Volume 13 Issue 5 november 2016 `150
empowering engineering excellence
An Indian’s Journey with
Exoskeletons
industry focus
AUTOMATION REDEFINED
smart factory the future let’s talk
Sameer Gandhi omron india
GUEST EDITOR
Shishir Joshipura
NEW AGE INNOVATION
skf INDIA
innovation Demonetization Renishaw
Impact on Manufacturing November 2016
www.martupdate.com
1
CASE STUDY | FOUNDRY MUTIFLEX FM Series High Pressure Moulding Machine
Rhino Leads Innovation for Indian Foundries Rhino Machines has been pioneering innovations in energy efficiency for foundry and forging industries. Inspired by and inspiring India’s invention and innovation glory, Rhino Machines has found accolades for its products and solutions at international exhibitions and competitions. Latest to the list is its successful participation at GCIP 2016.
Continuing on its successful participation in the GCIP 2015 and having finished in the top six and then being showcased at the Rashtrapati Bhawan in March 2016 during the Festival of Innovation for its ECOFLEX® Design Sand Handling System, Rhino was once again selected from about 190 participants this year in the GCIP 2016 in Energy Efficiency & Clean Technology. GCIP – Global Cleantech Innovation Program, supported by Ministry of MSME as the principal body and FICCI, organised by UNIDO, funded by GEF, content & delivery by Cleantech USA, entered into a matured 3rd year of supporting and leveraging Indian MSMEs – start ups and existing industries. Rhino Machines has always come out with unique solutions and has adapted to modern technologies of the world. Its founder Mr R C Kothari – IIT Kharagpur Graduate & IIT Mumbai Post Graduate always carried a vision of being “original” and adaptive to the Indian foundry needs. Mr Manish Kothari – MSU Vadodara Graduate joined in 1991 and was exposed to international technology as early as 1994 at GIFA and was part of the partnership with Fondarc, France – one of the principal partners of Rhino in Green Sand Technology – process and machines. Rhino started working on the development of Stand Alone High Pressure Moulding Machine with the technical support of Renzo Cappelletto in 2008, starting from few sketches and building up the machine. The key criteria to build this product line were: • Focus on moulding process – not on automation • Simple machine – without need of lot of auxiliary machines • Affordable for the MSME sector – prices and usage to be comparable to presently available option of JSQ • Lower cost of ownership • Higher safety level • Optimised energy usage. • Machine to be built completely in India
76
www.martupdate.com
• Easy maintenance • Process automation to be incorporated • Modular and expandable technology In 2009, Rhino invested in the first machine taking the box size of M/s Uttam Foundries, Ambala with their assurance to pay the cost of the machine alone after successful trials of the moulding technology. With a vision to meet all the criteria above, the team of Rhino’s engineers including Manish Kothari, Rajnikant Patel (now VP in Elecon) along with Renzo Cappelletto put together the first machine design and the first mould was made in Rhino on 16th Sep 2009. The process of moulding was validated and with the support of hydraulic system associates and internal PLC automation expertise of Rhino, the process itself was established. In this period, M/s Sharp Chucks – led by Mr Ajay Sikka, a young and dynamic industrialist- put its faith in Rhino and ordered a machine for a larger box size and thus in 2010 Rhino was ready with the first real production machine and displayed in IFEX 2010 at Ahmedabad. This was Rhino’s first showcase of the new technology. Yet, Rhino decided to establish the machine in production before full fledged launch and marketing of the product. The years 2011 and 2012 witnessed the establishment of 3-4 machines in Northern region and one in Ahmedabad, which became the starting reference point. Till this time, for Rhino it was a survival game and it was developing its technology for building its brand in the High Pressure Moulding Machine vacant space for MSMEs. As time progressed and as the machines kept getting installed with excellent encouragement from some of the first users, the product went through lot of value engineering, plug and play solutions, user friendliness, consistency of production - all would inspire our own and the customers confidence in the product. The year 2015 was a turning point for
