Bharat Fritz Werner Ltd. (BFW), India’s leading solution provider in the area of machine tools, is pioneering a paradigm shift among manufacturing industries to become globally competitive with smart solutions. BFW’s new manufacturing facility in Hosur, Tamil Nadu, is a ‘Factory of the Future’, and the plant is an engineering masterpiece. The company is a front runner in digitisation and use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in the manufacturing industry. BFW was the first company to get all its approvals online when the government of Tamil Nadu opened its single window clearance portal.
Ravi Raghavan, Managing Director, BFW said, “BFW has always been a leader in introducing new technologies and environment-friendly initiatives. Manufacturing is a core sector that maps a country’s growth. We wish to lead the industry in raising the bar for manufacturing processes and hope that together we can enable progress in India.”
In the first phase, the factory, spread across 60,000 sqft, has significant number of modern machines to enable integration of existing foundry facility with machining capability. The second phase will be spread over another 60,000 sq ft area. The Industry 4.0-compliant factory is fully automated and AI-enabled. The manufacturing process here is designed to take it to the next level through digitisation and superior engineering. Such processes ensure cost efficiency, increased manpower productivity, and shortened manufacturing time. They are in line with the company’s endeavour to progress in every area of its operations.
Earlier in the year, BFW set up a solar power project that supplies power to the entire facility in Bengaluru. Its 980 kWp solar project generates 15 lakh units of energy which helps the company in meeting its power requirements. This plant will help BFW offset 1350 tonne of carbon emission every year. Through such clean and green technologies, BFW will reduce its dependency on polluting fossil fuels and work towards becoming a non-polluting manufacturing firm.
Manufacturing Day
The `Manufacturing Day 2018’, third in the series, organized by BFW, provided a platform for the Industry to push for Smart Solutions and make Indian manufacturing globally competitive. During the day-long conference with the theme, `Towards Globally Competitive Indian Manufacturing’, several industry leaders shared their thoughts on the importance of digitisation in engineering, simultaneously fostering innovation and entrepreneurship in manufacturing. The sessions focused on three important topics: Innovation, Factories of Future and Entrepreneurial spirit.
In his opening address, Ravi Raghavan said: “The spirit behind the Manufacturing Day is to celebrate our contribution, share and learn for a new exciting journey ahead. Innovation is never out of fashion. It has reinvented itself since time immemorial. We are here to salute the ‘Factory of the Future’. Today, innovation means new solutions that bring significant value to the innovator as well as the users. Solutions might be products, processes or business models, and users might be markets, governments, society or ecology. The power of innovation is extraordinary. Each generation feels that innovation is critical to growth more than ever before.”
The Chief Guest, Kamal Bali, MD, Volvo India said, “Manufacturing has to become the centre piece of our conversations. In India everything is stacked against manufacturing. We are 17% of the global population but we contribute only 2% to global manufacturing. Every manufacturer has to wear two hats for the industry to evolve. We have to promote our companies as well as the manufacturing industry. Manufacturers have to become conscious of branding. To be a global leader, India has to create a culture of manufacturing.”
Sonam Wangchuk, Engineer, Innovator and Education Reformist, and a Ramon Magsaysay Award winner, in his key-note address, said, “Innovation is important but we have to keep sustainability in mind. Innovation solves problems in every area of life –be it education, living standards or any other area. Sometimes innovation can be made out of thin air. We applied simple high school science principles to the elements of earth, sun, and ice to create sustainable solutions in the harsh environment of Ladakh and we have found that this is enough to bring winters alive in Ladakh.”
In the session on `Factories of the Future’, the speakers said the factories will have to adopt digitisation to create sustainable Smart Manufacturing enterprises. Disruptions will be endemic and manufacturing processes will need to be flexible to adapt. The session focused on various facets of such manufacturing facilities.
The following session highlighted why the aspirational entrepreneurs are the backbone of manufacturing along with the producers. Success stories of entrepreneurs in the manufacturing sector fascinated the audience.
