The digital transformation provides a great opportunity to improve manufacturing efficiency.
Electrolux strives to make the most of this opportunity by building a digitally controlled and managed environment within the factories. Connecting the factories to the cloud enables monitoring of assembly lines in real time so that functions further down the value chain can be quicker and more flexible in adapting the offering and supply chain.
“We have already introduced many digital technologies into our factories – such as virtual 3D manufacturing to eliminate any potential problems, process constraints and assembly line interferences before actual physical production of the product. Collaborative robots, cobots, for quality testing, and 3D printing of spare parts for our machinery are other examples”, says Ernesto Ferrario, Electrolux SVP Global Industrial Operations.
The vision is to have factories where people are working together with smart robots and operations are fully digitalized, and flexible and fast when fulfilling market requests. In order to provide customers with a best-in-class consumer experience, all orders must be delivered 100% on time.
Several projects are also ongoing concerning wearable technology such as augmented reality glasses, robotic gloves and exoskeletons. This gives factory operators an opportunity to work with new technologies that help improve productivity, but also safety and working conditions.
One example is that augmented reality is used for remote maintenance. When something goes wrong in a factory, things need to be fixed fast, without waiting for a technician to visit. This is possible with a mobile application that uses augmented reality.
By wearing a pair of smart glasses or using a tablet, an onsite technician can collaborate in real-time with an expert engineer based at a different location. The smart glasses or tablet films what the onsite technician is seeing and beams these pictures to the engineer’s computer. The engineer can then guide the technician to troubleshoot the problem as well as share graphic instructions, images and technical documentation.
The onsite technician can work hands-free and the problem can be identified quickly and easily, without misunderstanding. It cuts costs, saves time and reduces the failure rate. In 2017, this technology was rolled out across 16 factories in Europe, the Middle East and Africa.