Proddroid develops solutions to implement Industry 4.0 in SSIs
Proddroid Identity, the Chennai-based smart factory solution provider, helps companies implement Industry 4.0 by building costeffective and affordable solutions for them. Many companies are yet to catch up with the future of industrial development owing to exorbitant cost. Founded in 2014 by Subramaniyan NK, Proddroid has been working with some top manufacturing companies to digitise and optimise their processes.
“We are in advanced discussions with a top global smart factory solution provider to partner with its system implementation. We are also building 2 cost-effective solutions for the same. Recently, we have signed a contract with a German software company that provides vertical system that has all the possibilities of predicting, preventing and tracking,” Subramaniyan said. The parent company of Poddroid, Diksha Solutions, was started in 1997 as a machine tool manufacturing company to serve the automotive industry in South India. After years of experience in product development and tool manufacturing, Poddroid began to supply welded assemblies for the top automotive manufacturers In India. They are used in passenger vehicles of Ashok Leyland and TATA Motors. It has a special purpose machine building division which works closely with the tier-1 and tier-II suppliers for their process automation and component validation machines.
With this strong knowledge in manufacturing technology and industrial automation Poddroid started its Industrial Industry 4.0 Division In 2014. Since then the company has been working with some of the leading companies in this region to digitise and optimise their processes. Its Industry 4.0 solutions and digitised component simulation testing machines are being used by several top automotive component manufacturers. Poddroid aims to become a global leader in providing smart manufacturing solutions and consulting to digitise and optimise industrial systems.
“The Industry 4.0, or the fourth industrial revolution of digitisation, is not known to many manufacturing companies, even in the western countries. All of them want to be part of it but many of them do not know where to start from, mainly because of the high cost of implementation. Companies like Bosch and SAP have programmes that help in the smart factory solutions, but many small-scale suppliers may not be able to afford them. The tier-II and tierIII suppliers will not be able to spend much. Above all, there is not much awareness, globally,” Subramaniyan said.
He said, only recently the OEMs have started educating suppliers about the upcoming systems. There is no timeline so far for the implementation of the smart factory and it all depends on the market pressure. Similar was the case with ISO certification. Many were not keen on trying it when it came in 2000. But, when the industry pushed for it, everybody took it over. “If an OEM or the regulators force the suppliers for the implementation of Industry
4.0, there will be a huge change. That is not too far away,” he said. On how the company helps in achieving the smart factory solution, Subramaniyan said, “Industry 4.0 works connecting machines, getting the data and analysing them. This should meet all organisational goals also. We approach it and analyse the system first. We make a clear architecture on paper to implement the smart factory solution in a company. What we bring will be on how the system can help us solve the problem of organisational goals like profitability, rejection etc. When we implemented this in our company, I was able to see a difference.”
Proddroid has a customised plan for all. This is because every industrial unit is unique and has different problems. Poddroid helps the companies by giving real-time inputs, analytics and solutions for their software to help them with the basic data structure they hold. As they have a basic idea of how the process is, things are easier.
“We have a separate module for every customer and we have an idea where things could go wrong. In any industrial company, there are around 20 types of processes and these processes have around 50 types of machines. For example, if it is a plastic component there will be blow mould and pressure mould. If it is a forged component, it will be hard forged or cold forged. Manufacturing is simple, and it is not hard like a software where there are many modules and packages,” he said.
Poddroid has Industry 4.0 packages for the smallscale units in the automotive segments. “The next big thing auto manufacturers want to implement is the Smart Manufacturing systems - Industry 4.0 standards. Automotive manufacturers want to integrate lean and quality system into the new systems so that they can ensure quality and reliability of the supply chain. Now this revolution is called Industry 4.0. In 2010, we did not have any such name. Long ago, in the automotive area, we have implemented a similar system for connecting data, storing and visualising them,” Subramaniyan said.
Going forward, he said, there will be big growth in the Industry 4.0 implementation in India and the manufacturing sector here is showing great interest in adopting it.