Digital Push in infra equipment
Construction equipment with digital and IoT technologies are driving smart planning and execution of projects in the country. This is expected to push the efficiency and productivity at project execution. <p></p><p> Construction and mining activities are heavily equipment intensive. While mining operations are highly capital-intensive, large construction project cost involves 30-40 per cent equipment cost. Large-scale construction operations need consistently performing equipment fleet capable of delivering the required throughput. Continuous monitoring and control of these machines is imperative for the execution of a project in a smoother and faster way. This will help the project to be complete on time with the required speed and productivity. Many construction and mining operations happen in extreme conditions and hard to access locations. Remote monitoring and control is a major method to manage such project sites. All these requirements today demand use of advanced technologies for a contractor. This has pushed the development of new-age digital technologies in infrastructure equipment in construction, mining and material handling operations. </p><p> <span style="font-weight: bold;">Importance of digitalisation</span><br />Digital features help in real-time monitoring and control of the equipment such as idle time and fuel consumption, enabling contractors to make better decisions on the use of their fleets. According to <span style="font-weight: bold;">Saurabh Kulkarni, Mobile Automation Expert, B&R Industrial Automation, </span>efficiency affects productivity and thus profitability. He elaborates on the challenges in construction projects and how digital technology can be advantageous in such difficult situations, "In construction industry, achieving enhanced productivity and profitability was always a challenge. Digital technology has the potential to transform and fast track a project right from equipment building to delivery of the final project on time. Digitalisation makes processes more efficient, faster and cheaper. For example, digital technology helps to connect all stakeholders in real-time allowing them to track state of project ensuring timely completion. Digital transformation allows construction professionals to work side-by-side with smart construction equipment, which provides real-time data enabling quick decision making thus keeping jobsite safer. Digitisation offers condition-based predictive maintenance, which allows operators to continuously monitor the status of construction equipment. Hence, problems can be detected in early stages and can be corrected before they result in unplanned downtime. This helps to maximise equipment availability and save considerable cost due of outages and unplanned service calls."</p><p><span style="font-weight: bold;">Aditya Paranjpe, COO, Kloudq Technologies </span>is of the view, "Digital transformation is an important lever to unlock productivity at levels previously unknown. For construction companies, a lot of their capital is locked in assets which include construction equipment. Any step towards improving productivity can greatly improve the competitiveness of construction and contracting companies."</p><p> <span style="font-weight: bold;">Digital transformation in CE</span><br />Digitalisation in construction equipment (CE) is picking up fast with more and more OEMs adopting IoT and digital features in their machines for real-time monitoring and control of the equipment and improved productivity at sites. Most customers are now aware of digitalisation providing better control over equipment operation and fleet at various projects. It helps in improved productivity and efficiency of the machine with a better control over the functions. Also, more intelligent and smart features in machines will help minimum human intervention and safety at project sites. </p><p>According to Kulkarni, digitalisation has transformed many industries such as banking, healthcare, food and beverages, automotive etc. He elaborates on the trend in construction industry, "The change is unavoidable whether we want it or not. Early adoption is making a huge difference in efficiency, productivity and profitability. However, Indian construction industry has been slow to adopt this change, which might be owing to cultural change. Workflow management in construction industry involves manual processes. It increases time to make decisions, lowers work quality, and adds unnecessary costs. Digitalisation is the answer to global competitiveness and realising these countless benefits, the industry is opening up slowly but steadily towards adoption of next generation technologies."</p><p>Paranjpe agrees that digitalisation in construction is still at a nascent stage. "While a majority of construction equipment manufacturers have started providing remote monitoring solutions with their equipment. This is targeted at improving customer service levels. On the other hand, many large construction and contracting companies are looking at a holistic solution that will cover all their machines irrespective of the make or vintage. This solution is primarily aimed at unlocking productivity and fuel management insights.