The company

Bosch has had a presence in Australia since 1907, opening its first wholly owned subsidiary, Robert Bosch (Australia) Pty Ltd in 1954. In Oceania, Bosch generated revenues of more than 1.18 billion Australian dollars in 2021 and employs over 1,400 associates as of December 31, 2021.

Bosch’s regional activities are operated through eight wholly owned subsidiary companies and cover a diverse range of businesses including household appliances, security technology, power tools and accessories, engineering services and contract manufacturing, parts and equipment for automotive workshops and motorsport enthusiasts, franchised car servicing, services and solutions for manufacturers, drive and control technology, software innovations, agriculture technology projects, hot water and heating systems, service support for Bosch equipped eBikes and local diodes manufacturing.

The problem

Bosch Diodes applies lean manufacturing methodologies for constant process improvement, fast reactions and minimal down time.

In order to collect data reliably, paper documentation was used as it minimised production disruptions.

Although physical documentation allowed for almost constant uptime, it meant analysing information required too much manual effort and would only be done sporadically or to snapshot specific datasets.

Another issue with paper documentation is that it was not scalable as the business introduced more standards and process improvements such as new training requirements and work steps.

Bosch Diodes needed to introduce a reliable system that was scalable with growing and changing production and work health and safety requirements.

The solution

To solve the issues inherent to a paper documentation-based system, Bosch Diodes implemented a connected manufacturing environment.

Establishing an IoT enabled manufacturing environment allowed connectivity of equipment to collect information such as hourly part count, breakdown diagnostics, critical process information and test results.

Furthermore, websites were developed to manage the training of operators using the data being captured and fed back into the manufacturing environment. This ensured only qualified and certified workers were assigned to the correct manufacturing stations.

The benefits

Manufacturing data is now readily accessible and can be presented through live dashboards and interactive screens. Team leaders who manage shopfloor operations can use this data to manage and prioritise resources. Process engineers can also access real-time data sets to assist with problem-solving and process improvement activities.

Before implementing an IoT enabled manufacturing environment, workers were required to do a deep and lengthy dive into individual machines in order to collect critical information.

Now that process data is immediately and easily visible, workers can identify bottlenecks as well as patterns and correlations between process inputs and outputs without a lengthy manual process.

Furthermore, workers can identify upstream process reaction limits enabling earlier intervention for process deviations to limit or prevent impact on downstream operations and costs.

Finally, standardised process health measures can also be established and used to monitor and improve processes over time.

Overall, the digitisation of our manufacturing has provided a deeper understanding of processes, enabled faster reaction to issues, improved communication and facilitated faster and more informed decision-making.

Bosch is the sponsor of the IoT Alliance Australia and IoT Hub Insights series event on October 20 at the Bosch Australia Manufacturing Solutions (BAMS) factory in Clayton, Victoria. Book your ticket to get up to speed on manufacturing automation at this event.