Revolutionizing Electric Vehicle Manufacturing: Tata Technologies’ Smart Factory Solutions and Sustainable Innovations
CXOToday has engaged in an exclusive interview with Anant Saurabh, AVP Digital Consulting at Tata Technologies
- How is Tata Technologies leveraging smart factory solutions to enhance the efficiency and productivity of electric vehicle manufacturing?
Response: Today customers want their factories to be Smart – Connected, Optimized, Transparent, Proactive, and Agile. The key driver of this demand is lowered cost, improved efficiency, increased safety, improved quality, sustainability, and real-time data visualization and decision metrics. We at Tata Technologies are pioneering a tailored approach to smart factory solutions for electric vehicle (EV) manufacturing, recognizing the uniqueness of each manufacturer’s vision and values. We emphasize an integrated across the entire enterprise landscape – targeted factory solutions which nevertheless take a holistic view of the entire value chain, and which are aligned with the company’s overarching vision. For the solutions to realize their fullest potential, understanding the uniqueness of each customer is key, ensuring that smart factory solutions resonate with the core values and aspirations of each manufacturer. We are at the helm of an emerging trend of utilizing the latest technological advancement to harmonize and modernize the factory floor with the prevalent themes of data-driven decision-making, providing real-time insights for informed choices, optimizing efficiency, and minimizing waste. These solutions are designed to be flexible and scalable, capable of adapting to evolving industry demands. This comprehensive approach fosters sustainable, innovative, and customer-centric EV manufacturing, empowering manufacturers to deliver on their promises and drive the electric vehicle revolution forward.
- Can you share specific examples of how smart factory technologies have improved the quality assurance processes in the EV production at Tata Technologies?
Response: For Electric Vehicle Manufacturers, Quality Assurance for their products becomes critical because they need to assure safety and meet product quality standards and at the same time meet the severely crunched product development timeline when compared with traditional/established vehicle manufacturers with the luxury of time and established quality and safety processes. The solutions to address the same take the form and shape of the enterprise mindset and their vision for their product – the key themes which are emerging are to drive visibility, connectivity, and traceability. To give a few examples, we’ve been working with one of the leading US-based electric vehicle (EV) manufacturers towards enhanced collaboration between engineering and manufacturing for establishing connectivity and traceability between the designed product and the established manufacturing process to produce the same, thereby realizing the enhanced production capacity they are aiming for while adhering to the product quality and safety. We are actively developing predictive maintenance – to the tune of which is being utilized at one of our leading EV customers in China IoT sensor monitoring which helps pre-empt issues, reducing safety concerns – data analytics and machine learning wherein enterprises like One of our EV pickup truck manufacturer from USA are driving identification of deviations from quality standards and automated quality control, utilizing computer vision and ensuring precise inspections.
- In what ways is Tata Technologies using smart factories to customize electric vehicles to meet the diverse preferences of customers?
Response: We are involved at both the strategic leadership as well as detailed solution implementation level with leading EV manufacturers from China, USA & EU regions, amongst others, to carve out their digital strategy which could enable better and more customized preferences for their end customers. This includes straight from Product Definition where we’re defining the features and functions of the car and how we can push more and more features to allow diverse options for the customers to be able to configure a vehicle specific to their needs, all the way to defining the product engineering, manufacturing and production process and data exchange solutions to realize this customize product. As we mentioned earlier, there could never be one solution that could fit all, but the digital solutions landscape empowering organization process, systems, and decision-making is something which is the digital fingerprint of an EV enterprise which need to take in the culture and mindset to become part of their ecosystem.
- Could you elaborate on Tata Technologies’ approach to energy efficiency in EV manufacturing and how it aligns with sustainability goals?
Response: Our all EV’s customers have critical goals with a focus on energy efficiency and its alignment with sustainability goals. Our approach aims to reduce the carbon footprint associated with both the production and operation of EVs, making them a more environmentally friendly transportation option. We offer a holistic approach to address these goals, here are the key elements:
- Product Design, Material Selection, and Sourcing: This is the first step towards thinking of sustainability and energy efficient product development. Our unique framework for lightweight vehicle design, optimized aerodynamics, and comfort combined with the right material selection to develop an efficient Electric Vehicle that requires less energy and uses renewable energy sources.
