06 Nov Where does Rieusset stand one year later with regard to the project of industry 4.0?
Index of contents:
By Jordi López (General Manager) of Rieusset
Almost a year ago in this blog we explained the evolution of the action plan defined in the roadmap, which was based on the pillars of production processes, products, services and new business models, IT infrastructures, data and analytics, organization, strategy and HR and the business ecosystem: customers, suppliers and partners.
One year later, we would like to comment on the status of the projects defined at that time, as well as the new ones we have undertaken.
Shall we update the roadmap?
Within the production processes, we continue to burn stages in the data collection and analysis project (this project never stops, as it is a source of a lot of information!) This year we have integrated the management of ink data where, after completing the implementation of the software and hardware and training the different work teams, we are already starting to have the first data that will serve us both for day-to-day management and for the analysis of work order consumption. We have also worked on eliminating the transformation of data outside the system (it’s amazing how hard it is for us to work with the data without exporting it to Excel and cross-referencing to reach conclusions!) and to be able to analyze it simply and quickly. This year we have developed many “applications” in Power BI that simplify access to important data.
This year, the purchasing department together with an external partner has even developed a platform that tries to anticipate customer needs in terms of raw materials. Between the large amount of information that we handle, the lack of information that our ERP has in some sections and the customers who order when they can, we have worked hard to have a tool that helps us to combine our stocks with customer orders and history and to be able to establish an advance purchasing strategy.
Furthermore, as David mentioned in last year’s post, as part of the SCADA project to reduce electricity consumption, we also had the intelligent lighting project for which, although it is not yet finished, we have already contracted the change of lighting throughout the plant and the project should be completed before the end of this year.
In terms of products, services and new business models, digital printing is taking shape among customers, as it is becoming an increasingly accepted technology both for small print runs (it’s a good thing we are saving the cost of cylinders!) and for promotions, where some people are already venturing to present different designs in the same print run. We are now developing the digital printing model for other business models where, although they have not been part of our DNA to date, we see that they are closely linked to digital printing. But we won’t go into details here for now.
At the IT infrastructure level, we have also made progress in integrating the maintenance module into the data collection system and this, in turn, means that we are consolidating natural work processes which, without technology, were all more manual and relied on employee discipline to follow the procedure.
In the data and analytics pillar –although we have not improved the database because we are considering a larger project, wherefore until it is defined, it does not make sense to go ahead with it– we have used other tools such as Power BI so as not to waste time preparing data.
What have we not mentioned until now?
So far we have not mentioned anything about the organizational, strategic and HR pillar or the business ecosystem because, although we have also worked on these, we have not made as much progress as we would have liked, both because of the lack of time to take concrete actions and because we still lack the knowledge to know how to implement the ideas we have.
And we have also not mentioned other projects such as collaborative robots in the packaging and palletizing processes of end products or autonomous mobile vehicles (AMR). We have made progress in the scope of the project and we have been in contact with various suppliers to propose the final solution, but sometimes the lack of standardization of our process, or the lack of space to implement the proposed solution until today, or because some other project such as the one we are developing in the area of continuous improvement to improve the process flow is still pending, has meant that these projects are not moving at the expected speed. But we will do them.
And is there nothing new?
Of course there is. At Rieusset we are constantly generating ideas to continue improving and we have a list of new projects, some of which are in the assessment phase and others already in the implementation phase.
From among these, we will mention two. The first, which is in the assessment phase, is one that would transform our coding system for labels and flexible packaging from the current variable alphanumeric coding to variable QR coding. We can of course already do this on our digital printing press, but this project involves variable coding with QR on the rotogravure presses. The second project, which is in the testing phase, is to install a perimeter surveillance system for Rieusset’s premises through a system of intelligent cameras that delimit the property and which aims to prevent access by anyone outside the company without the relevant authorization.
We will continue to inform you in future blog posts!
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