</p><p>Telematics is the broader platform that helps in effective monitoring and control of equipment fleet remotely. <span style="font-weight: bold;">Hemant Mathur, AVP-Sales and Marketing, Tata Hitachi Construction Machinery Company</span>, describes more on telematics and its importance, "Today, telematics has helped the customer monitor his machines and operations sitting in the comfort of his office or home. The analysis built around the data that telematics offers, gives the customer insightful information that helps him identify whether the operations are going as per plan or if some intervention is required. Telematics also recommends on which areas of operation to focus on and how. The machine informs the customers and the dealer of any emergency situation or a potential problem. The dealer is then adequately prepared to resolve the issue at the earliest. All this has transformed the way the modern construction sites are functioning. Enabling customers to improve system efficiencies, schedule maintenance interventions, reduce unplanned breakdowns and maximise equipment and site utilisation."</p><p> <span style="font-weight: bold;">Connected technologies</span><br />According to Paranjpe, there are two main players in this space The OEMs who provide telematics as a package with their equipment and the third-party IOT solutions providers who offer solutions that can be retrofitted on equipment. "There is a lot of traction in the market for both categories. We foresee that in the next couple of years, this will be a hygiene requirement for a majority of construction equipment."</p><p>Kulkarni is of the view that various cutting-edge technologies are in its nascent stages. "Telematics is currently being used for very basic services like, tracking and fleet management. However, owing to countless benefits offered by telematics and connectivity in construction industry, OEMs are increasingly equipping their equipment with advanced technologies for improving their strategic position in market and to serve their customers in an effective and better way. Telematics and connected machines improve tracking, route calculation, fuel utilisation, safety and security, which boost industry to use such technologies. According to various reports, it is understood that telematics market in India is projected to reach $301.23 million by 2021."</p><p>Today all the major OEMs have introduced IoT-based features in their equipment. For example, Mathur says, "At Tata Hitachi, our ZAXIS GI series excavators are equipped with Global e Service, an offering based on the platform developed by Hitachi, Japan. On this is layered a premium offering called ConSite, which we offer as a standard with all our GI machines. ConSite uses years of experience, comparative data of similar class machines operating in the region and provides insightful advice and recommendations to improve operations. There is also an alarm service which uses machine events and is an intelligent filter to communicate machine breakdown and raise caution alarms with due recommendation to the customer and to the dealer for appropriate action. Our consultative approach to examining and advising customers on the health of their machines is a major value-added support to our customers. InSite is our home-grown IoT solution that provides key operational, maintenance, location, and health data of the machine to the customers and Tata Hitachi."</p><p> <span style="font-weight: bold;">Digital features on offer</span><br />The demand of high-tech construction equipment is increasing over the years. This has made major CE OEMs to introduce more advanced digital features in their equipment. For example, the recently held Excon 2019 event in Bengaluru witnessed the introduction of many equipment and components with advanced digital features. Some OEMs have developed their own technologies, while there are many solutions developed by third-party technology providers.</p><p>Kulkarni elaborates on such features and solutions, "With new functions being added all the time and requirements for operating efficiency and quality higher than ever, these vehicles need an automation system that is both powerful and scalable. Our mobile automation portfolio gives OEMs all the important tools required to build and defend their competitive edge as a technological leader in their market. Every aspect of B&R's automation system is designed for modular, concurrent engineering. Our X90 controller with a PC provides high performance and is ideal for outdoor use. It can collect large amounts of data from equipment and send it to higher-level systems such as cloud over OPC UA or MQTT. When machines are able to exchange information, they become more effective in the field. It is important that operator panels ensure reliable operation even under adverse conditions. A die-cast aluminium housing provides mechanical stability, and the multi-touch display can be used even in rain. Manufacturers of construction machinery face the challenge of implementing intelligent (semi)autonomous equipment functions quickly and maintaining them long term. Everyone knows that unscheduled downtime is costly affair. This cost can be avoided through advanced analytics and maintenance. </p><p>B&R's modular X90 control system is available with an optional circuit board for implementing condition monitoring. It utilises vibration data to detect damage in time to repair it before it causes equipment failure. Condition monitoring offers substantial cost benefits for both OEMs and mobile equipment users." According to Paranjpe, some of the features offered by Kloudq include fuel management, idle/producing time management, asset utilisation, compliance management, Geo-fencing and GPS analytics, and maintenance alerting and scheduling. "In the current way of working, most of the productivity calculations are based on log sheets and thumb rule calculations. With the introduction of telematics, you will know the accurate productivity levels. Customers that have implemented such solutions have been able to unlock productivity benefits in excess of 30 per cent."