Machinery manufacture is extremely labour intensive and expensive as well as time consuming. It is no surprise that many manufacturers stick with decades old designs because innovation is time-consuming, expensive and, additionally, such manufacturers do not wish to spend on R&D. Kathuria, as befits its reputation as the best roll mill manufacturer has a global futuristic vision of equipment manufacture. The company plans on modernization and adaptation of smart technologies in a big way with the focus on three key areas as a way to achieve consistency, reliability, cost reductions and performance enhancements.
Automation: Kathuria is going in for automation in a big way by acquiring CNC and CAD-CAM equipment for automated manufacture of components and parts. This is for in-house use. It is also introducing automation in its plants in a big way, reducing dependence on operator expertise and assuring high speed automated process through computer vision, sequenced automated manufacturing with sensor driven checks and computer controls. Those who install Kathuria plant will employ minimum labour since plants will have end to end automation.
Artificial Intelligence/machine learning: This is the future of plant operations. We aim to develop and put in place AI/ML processes that will enable centralized, intelligent control of the plant from a single control room. As in the case of automation, this applies to our own in-house manufacturing as well as for roll mills we will supply in future. The system, with ingrained machine learning, gets smarter with use and optimizes all parameters while identifying defects and helping to overcome them.
IoT: This is another big technology leap for future implementation. We aim to use IoT technologies allied with AI in our future roll mill rollouts. This will give centralized access to a lot of machine data that will improve manufacturing, identify failures well before they take place and even keep track of various parameters. The endgame is to be more competitive in our manufacturing and offer advanced world class technologies at a lower price and, at the same time, deliver automated roll mills that help to give competitive edge to our clients.
