Schneider Electric transforms its factory in Blumenau (SC) into a ‘smart factory’ – BNamericas

This is a machine translation of Schneider Electric’s press release

São Paulo, June 2022 – In the year in which it completes 75 years of its operations in Brazil, Schneider Electric announces that its industrial unit in Blumenau (SC) has been recognized as a smart factory . Through a factory transformation and modernization plan, called “Visão Blumenau 2025”, which came into force in 2019, the factory becomes the brand’s main production hub in South America. Among the factors pointed out by the leader in digital transformation of energy management and automation that led to recognition are: sustainability, cultural transformation and digitalization.

“As a smart factory , we are characterized by having a highly digitized factory floor connected with supervision and management in a digital way. In other words, our production processes flow with little or no paper, our operations continuously collect and share data through machines, devices and production systems”, says Eduardo Paiva, vice president of Global Supply Chain at Schneider Electric for South America. . “In this context, our transformation took place on several fronts, such as cultural, industrial and digital.”

Becoming a smart factory , the unit has reached around 20% in energy efficiency and, for the next two years, the projection is that the value will be between 30% and 35%. In addition, more than 99% of industrial and non-industrial waste generated in operations is reused (ie not sent to landfill). As a result, the company has reduced its carbon footprint and advanced its commitment to zero it by 2025.

The standard of intelligence achieved by the Blumenau unit fits the level called by Schneider Electric the “Smart Site Standard”, which makes it a smart factory . By becoming a smart factory, the unit achieved several advantages, including:

• Sustainability: the Blumenau project was developed based on Schneider’s sustainable commitments, including decarbonization – by 2030, the company expects to achieve zero emissions and, by 2050, zero emissions throughout its supply chain. Thus, with the smart factory, the expectation is to obtain a 15% growth in efficiency and a 30% reduction in the consumption of resources, such as energy, water, gases and paper.
• Cost reduction: with the increase in productivity and the gain in operational agility integrated with the technologies, the company has been able to produce more using less resources – especially financial resources.
• Attractiveness and quality: another benefit highlighted by Schneider is the fact that the unit is becoming increasingly attractive for exports – serving all countries in South America. In addition, it has strengthened itself as a specialist in the production of low and medium voltage electrical panel solutions for various segments of the electro-intensive and reclosers market for energy utilities.
• Success story: another advantage of becoming a smart factory is serving as an example to be followed not only by other units of the company, but also by suppliers and customers. The company maintains a communication channel and open visits so that partners can see, in practice, the benefits of each software and, mainly, the gains provided by EcoStruxure (a platform developed by the company that brings together connectable products, control and data analysis through software).
• New industry: another crucial factor in this transformation has been the new industrial layout, which is more agile, productive and works with the best lean manufacturing practices – focused on reducing waste from the “factory floor” to the administrative sectors.

The Blumenau unit currently produces 9,000 units per year – including low (up to 1 kV), medium voltage (1.2 up to 36 kV) panels and reclosers. In the coming years, the company expects to increase this variety with products such as the SM AirSeT medium voltage panel, a product that uses only pure air and vacuum, instead of sulfur hexafluoride (SF6), a greenhouse gas commonly used in the segment. By 2023, production capacity will increase by 30%.

After three years of preparation – with new technologies and processes being implemented -, the unit underwent an internal global audit process, the “Smart Operations”, in which it was evaluated on three pillars: operational excellence model, digital tools and adoption of smart tools.

The digital transformation journey at the unit had several stages. Among them are the elimination of visual analog management for digital and automated, and also the replacement of operational and management processes, which were previously analog and used a large amount of workload to collect and analyze, with digital processes with greater efficiency. . In addition, all employees were digitally included – regardless of the area.

In addition to it, the company has an Intelligent Distribution Center (CDI) in Cajamar – which has also undergone digital transformation. Opened in 2019, the CDI became a zero carbon building in 2020 and gained the “Waste to Resource” certification (which recognizes robust waste management practices) in 2021.

“One of our main challenges was to carry out this entire transformation without stopping operations and, above all, moving forward with the project during the pandemic period. In this process, we had a change of mentality and the adaptations in the digital tools had to be developed jointly”, says Paiva.

“All Schneider units – both factories and distribution centers – are following the path of digital transformation. Blumenau is serving as an example in several projects that we are developing around the world”, observes the vice president of Global Supply Chain.