Ohtake aimed to improve ramen quality control with IoT
Staying up-to-date with innovation is what all businesses need to do, especially in an era which technologies are being developed and transformed rapidly. ABeam Consulting, a business consulting company with an expertise in digital transformation, presented a case study of OHTAKE, a ramen machine manufacturer in Japan, who successfully adapted their business for the digital era by making a 180-degree change. From aiming to be the best ramen machine provider, to focusing on the customers’ needs. ABeam helped OHTAKE to transform its operation with Data Driven Manufacturing and IoT technology. Ms. Supreeda Jirawongsri, Integrated Enterprise Solutions Principal of ABeam Consulting (Thailand) Ltd.,a subsidiary of the global consulting company ABeam Consulting Ltd., which originated in Japan with an expertise in digital transformation,revealed that digital transformation implementors had to be aware of the market and consumer needs to connect with the organization in digital form. ABeam has 3 innovative digital transformation solutions, namely Data Driven Manufacturing (DDM), Data Driven Engineering (DDE) and Connected Home Appliances, which can be adapted to utilize in various businesses. To illustrate this, Ms.Supreeda gave an example of the ramen machine manufacturer in Japan named OHTAKE which had successfully implemented Data Driven Manufacturing into their business operations, to control and predict machine maintenance in the production line through partnership with ABeam Consulting Ltd. (Japan). OHTAKE is a ramen machine manufacturer in Japan founded in 1880. The company started with hand-made ramen until the industrial era when they have adopted the machine into their business. Since then, it had developed various kinds of ramen machines for more than 100 years. When entering digital era, OHTAKE turns to IoT to improve their machine maintenance capabilities and increase ramen quality. Instead of using the traditionally way of selling machines, they changed their business direction by 180 degree, and worked closely with their customers to identify needs and develop the solution together instead. OHTAKE went to ABeam Consulting (Japan) with two goals in mind: improving operation rate of its equipment, and stabilizing product quality. The operation rate is the rate where a machine is operational versus the rate at which it was broken. A broken machine can be translated to loss business opportunities for OHTAKE’s customers-leaving them unsatisfied. To meet its goal of helping its customers run the machine smoothly, OHTAKE needs to know all the possible problems to prepare the best prevention, or to solve them immediately. As for the second goals, one of the criteria of measuring ramen’s quality is whether one string of ramen has the same weight as another, and OHTAKE has faced this unstable weight when the ramen was cut into pieces. Therefore, OHTAKE asked ABeam to integrate IoT technology with their machines in order to collect data and understand the relationships between the machines and all possible environmental factors such as temperature and humidity. Ramen production process begins when flour, eggs, water and other ingredients are mixed together to form a dough. The dough was then cut into strings before getting steamed, fried and packed into little packaging bags. To help improve operation rate, ABeam Consulting installed RFID tags on the machines’ blades to find the most used blade which might need maintenance. The machine circulation and vibration of the motor were also being measured along with the thickness of the noodles. Lastly, a couple other sensors were placed at the beam and the fryer to detect humidity and temperature around the machine at any given moment. After being collected, all the data were sent to PLC which is the cooperation with MITSUBISHI Electric to store the analog data before being uploaded to SAP Leonardo via WIFI. SAP Leonardo is a solution that OHTAKE and ABeam Consulting take part in selecting to develop an industry–leading quality production. All information has been collected and analyzed using predictive analytics before presenting the result to clients. The example can be seen from inspection such as capturing all the information via RFID and the sensors allowing the OHTAKE and ABeam to comprehend the data from each motor and predict machine failure before they occurred. The system will suggest a suitable time to inspect the machinery and immediately prevent the problem before they arise–thus increasing operation rate. Lastly, ABeam Consulting has analyzed the factors affecting the product quality and found that humidity and temperature were the important factors impacting the noodle quality. ABeam Consulting innovative digital transformation has helped OHTAKE to substantially improve their ramen machine with proactive and preventive maintenance as well as controlling the temperature and humidity to improve the product quality while managing cost. In the future, OHTAKE and ABeam Consulting will develop and adapt innovation regarding other digital transformation solutions to use more comprehensively for further success. Related Link OHTAKE Read the full article
