis. The fully

modular tool holder system features range of shanks,

spacers, and insert modules to suit popular machines.

The model allows for use of Cut 3000 series

inserts to perform grooving, threading or OD turning

on the back side of a Swiss machine. The holder can

be equipped with adaptor to provide coolant delivery

system for insert lubrication and cooling, and a more

efficient cutting tool life.

Release Coating 8012, a new

heavy duty paste wax from

Huron Technologies saves time in

moulding operations by clinging to

vertical mould surfaces, vents, pins, and wire locators.

The solvent-based product can be applied by brushing

or wiping, without the need for complicated spray

equipment. Available in 10.5 oz cans and 5 gallon

containers, the coating is suitable for flexible, integral

skin, semi-rigid, and rigid polyurethane foam moulding

including high-speed automotive seating operations.

The compound maintains a paste-like consistency at

ambient plant temperatures up to 110°F.

Equipped with 2 HP pneumatic motor operating

at 90 psi using 60 cfm air, the circular saw can

dry cuts steel plate up to -inches thick, as well

as non-ferrous metal, plastic, grating, composite,

and corrugated materials. The portable 9-inch saw has overall cutting depth

of 3 ¼ inches at 90°, and 2 inches at 45°. Measuring 0.055 inches thick,

the laser beam equipped saw blade is tungsten-carbide tipped and shock-

resistant. The saw is suitable for applications in foundries, petrochemical,

nuclear, marine, demolition, and fabrication industries.

Tool Holder

MOulD RElEASE

CIRCulAR SAw

Genevieve Swiss Industries, Inc Tel: +1- 413-5624800Website: www.genswiss.com

Huron Technologies, Inc Tel: +1- 517-5890300Website: www.hurontech.com

CS Unitec Inc Tel: +1-800-7005919Website: www.csunitec.com

Magnetic Separators

Corrosion Sensor

Rare earth roll separators from Eriez are

suitable for many industries, including

mining, plastics, abrasives, recycling, glass,

foundries, industrial minerals, metals,

electronics, etc. Available in single, double,

and triple-stage versions with non-magnetic

or magnetic-rerun, the separators feature rolls

constructed with neodymium-boron-iron rare

earth permanent magnets. A high gradient magnetic circuit includes items

designed to produce magnetic field in excess of 21,000 gauss.

These highly magnetic rolls are capable of recovering weakly magnetic

particles, and handle feeds from one-half inch (13 mm) to very fine materials.

The separators are available diameters of three, four and six-inches, with

roll widths ranging from five to 60 inches. A cantilever design allows quick

belt replacement.

Eriez Magnetics Phone: +1-814-8356000Website: www.eriez.com

Rohrback Cosasco Systems Tel:+1- 800-6356898Website: www.cosasco.com

Rohrback Cosasco has devel-

oped a new range of sensors

that detect corrosion under insulation. Comprising of

continuous insulated braid corrosion fuse wire (Type 1),

inserted corrosion fuse probe array (Type 2), and CuI

Corrosometer probe (Type 3), the corrosion sensors

are easy to install. They can also be customised to

meet individual requirements and applications.

Hayward Flow Control has released the GF-PP

(Glass Filled Polypropylene) TB Series ball

valves. Available in sizes from 0.5 to 2 inches, the

series features full port design, with true union

threaded or flanged end connections, reversible seats, adjustable seat

retainer, and double O-Ring stem seals. The valves have a maximum pres-

sure rating of 250 psi (150 psi with threaded or flanged ends), and maximum

service temperature of 240°F. The platinum glass filled polypropylene material

is suitable for chemical services, abrasive applications, and water distribution.

Applications or installations include waste and water treatment, chemical

processing, aquatic/animal life support systems, food and beverage, phar-

maceutical, pulp and paper, corrosive environments and irrigation.

Ball Valve

Hayward Industrial Products Inc Tel: +1- 888-4294635Website: www.haywardindustrial.com


Cognex has developed liquid lens

optics with variable autofocus for

the DataMan 300 series of fixed-mount

barcode readers. The device’s intelligent tuning feature automatically

selects optimum settings for integrated lighting and autofocus optics for

each application, ensuring that the barcode reader will be set up to attain

highest read rates possible for 1D, 2D, and direct part marked (DPM) codes.

