Automation: Gearing up auto component makers to be future-ready

Today, India has emerged as one of the major outsourcing hubs for several global automobile manufacturers. One of the major factors for this transformation has been the support extended by the auto component companies in India to the automotive manufacturers by providing technological, qualitative and low price automotive parts. In fact, most of the leading global auto companies such as GM, Ford, Toyota, etc source some component or other from Indian auto component manufacturers.
 
As per Edelweiss Financial Services’ report, which covered over 30 leading auto component manufacturers, the Indian automobile component industry, pegged at $38 billion, is expected to witness 17 per cent compounded annual growth rate (CAGR) and touch $115 billion by 2021. Over the same period, the report estimated that the share of exports, which contribute 17 per cent of sales, to increase to 26 per cent.
 
With cost & regulatory pressure increasing, the automotive sector is increasingly turning to automation to deliver quality products, cut costs and raise productivity. This has had a trickle down effect on the auto component suppliers, who form critical part of the entire automotive industry supply chain.
 
“The rapid development in the field of automation and the robotics in recent times has helped the automotive industry to significantly improve quality, productivity, delivery and at the same time reduce cost. The major challenges faced by the Indian component manufacturers are high cost of capital, non-availability of skilled labour and rising price of operational cost. What has also added to their woes is stiff competition from China and other South East Asian countries on the price front,” informs Vinnie Mehta, Director General, Automotive Component Manufacturers Association of India (ACMA) – the apex organisation representing auto component industry in India.

“Therefore, it is imperative that higher levels of automation will be integral to manufacturing. This is critical to the growth of the sector to meet global quality and productivity levels. Moreover, with India being a volume driven market, high automation will allow of appropriately sweating the assets,” opines Mehta. 
 
In the last decade, India has witnessed global auto OEMs aggressively expanding their operations in the country. As a result, auto component manufacturers face huge pressure from their customers to maintain quality and supply components in a just-in-time (JIT) mode on the production line. It is here that automation plays a helpful role.  
 
“Automation helps to maintain consistency in quality, reduces process time and brings in efficiency. Given this, it is always essential that auto component manufacturers invest in automation wherever possible,” says Arvind Goel, President, COO & CTO, Tata AutoComp Systems Limited (TACO) - a global supplier of products and services in the field of automotive components.
 
According to Mehta, automation proves advantageous over labour as it eliminates fatigue and maintains optimum quality levels. “The other key reason that many companies in India have introduced higher mechanisation, and this despite labour costs at home being relatively cheaper than developed countries, is attributed to issues such as increasing labour disputes. It must be noted that albeit it is an expensive proposition, but over a long-term benefits of automation are enormous,” he adds.
 
Areas for automation
With more and more auto component manufacturers aiming to adhere to international standards, automation, especially robotics, is increasingly gaining prominence on the shop floor. “Though automation is not ideal for all stages of production, areas such as the welding and paint shops are now being handed over to robots in totality. Also, lifting of heavy parts and vehicle bodies have been automated to minimise time, effort and injury risks to shopfloor personnel,” says Mehta.
 
Automation is must for auto component manufacturers to survive in a highly competitive market. Even a single fault in the product could led to losing only just the order but also the customer. Hence, component maker has to move away from manual processes, especially repetitive, to automation.


 
“Jobs involving repetitive movement, high precision, (or) jobs with possible safety hazards such as operations near furnace doors for instance, are better done by robots as they are accurate, do not get fatigued, or lose concentration,” says Mehta.
 
With benefits of automation quite visible, auto component makers are increasingly looking at automating processes. Take the example of Tata AutoComp, which has introduced automation at multiple places. At TACO’s stampings unit, automotive stampings and assemblies, it has a fully robotic stamping line which includes seven stamping presses working in tandem. The input is a sheet of steel and the output is directly the component like a door panel. Similarly, at its interiors and plastics division, TACO has introduced automation to pick, flare and drop bumpers from the moulding machine.
 
“These are large scale or even small automations leading to process innovation. Our learning from automation is that it has helped us ensure consistent quality to our customers, it has helped us reduce process time and bring in efficiency,” says Goel of TACO.
 
At present auto component industry is witnessing subdued demand due to slowdown in auto industry. However, fortunes are expected to change once the auto industry shows signs of revival.
 
As the demand for small car and engine manufacturing picks up, one can expect buoyancy to return to the auto component market. Auto component manufacturers who have equipped themselves with automation and modern manufacturing technologies stand to gain larger pie of the growing market as global OEMs demand quality parts at the right cost and time.

Why automate?

• Improves product and process quality
• Enhances productivity and operational capability 
• Helps in better utilisation of material
• Reduces product rejection rates
• Reduces cycle time while getting high degree of accuracy
• Enables to perform tasks which are in a challenging environment and those that are beyond human capabilities in size, weight, speed and endurance