Transitioning to a Smart Factory with LTTS’ Solution

Technology is making the manufacturing process increasingly connected, intelligent, and dynamic, thus allowing the concept of transitioning to a Smart Factory to become a reality.  The term Smart Factory refers to a digitalized and connected environment where machinery and equipment are able to improve processes through automation and self-optimization.  The smart factory represents a quantum leap from more traditional automation to a fully connected and flexible system - one that uses a constant stream of data from connected operations and production systems to learn and adapt to new demands. 

L&T Technology Services Limited (LTTS), a publicly listed subsidiary of Larsen & Toubro Limited, has helped global conglomerates with smart factory consulting and implementing large scale automation, material tracking, and digital twin rollouts.  This is done in four stages:

• Assessment aligned to business priorities
• Solution architecture
• Prioritization & roadmap
• Continuous feedback & realignment

Customer’s Business Requirement: An F&B major with a global presence wanted to transform their 67 beverage factories into smart factories leading to paperless operations, comprehensive energy management, and predictive maintenance of all critical assets.  However, to arrive at a baseline solution was challenging due to diverse operational procedures, statutory requirements, and manual review processes.  After evaluating the various solution providers in the market to address these challenges, the customer chose LTTS to take end-to-end responsibility – from deployment to rapid  rollout to  other factories.

Approach and Solution: After understanding the customer’s needs and assessing the existing scenario, LTTS aligned and streamlined operations and provided a secure OT (operations technology) architecture.  Domain experts led the discussion with the Digital Value Core team and recommended a scalable and flexible solution that optimized functional design and the number of user interfaces.  Further, this could be done remotely, was glocal (reflecting both global and local requirements), and agile.

Benefits Derived: The customer benefits were multiple:

• Transitioned to paperless operations for Production, Quality and TPM (Total Productive Maintenance) departments
• Reduced energy consumption
• Predictive maintenance resulted in reduced cost of ownership of critical assets

Keywords: LTTS, Smart Factory, Predictive Maintenance, ARC Advisory Group.