Rhino Machines in a lot of respects, and in particular in the Innovation Ecosystem. With the new government in place, and with the leadership of PM Shri Narendra Modi, the “Make in India” campaign led to the govt machinery starting to identify, encourage and empower the MSME innovators. The MSME – Technology Development Centre, Agra were assigned to bring forward innovations and technologies from the foundry and forging industry by the UNIDOMSME program of GCIP. Mr Pravin Joshi – Dy Director MSME-TDC Agra approached Rhino Machines, travelled all the way and filled up the entry of Rhino Machines for Energy Efficiency Category in the 2015 program. Though there was no validation or documented data, they took the calculations provided by Rhino as the base and with their own judgement, proposed our name in the competition. Right after returning from GIFA 2015, Rhino Machines was asked to provide calculations of the energy saving for its Energy Saving Sand Handling Solution ECOFLEX®. The data provided by Rhino Machines was examined by selectors to select Rhino from the 160 participants to the top 20 semi-finalists. This recognition on national level, motivated and encouraged Rhino Machines team, and it directly and indirectly changed the approach to the product, solutions, and strengthened Rhino’s resolve to innovate for the MSMEs. The Business Building training imparted by Cleantech USA with their workshops and webinars changed the way Rhino looked at the market, product and industry. Rhino participated with start ups, novices and was the only mature industry and the only industry from the core manufacturing sector to bring forward a product with such a strong impact. After its successful display at FOINS 2016 @ Rashtrapati Bhawan, Rhino’s team had been trained enough to recognise the unhidden potential in its MULTIFLEX – High Pressure Moulding Machine, which slowly had November 2016
Handing over of certificate by DC-MSME Tripathi to Manish Kothari, Managing Director, Rhino Machines
already established itself as a proven and commercial product. Rhino started looking at an “unchartered” area i.e. energy saving from Multiflex. Earlier, the product was being projected only on those criteria which made direct tangible commercial sense. The energy saving did not show such a huge cost benefit and therefore was not highlighted. However, taking cue from the learnings of GCIP 2015, Rhino undertook the exercise of validating the power consumption comparison. Actual energy consumed in kWh for a given number of moulds working at its normal efficiency on a working Simultaneous Jolt Squeeze Machine was measured at Krislur Industries, Bhavnagar. Similarly, the actual energy consumed in Multiflex of a similar area of box was checked at Rhino’s facility. The test on Multiflex was also done in M/s Sagar Ferex in Rajkot to re-validate the data on Multiflex. Though it was obvious from engineering that the power transmission efficiency of compressed air in terms of energy or power input to the compressor and the energy delivered at the point of use was on an average only 30%, we did not realise that in spite of delivering a force 5 to 6 times higher than the Obsolete SJS (JSQ) Machines, the FM (Multiflex) consumed 30% lower energy. Against a unitised power consumption of 0.19 kWh/Mould for a box size of 600 x 500 x 150 mm, the SJS compressor consumed 0.3 kWh/mould for a box size of 520 x 520. November 2016
Rhino has now been deploying real time energy monitoring to validate the energy consumption of Multiflex and increase the no of results available from the field. In addition to the direct impact of energy consumption in the moulding machine, the higher force also resulted in better dimensional stability and reduced weight variation of the casting. This impact was validated at some of the installations who were producing the same casting with the same pattern in the same plant on both the processes. Let us look at the implications. Take a clutch housing weighing 150 kgs, and a saving of 3 to 4 kgs in weight due to reduction in swelling. The impact goes beyond to machining. What needed 3 cuts and an additional 4 minutes of CNC machining (which means the power consumption also) could be done in 2 cuts, i.e. 33% reduction in machining time, cost and energy. The presentation attached has slides which speak for themselves, but can be highlighted as below: 1. The market – we have analysed only for the SME foundry segment which constitute more than 50% in no and in tonnage of India’s 10 Million Tonnes casting production. Let us leave alone the micro and the large and very large industries for the moment. This segment on a conservative outlook needs 145 machines in 2016.
2. The tangible impacts from the implementation of 145 machines (about 50% replacement & 50% new) can be listed as below: a. Energy Saving by Machine Operation : 38 Lakh kWh every year b. Energy Saving by saving in melting power for weight saved : 31 Lakh kWh every year c. CO2 Emissions reduced 5,500 MT every year d. Equivalent Trees Planted for 145 machines @ 20 kg/ CO2 absorption per year – 2.75 Lakh trees 3. The intangibles: a. Operator safety ensured; b. Noise level reduced to less than 85 dB, thus complying with industrial noise level norms in moulding area; c. Reduced no of operations persons; d. Reduced skill of operators; e. Better work environment, and compliance to OHSAS and therefore ISO:14000 f. Global competitiveness; g. Increased customer acceptance and OEM acceptance. The takeaways are many, and now with more than 30 machines in operations, it is time the institutions of the Government and the industrial bodies start focusing on technology upgradation, benchmarking the energy consumptions, OHSAS, pollution compliance. For the casting industry to grow, there has to be conscious effort to upgrade with technologies which are now commercially viable, have process capability and are sustainable. For more details visit www.rhinomachines.net www.martupdate.com
77