As a part of its initiative to engage with its customers in Asia, Salvagnini, an Italian company producing complete systems and machines for processing sheet metal, recently organised an event on "Future of Manufacturing" in Mumbai.

Ricky Hansson, Head of Process Application, Salvagnini Group, Italy, was the guest speaker who made a presentation on "Future of Manufacturing" and explained the audience how important it was to make manufacturing processes simple, yet significant.

Hansson, who has rich and hands on experience with the designing production lines and value streams for customers in North Americas and Europe, has deep understanding and implementation on designing – lean, clean and green manufacturing activities. He has helped medium and large companies, build smart factories with an aim to reduce WIP (work in process), maximise utilisation of resources (ie, man, machine and money) and ultimately put the companies on a high trajectory in short time.

In order to help its customers gain from Ricky Hansson’s vast knowledge and enlighten them on new-age manufacturing technique and strategy, Salvagnini plans to organise a series of Ricky Hansson talks on ‘Future of manufacturing’ in Asia. And India was the first stop for this talk series, as the company just crossed a milestone of 100th Salvagnini system in India. During his presentation in Mumbai, Hansson shared his ideas with real life examples of how he helped customers, improve flexibility, agility and speed of the manufacturing.

Be competitive globally

Government has announced Make in India campaign with an aim to increase contribution of manufacturing to 25 per cent of the GDP by 2025 from 16 per cent presently. “It is a positive initiative. To make it possible, companies need to work not just in India, but also outside. They need to be competitive globally. Prepare your company for future. Tomorrow will not be less variable than today. There is laser-sharp competition in the global marketplace. The company that invests in modern, flexible manufacturing process first will win the market of future,” said Hansson.

According to him, to become competitive, companies will have to make products faster, better, and cheaper. “For this, they need less operator dependent machine with maximum flexibility, agility and speed. Less operator dependent machine with a high repeatability and accuracy will result in higher quality, lesser scrap, saved labour hour, etc. As a result of these two steps, we will have less labour, less scrap and higher velocity which will create lower WIP (work in process) and more attractive lead times,” said Hansson.

He urged companies to take a holistic approach to efficiency. That means taking care of all aspects of manufacturing processes, not just the machine. Companies need to identify deficiency/shortcomings in the existing processes and remove those with scientific approach. It is equally important to indentify key performance indicators (KPIs) and track them regularly to be able to measure the success or failure of the new processes.

Manufacturing is a chain of events. Right from sourcing of raw materials to processing to packaging – every process is important for improving the productivity. There will be bottleneck in a production line and the throughput of the entire line depends on the throughput of the bottleneck. In order to raise productivity, one needs to indentify bottleneck and remove it.

Salvagnini going stronger

Salvagnini is one the leading global players in the field of flexible automation and industrial machinery for processing sheet metal. The Salvagnini Group designs, builds and sells flexible systems and machines for processing sheet metal: punching machines, panel benders, press-brakes, fiber laser cutting machines, FMS lines, automatic store-towers and software.

In India, it caters to elevator industry, steel furniture for shops, home and factories, HVAC, electrical industry making enclosures, canopies for DG sets, job shops, etc. Last year, Salvagnini booked its 100th machine in India. "We are happy about the way, our business is growing steadily on a solid foundation and back ground in India," said Riddhish Jalnapurkar, Country Sales Manager India - Salvagnini Machinery India Pvt Ltd at the event.