</p><p> <span style="font-weight: bold;">Customer benefits</span><br />Remote job locations, harsh environments, and tight deadlines for project completion are common challenges Indian construction industry is facing. Kulkarni explains, "Real time condition monitoring helps maintenance engineers detect, diagnose, and rectify problems from an entire fleet and provide 24/7 equipment availability. OEMs of mobile equipment can also use data to optimise their designs, and are able to pursue new business models such as equipment monitoring as a service. In this case, operator is relieved of the fleet maintenance and is simply informed when a replacement part will be delivered and installed. Conventional strategies for preventing unexpected failure of heavy vehicles are costly and resource-intensive. With B&R's X90 system and condition monitoring technology, both manufacturers and operators of mobile equipment can reap benefit with solutions and become more productive and efficient."</p><p>Paranjpe elaborates on the benefits, "These features are very effective for companies to get granular information about the performance of assets. Site level management in India is very difficult as there are a variety of issues that need to be handled."</p><p>Mathur describes the benefits of his company's technology offerings, "Tata Hitachi's telematics suites offer additional safety to the already safe machines. Critical conditions like overloading, engine overheating, higher digging or travel load are tracked meticulously through ConSite and InSite. If left unattended, these can cause damage to men and machines. Hence, through telematics, information is provided to the right site personnel to take preventative actions as and when such issues arise. Our telematics solutions help in identifying areas for improving productivity by monitoring machine operations. Performance in these areas is then graded with respect to benchmarked data to show the potential improvement. This helps improve the total cost of operations for the machine owner."</p><p> <span style="font-weight: bold;">Customer approach</span><br />How do customers react to these advanced technology solutions? The digital push is putting project execution on fast track. However, often, the end-users are hesitant to accept such technologies due to reasons such as lack of awareness about the technology, cost and inexperience in handling such technologies. The trend is slowly changing with the young generation becoming closer to next-generation technologies. Kulkarni says, "With introduction of advanced technology, construction equipment market is evolving dramatically. Smart features added in equipment is not only enhancing operating efficiency, but also quality, reliability, safety and profitability. Formerly, only big players were open to such technological change. However, now customers seem to know more than ever about technology, products and its benefits and are keen on having smart features in their equipment." </p><p><span style="font-weight: bold;">Looking forward</span><br />The current era, i.e. post launch of digitalisation, offers incredible opportunities for businesses. Kulkarni adds, "The power digitalisation will continue to advance and grow. When combined with technologies such as digital twin, edge solutions, big data analytics, 3D printing, and IIoT, they will reshape the entire manufacturing as well as off-highway equipment ecosystem. A shift from conventional to digitalised business enables more technologically advanced products and services. Digitalisation helps organisations in not only improving their brand's reputation, but also customer experience and retention. Digitally transformed organisations have ability to tackle sudden shifts in the industry. With advent of connected vehicles and advanced driver assistance systems, advanced automation solutions are finding several applications in mobile automation industry. This sector is expected to be one of the most significant sources of demand for digitised solutions."</p><p>Paranjpe observes, "We see digitalisation rising exponentially in the coming years. Those companies who have moved on to the digital bandwagon and have made it their way of working have a definite edge over others. The others will have to fall in line if they have to stay competitive."</p><p>Mathur explains the transformation happening in the industry, "Previously, customers would spend most of their time on worksites, employ manual methods and depend on supervisors to give information on their work sites. Now, with increased technology usage, they are able to monitor their machine remotely and even manage their fleets from office. This enables them to utilise their time better and focus on their core business. Though the technology absorption rate is higher in the more organised mining industry, the construction segment is also gradually changing to adopt the benefits of improved technologies." </p><p>He further adds on Hitachi's plans, "Hitachi is at the forefront of such emerging technology usages and has been developing ever new solutions in the field of telematics and data analytics. Hitachi is increasingly working on reducing dependence on human expertise as a factor for service recommendations and service delivery and we see the future is just filled with ever more exciting possibilities."</p><p>In the construction and infrastructure development, future belongs to technology and innovations. The customer approach towards technology is changing with growing awareness and the challenge mounting on them for faster project execution with no compromise on quality. All these will lead to employing next-gen technologies in the equipment and projects. </p><p></p>
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