Company Feature:
Hitachi Metals (Thailand) Ltd. Chonburi Factory

Selected Country: Thailand

This issue, we made a trip to the Land of Smiles and visited Hitachi Metals (Thailand) Ltd. Chonburi Factory (HMT-CH) to understand more about metals, materials and specifically about the automotive parts industry. HMT-CH mainly manufactures and supplies sensor products like the ABS (Wheel Speed Sensor) to renown Japanese carmakers.

Company Background

Hitachi Metals (Thailand) Ltd. was first established in March 1991. While Hitachi Metals manufactures a variety of materials for different industries such as electronic parts, electronic devices, and precision casting products, their main line of business in Thailand is in the automotive industry. The increased demand in the automotive industry led to the establishment of its Chonburi Factory in 2007, in addition to its head office and factory in Ayutthaya. A sales office lies in the heart of Bangkok where they are engaged in the sales of Hitachi Metals group companies' products and provide business support to these companies, such as procurement, technical advice and manpower support.

HMT-CH will continue to explore and apply IoT technologies using the Lumada platform, while working towards becoming the world’s leading high-performance materials company.

Internet of Things, Lumada and Smart Manufacturing

In an agreement between Hitachi Asia (Thailand) Ltd. (HAS-TH) and HMT-CH, a series of IoT (Internet of Things) initiatives started in January 2018 with the aim to showcase HMT-CH as the epitome of a smart factory at the newly constructed Lumada Center Southeast Asia.

This agreement is in addition to the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between the Eastern Economic Corridor (EEC) office and Hitachi signed last year to apply Lumada’s IoT technologies to create smarter factories. Of the three phases of the Lumada roll-out in Thailand, the first is smart manufacturing for factories.

Under the first phase, HMT-CH’s focus is on the Visualisation Production Process of the ABS Sensor where the production line will be automated for improving productivity.

1) Implementation of Production Record System

Otherwise known as Electronic Documentation, physical documentation where the production record is checked one by one will be obsolete since manual records have a risk of missing or wrong data.

With the introduction of digitisation, data or information will be converted into digital format. The implementation of the production record system improves overall traceability in production processes by reducing man-days of manual operations and prevent mistakes.

In this case, a recording software called the Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) System was developed where the data is input directly into the software and saved in the data server. This gives easy tracking of data, therefore translating to better quality control. At the same time, the software also allows fast tracing of production record data when a defect occurs, helping to maximise resources and minimise losses of each product flow.

2) Implementation of Kaizen Activity Support System

This system reveals early understanding of bottleneck operation and improves operation quality. Abnormal processes are detected from real-time monitoring data, where the problem is analysed based on images from the bottleneck operations or video data where improvement can be applied quickly.

3) Implementation of Production Scheduler

The production scheduler creates executable production plan by levelling each process load. Under this system, the production plan is refined as it considers the constraint of resource capacity and delivery date of products, thereafter levelling each process load.

4) Introduction of Robotics

Currently in the testing phase, HMT-CH plans to further automate the assembly lines by introducing robots. One robot can easily replace 3-4 workers and have higher efficiency levels, which adds value to the entire production line.

Strong Focus on Employees

Factories are typically labour-intensive. Hence, it is a constant challenge to maintain employee morale within HMT. Their monozukuri activities aimed at rewarding staff, showing appreciation as well as performance fairness were successful in driving the turnover rate from 20% to 0% in 2014. As a result, HMT won the Grand Prix of the Inspiration of the Year Global Award 2014. For more details of their brand story, click here.

Future Goals of HMT-CH

HMT-CH envisions to be a full smart factory. To reach this goal, HMT-CH will continue to explore and apply IoT technologies using the Lumada platform, while working towards becoming the world’s leading high-performance materials company.

Apart from improving productivity, shortening production lead time, and improving quality, HMT-CH also hopes to continue bringing new value to the Thai economy by attracting new investments for the manufacturing industries through Lumada.

At the same time, I also feel that HMT-CH has become a lot smarter as many processes have been automated and IoT technologies applied to it. These are small steps towards Hitachi’s ultimate aim of becoming an innovative partner for the IoT era.

A Day in the Life of our Colleague

Name: Sahayot Kanjanasantisak
Designation: Manager, ABS Section, Sensor Production Department
Company: Hitachi Metals (Thailand) Ltd. Chonburi Factory

Tell us a little about what you do in Hitachi.

I have been with Hitachi Metals (Thailand) Ltd. (HMT) for 5 years now. My main role as Manager of the Sensor Production Department is to take care of the EPB (electronic parking bay) production.

I first started out at the Chonburi Factory but was later seconded to the Ayutthaya Factory as the latter factory wanted to start production on EPB. Ayutthaya needed a specialist to coach them in that regard and so I was sent there. Personally, that was the highlight of my career. My assignment 2 years ago was to establish the EPB production unit in Ayutthaya and now that I’ve accomplished that, I am now reunited with the rest of my team in the Chonburi factory!

Your secondment to Ayutthaya sounds interesting! Now that you have returned to the Chonburi factory, can you share a little about the changes you noticed since your return?

As a manufacturing facility, the Chonburi factory adopted the monozukuri or kaizen policy. In essence, the terms monozukuri and kaizen mean improvement. These policies were put in place in hopes of obtaining a leaner manufacturing facility and overall improvement in terms of efficiency, service and safety, which ultimately leads to profitability.

Two years ago, HMT-CH embarked on the 2S-3Fix activity. 2S comes from the 5S concept where “Sort out” and “Set in order“ were specifically focused on, while 3Fix is the standardising of Fixed Item, Fixed Quantity and Fixed Location.

Since my return, I noticed HMT-CH has continued strongly in the 2S-3Fix activity and I also noticed many kaizen points or improvement areas where production is concerned. With the continuous emphasis of the 2S-3Fix activity, HMT-CH now has the complete monozukuri system which is great!

At the same time, I also feel that HMT-CH has become a lot smarter as many processes have been automated and IoT technologies applied to it. These are small steps towards Hitachi’s ultimate aim of becoming an innovative partner for the IoT era.

Can you share some of your personal aspirations in the next 2-3 years?

Honestly, I am very happy with my current job and HMT that I have not thought of any personal promotion. Instead, I hope to see HMT-CH become the excellent company it aspires to be, as well as succeed in becoming a smart factory. As you know, being a smart factory means an improvement in overall productivity. Which is why I am confident that with the implementation of IoT and working closely with the Lumada Center Southeast Asia, HMT-CH will successfully become a smart factory showcase by 2020.

Company Feature:Hitachi Metals (Thailand) Ltd. Chonburi Factory