- Battery Design & Manufacturing: The powertrain of EV, battery is the most energy-intensive system. Our in-house enterprise application for batter management delivers minimum waste and energy consumption. We also enable our customers with new innovations and technologies in Battery manufacturing and services, i.e. Battery Swap system is one of the innovative solutions we have delivered to the customer.
- Supply Chain Optimization: Based on current business models adopted by EV companies (contract manufacturing, co-design, global supply chain, etc.), the supply chain plays a key role in carbon footprint reduction. Through various optimization models and techniques, we help EV manufacturing companies to evaluate and decide on sourcing to minimize transportation related emissions and energy consumption.
- Factory of the future: Connected technology and a comprehensive data strategy are key to operating sustainably. Our Factory of Future mission to build smart, intelligent, dynamic, sustainable, and with minimal carbon footprint is the way for the new EV manufacturing facilities towards a sustainable future.
- Innovation & Continuous Improvement: Our cross-industry experiences from aerospace to EV manufacturing and through dedicated research and development help in constantly innovating and improving their manufacturing process to make them more energy-efficient and reduce their environmental impact.
- State- of the art production processes: Through our “Product Trinity” framework we help EV manufacturing facilities to optimize the production process across major areas, such as Gen Assy, Battery, Stamping, Body Shop, DU Shop, and Enduro Line. Our inhouse MES technology and solution provide lean manufacturing techniques, and renewable energy sources in their facilities. This not only reduces the energy consumed during production but also lowers emissions.
- How does Tata Technologies optimize its supply chain using smart factory solutions to ensure a smooth and uninterrupted production of electric vehicles?
Response: In Today’s era, where the production process at EV manufacturing facilities getting empowered with new Technologies like IoT, AI/ML, shop floor to top floor analytics, and automation to streamline plant operations and enhance efficiency, optimizing the supply chain to produce electrical vehicles is mandatory and crucial to ensure smooth and uninterrupted production process. With decades of experience, we have developed the model to create a blueprint and industrialize supply chain optimization solutions through our smart factory solutions. Following are the key steps to optimize supply chain:
- Demand and Supply Planning
- Intelligent Warehouse
- Supply Chain Design
- Supply Chain Performance
- Distribution Planning
- Transportation Optimization
- Automation & Robotics
- Quality Inspection and Transformation
- Manufacturing
- Cyber Security
- Real Time Monitoring
- Data Analytics, AI/ML
High level overview of our Digital Integrated Supply Chain framework:
6. How does Tata Technologies harness the power of data analytics and AI to make data-driven decisions and continuously improve its electric vehicle manufacturing processes? Can you discuss the role of predictive maintenance in reducing downtime and increasing efficiency in Tata Technologies’ electric vehicle manufacturing facilities?
Response: Predictive maintenance and data analytics are at the core of Tata Technologies’ solutions for electric vehicle (EV) manufacturing companies. We are working closely with our customers to develop predictive maintenance solutions which utilize data analytics and AI to forecast equipment maintenance needs, significantly reducing downtime. By monitoring critical machinery and detecting anomalies in real-time, Tata Technologies’ solutions empower manufacturers to proactively address potential failures. This predictive approach ensures smooth and uninterrupted production processes, meeting tight schedules and increasing manufacturing efficiency. Data analytics and AI play a pivotal role in making data-driven decisions. We have developed solutions that enable the collection and analysis of vast datasets, using AI algorithms to identify patterns and anomalies. This provides manufacturers with actionable insights that drive continuous improvement in various aspects of EV manufacturing. Whether optimizing workflow, reducing defects, or customizing features based on customer preferences, data-driven decision-making enhances the manufacturing process continually. The integration of identifying relevant predictive maintenance needs with data analytics principles has allowed us to produce a variety of solutions which are informing the need of better and smarter end-to-end product manufacturing operations.
