DURACELL
DURACELL SAFEGUARDS COMPETITIVENESS THROUGH DIGITISATION DURACELL COMMITS TO ‘PAPERLESS’ PRODUCTION AND MAINTENANCE
Production facilities within multinationals must constantly fight for their existence. That is why Duracell Belgium decided to go for digitalisation. Thanks to process optimisation and the implementation of a coordinating management system, the factories not only achieved the status of ‘Factory of the Future’. They also succeeded in reducing the maintenance capacity to a single day shift.
D
uracell is the world’s leading producer of consumer batteries and a leading manufacturer of high-quality alkaline, specialty and rechargeable batteries. Since 2016, the multinational has is part of Warren Buffet’s Berkshire Hathaway Group. It employs more than 3,300 people worldwide. Its products are made in factories in the United States (3), China (2) and Belgium (2). “Our country is indeed the hub for supply in Europe, Africa and even part of Asia,” says digitization project leader Paul Nuyts. “In Aarschot we manufacture the batteries; in Heist-OpDen-Berg they are labelled and packaged. That is why we are working hard to secure our sites in Belgium on long term. Unfortunately, high labour costs throw a spanner in the works. In 2016, our costs were 25 to 30% higher than in the Duracell plants in China.”
Logical transition In order to close this financial gap, the Belgian management decided to focus on automation and digitization. “This further transition to Industry 4.0 was a logical choice because we were still working extensively with paper documents at the time,” says Paul Nuyts. “Our factories were struggling with the Excel syndrome: spreadsheets were used for absolutely everything. The result was a confusing tangle of information in which nobody could see the wood for the trees. Multiple versions of documents were circulating and data reached the right people too late or not at all. Moreover, this paperwork took up an enormous amount of time: approximately 10,000 hours per year! And that’s without mentioning the unnecessary costs for paper, storage, copies, ... A second reason why we opted
for digitization, was our strong belief in the power of the Internet of Things and metadata. There are now countless examples of factories that have successfully optimized their production and maintenance processes thanks to historic and predictive data, and even artificial intelligence.” Bottom-up approach Rather than cram the shop floor with technology straight away, Duracell Belgium first explored the possibilities. This was done both in terms of solutions and users. “A smart move,” according to Arnold De Ploey, Expert Director Data integrated Digital Workplace at Devoteam. “It makes little sense to impose technology from above, especially in production and maintenance environments where not everyone is used to working with computers. We often
“
IT MAKES LITTLE SENSE TO IMPOSE TECHNOLOGY FROM ABOVE, ESPECIALLY IN PRODUCTION AND MAINTENANCE ENVIRONMENTS WHERE NOT EVERYONE IS USED TO WORKING WITH COMPUTERS. — PAUL NUYTS
Digitization project leader Duracell
4 | AP Magazine MARCH 2022
