Munjal Castings increased OEE by 50% after using Renishaw TRS2

By Niraj M Wanikar, Chief Editor, CNCTimes.com, 2015-05-29 15:11:35

For any company engaged in manufacturing activity, reducing the cost along with maintaining the quality and meeting the delivery time along with lower costs is very important. If it fails to meet these expectations, then it is bound to face a downfall particularly in this world of competition. Ludhiana-based Munjal Castings has been striving to keep up with its goodwill of delivering the products on time since 1981.

Micro Economics

The management at Munjal Castings was trying its best to stand out tall among its peers on the basis of quality, cost and delivery time. But the biggest concern for them at the micro level was tool breakage that was happening very often on their machines leading to higher scrap and financial losses in terms of the material and time. As a result, reputation of the company which is known for its quality and reliability, was also at stake as one component going wrong to a customer could have further dent the goodwill.

Getting the Answer

To get over this, the company decided to go in for Renishaw’s TRS2, which is a non-contact broken tool detection system for machining centres. This unique tool recognition electronics determine whether a tool is present by analysing the reflective light pattern from the rotating tool. Random light patterns created by coolant and swarf are ignored, eliminating the chance of failing to detect a broken tool due to coolant obscuring the beam.

“Due to high scrap, we were incurring huge financial losses in terms of material and time as also the company’s reputation was at stake since we are known for quality and reliability. We decided to go in for increased automation solutions and accordingly purchased TRS2 from Renishaw. After purchasing 16 TRS2 systems on our machines having Fanuc controllers, we could save our cost in a big way,” senior vice-president of Munjal Castings, Mr PL Arora said.

Achievements

Explaining the point in detail, Mr Arora said, “Our vision is to increase exports to Rs100 crore from the present Rs40 crore in the next three years and to achieve that we will be increasing the automation with process control solutions and increase the productivity. Toying with the same idea, we installed TRS2 on the machines and increased our OEE (overall equipment effectiveness) from 50% to 76%. Our aim is to take OEE to 85%.” Mr Arora said and added that before going in for TRS2, the company was making 250 components per day which increased to 270 components per day.

The Company

Incorporated in the year 1980, Munjal Castings has been serving needs of Hero Majestic as it was a Hero Group company and also did backward integration. Started with 100 people and just four machines in 1987, today the company employs 1,200 people with a battery of 20 machines in two plants so as to manufacture high quality aluminium die casting components and has emerged as one of the most trusted name in the aluminum and zinc die casting industry, for its quality and reliability. The organisation has acquired ISO TS 16949 : 2000 certificate in the year 2006 for its Quality Systems and Management practices.

The company is supplying components to various industrial bigwigs such as Hero Motor Corp, Suzuki Group, Hyundai, Hero Cycles (brakes carriers handle), Nissan, Tata, GM, Daimler Chryslar apart from exporting to France. The company is aware of the vast business potential in international automobile industry and is fast upgrading and expanding its capabilities and infrastructure to join the auto mainstream to increase its market-share. It aspires to become one of the leading global players in this sector. Today the company is meeting the vast diversified requirements of many major companies in automobile and consumer sector and many more are in the development list.

While giving its customers an extra touch Munjal Castings finds itself alone among others, to provide a widest range of high precision metal components at the most competitive prices for its ever growing customer base. Munjal Castings is striving to achieve perfection in all its endeavours and would go an extra mile in order to achieve the best results. The whole team is working endlessly to insure that the company motto "Building Relationships Through Quality" is achieved in all respects.

“Maintaining quality, cost and delivery within stringent deadlines has been our USP which distinguishes us from others. We supply 2lakh castings with 150 different components per day to the automobile industry. With Renishaw’s reliable and high quality products besides the trust we have on its technology, we are sure that we will achieve our end result and in the process reach our goal,” Mr Arora concluded.

• Follow @CNCTimes