For presentation reading, tote scanning, and small-package sorting, the lens

can be configured to sweep through full focal range of optics.

Industrial Magnetics has announced magnetic end-

of-arm tooling for the appliance, automotive, office

furniture and material handling industries, available with

a BSPP fitting (British Standard Pipe Parallel thread) on

3-inch diameter models.

Engineered with rare earth magnets, the tool-

ing transfers metal blanks, stampings, and parts in

automated station-to-station, press-to-press transfer,

and robotic pick-and-place applications. The magnets

directly replace vacuum cups with minor tooling adjust-

ments, and can be installed to existing air connections

on tooling booms or robotic face plates.

Phoenix Contact has developed a

range of DC-DC converters that

can boost voltage over long wire runs, regulate battery

voltage output and isolate ground loops.

Featuring selective fuse breaking technology, the

Quint SFB DC-DC converters deliver up to six times

nominal current for 12 ms. The devices also feature

Power Boost technology, providing up to 125 per cent of

rated output for demanding loads. The converters are

housed in extruded aluminium for optimised cooling.

Novotechnik’s TP1 Series of

magnetostrictive position

sensors provide non-contact, absolute, linear position.

The sensor meets all specifications without requiring null

and span adjustments, and are available for standard

measurement ranges of 50 to 4,500 mm. They feature

an update rate of 62 µsec, absolute linearity to within

0.02 per cent of FS, and 16-bit resolution. Output ver-

sions include analogue, start/stop, SSI, quadrature, and

48-bit DyMoS that also provides true velocity without

need of encoder. Sealed to meet IP68 standard, the sen-

sors operate from -40 to +85°C.

CTC International has unfurled the S-900AB-ACV

automatic butt splicer for joining a variety of

materials including tag, label, board, film stocks, and

other thick or double ply materials. The machine can

accommodate various web widths, line speeds, and

other process requirements. It allows new roll prep

at any time in splice sequence, and the heavy-duty

cantilevered unwind design has integral roll lifting. It can hold two full 40-

inch diameter rolls. Additional features include horizontal web accumulator,

and standard vector driven unwind spindles or optional servo drives.

Driving the unwind spindles offers several benefits including keeping the

machine footprint small, the ability to unwind very delicate materials, and no

brakes to replace. The splicer can also be prepped to make a one-sided splice,

with the tape always on the same side, without turreting the unwind rolls.

Saint-Gobain Abrasives has introduced Norton

Paradigm Diamond and CBN wheels featur-

ing a new proprietary, patent-pending bond to

deliver high grinding performance on carbide and

high-speed steel round tool fluting. For maximum

productivity, the products are online and offline truable. The wheels are

wear and load resistant for superior grinding on six to 12 per cent cobalt,

and offer better control over core growth.

A high grain retention and uniform structure provides a high G-ratio, up

to 2.5x longer wheel life and a 30 per cent higher material removal rate than

other superabrasive wheels. It also offers low specific cutting energy, which

enables faster grinding with a lower power draw and less burn.

Barcode Reader Optics MAGNETIC

TRANSPORTER

DC-DC Converter

Position Sensor

Butt Splicer

Abrasive Wheels

Cognex Corp Tel:+1- 800-6772646Website: www.cognex.com

Industrial Magnetics Inc Tel: +1-231-5823100Website: www.magnetics.com

Phoenix Contact Tel: +1-800-8887388Website: www.phoenixcon.com

Novotechnik US Tel: +1-800-6677492Website: www.novotechnik.com

CTC International Inc Tel: +1-973-2282300Website: www.ctcint.com

Saint-Gobain Abrasives Inc Tel: +1-800-6351992Website: www.sgabrasives.com

With over 50 years of experience in machine automation, Omron provides unrivalled automation products of high quality, ranging from relays, timers, power supplies, sensors to PLC, HMI, motion and safety control.

RRegardless of your budget, be rest assured that Omron's wide product lineup offers you a one-stop total solution for all your automation needs at an incredible value without compromising on quality and reliability.

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Industry 2.0 August 2012

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Transcript of Industry 2.0 August 2012