Industry 4.0 allowing Indian Aluminium to participate in globalized manufacturing

India is gradually waking up to the potential of its minerals and metals industry. This was one of the few industry sectors that continued to be productive despite the ravages of the pandemic. In fact, India’s mining GDP increased from INR 739.90 billion in the fourth quarter of 2020 to INR 913.03 billion in the first quarter of 2021, as per data from the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MOSPI). This industry has a critical role to play in fueling India’s ambitious journey towards a self-sufficient 5 trillion-dollar economy over the course of 5 years.

Aluminium is a strategic metal and currently, the second most important metal in the world. Growing nearly 20x in the last sixty years, it has shown the most promise. Aluminium’s inherent properties like high strength-to-weight ratio, exceptional design flexibility, 100% recyclability, high electrical and thermal conductivity, non-corrosiveness, and durability, have made it the metal of choice for various applications across critical industry sectors. From aviation and aerospace to automotive, building & construction, infrastructure, electrical, renewable energy and packaging, aluminium caters to a wide gamut of industries.

The global Aluminium Industry is currently calibrating itself against the vagaries of pandemic, such as supply shortage in the face of production limitations in China, restricted bauxite supply due to military coup in Guinea, the second-largest bauxite supplier in the world, as well as the decade-high price of aluminium. As the world looks at a ‘China+1’ strategy for diversifying their value-chain of key goods and services, these facets pose a great opportunity for India to leverage its caliber as one of the largest producers of aluminium in the world. Unlocking this opportunity calls for the Indian Aluminium Industry to adopt Industry 4.0 to the fullest.

Aluminium hailing automation for growth

Aluminium being a critical raw material for strategic industry sectors, from defence to aerospace to electrical distribution, the industry had to ensure business continuity despite reduced manpower, lockdowns, mobility restrictions and social distancing norms. Such dynamic greatly accelerated adoption of automation and smart manufacturing.

India is the world’s third largest producer of aluminium and houses a vibrant primary and downstream aluminium manufacturing ecosystem. Indian producers such as Vedanta Aluminium have deployed cutting-edge smart manufacturing technologies to produce the widest range of aluminium products, which cater to raw material needs of numerous industries. Smart manufacturing is enhancing the prospects of Indian aluminium manufacturers further.

Vedanta leading the way

Leading the way for domestic manufacturers, Vedanta Aluminium has adopted digital-first ways of working to ensure real-time decision making, respond to fluid market conditions, changing customer needs, disrupted supply chains and employee safety with agility and accuracy. The tech and automation initiatives have enabled the company to unlock value across its entire value chain in ways that provided a positive step change in productivity as well as design and quality.

Some of the key innovations and technology augmentations deployed at Vedanta Aluminium business include:

• Vedanta’s smelter at Jharsuguda is India’s first and the world’s third smelter to deploy Digital Smelter Solution using digital twin technology, which allows remote monitoring and control of potline operations, enhances energy efficiency, and arrests wastage of material.
• We are deploying first-in-industry Deep Learning algorithms and other cutting-edge technologies for Advanced Asset Performance Management at our power plants.
• Next-gen operational Data Lake and Manufacturing Execution System (MES) implemented across our plants are ensuring visibility of all critical plant operations and allowing for decision making remotely through mobile applications, thus ensuring seamless sustainability of operations while employees maintain social distancing and yet fulfil their activities on the plant floor.
• We have developed Digital Logistics Control Towers for coal, alumina and bauxite which use classical Machine Learning and OR (Operations Research) based mathematical modelling to reduce commodity costs, pilferages, and process ineffectiveness from mines through plants to ports.
• We are deploying advanced predictive solutions for quality control of finished goods, which will improve material quality and volume.
• A Centralized Surveillance Management system oversees our security operations using Image Analytics, Drones and real-time alerts through Video Management System (VMS).
• Improving Health, Safety and Environment performance by using Image Analytics and centralized real-time fire systems monitoring for better control and governance.
• Our complex and diverse procurement of commodities, materials and services are fully automated through the e-procurement platform, unlocking substantial cost savings with faster O2C cycle and business realizations.
• Using real-time Thermal Vision Analytics in multiple plant sites for identification of hot spots in Information and Communication Technology (ICT) which helps in improving asset reliability and reducing safety hazards.

Industry 4.0 going beyond manufacturing

Vedanta’s early adoption of smart manufacturing is also helping it realize latent business potentials as Industry 4.0 is creating room for effective process assimilation through monitoring, enhanced industrial efficiency, increased asset performance, creation of predictive maintenance and real-time quality management.

The ‘Make in India’ initiative led the wider adoption of ‘Industry 4.0’ in the country, is bringing a new dawn to Indian Aluminium Industry. It has officiated severance from age-old practices of blunt resource consumption for manufacturing processes and facilitated contextual innovation. We are witnessing the successful marrying of computer-programmed automation with digital technologies such as analytics, artificial intelligence (AI), and the Internet of Things (IoT) on the production line. Since its inception, Industry 4.0 has spread beyond the factory walls to encompass a broader digital transformation that spans processes, functions, and industries. This technology-driven transformation is changing the way many organizations make sense of information and act upon it to make decisions that are impacting overall operations.

Advanced manufacturing – in the form of additive manufacturing, advanced materials, smart, automated machines, and other technologies – is ushering in a new age of physical production. At the same time, increased connectivity and ever more sophisticated data-gathering and analytics capabilities enabled by the Internet of Things (IoT) have led to a shift toward an information-based economy. This has made it possible to build smarter supply chains, manufacturing processes, and even end-to-end ecosystems. Companies are taking full advantage of technology improvements of the last 25 years, which result in hyper-connectedness via the digital economy, transforming the structure of their business operations.

The prospects of smart manufacturing go beyond merely optimizing manufacturing processes. It also contributes to effective process assimilation, such as energy saving through power monitoring, enhanced industrial efficiency, increased asset performance, creation of predictive maintenance and real–time quality management.

As smart manufacturing slowly gets customized for India, it is also weaving in human components in the process while striking a well-designed balance between automation and digitization. India, a country of 1.33 billion, has to create ample blue- and white-collar jobs for the dual purpose of generating livelihoods and becoming a manufacturing hub. Industrial manufacturing processes thus need to have equilibrium between automation and manual labour functions to provide jobs for all and incorporate them in the nation-building process. An enabler of this equilibrium is smart manufacturing. Technology is helping the process of modification so as to successfully achieve resource optimization and efficiency. It will allow room for the incorporation of manual power in the manufacturing assembly line to guarantee effective control, conduct and capitalization while constructing a bridge between digitization and optimal usage of human resources to achieve the ultimate goal of sustainable manufacturing.

Smart manufacturing’s potential to unlock Aatmanibhar Bharat

As India takes long strides towards its journey of self-reliance, the Aluminium Industry will play a major role in realizing its dream of becoming a $5 trillion economy. Indian Aluminium’s transition to Industry 4.0 will place it at par with global players. The present undertakings of smart manufacturing by Aluminium Industry leaders also sets the precedent for other manufacturing sectors. It can well be assumed that with greater commercialization of smart manufacturing technologies, it will lead to slow filtration of it to SME and MSME level for true realization of Make in India.