Prysmian Launches Factory 4.0 pilot in Calais

PRYSMIAN

Prysmian Group recently announced the launch of a ‘Factory 4.0’ pilot project at its optical cable plant in Calais, France. The project, named ‘Fast Track’, is a significant step in the implementation of Prysmian’s Fast Forward Operations program. This focuses on creating smarter plants, leveraging interaction between digital knowledge and human expertise.

Andrea Pirondini

CHIEF OPERATING OFFICER AT PRYSMIAN GROUP

Fast Track ensures full traceability of all manufacturing activities and materials, while managing events that may affect production processes and providing all relevant real-time information needed to identify root causes and possible solutions. Eventually, Factory 4.0 solutions will be deployed at all of the company’s 82 global plants. The Fast Track project will be realised in partnership with Dassault Systèmes, the 3DEXPERIENCE Company, allowing Prysmian to leverage best-in-class applications for digital manufacturing operations management for the deployment of advanced IoT technologies and Big Data analytics. “Fast Track can be used to schedule machine maintenance and find deviations at an early stage, making our plants safer and more efficient,” explains Stefano Brandinali, Prysmian Group Global CIO. “We are changing our approach to problems and critical issues, preventing them from occurring rather than just reacting to them. Technology will be key in this.”

 

“To a significant extent, our success results from continuously improving processes, efficiency, product quality and employee capabilities in order to deliver the highest value to customers,” says Prysmian COO Andrea Pirondini. “Factory 4.0 is a transformational opportunity allowing us to streamline the way we work and support sustainable use of resources. Ultimately, this brings more value to customers and stakeholders. Speed and availability of information are core elements of Fast Track. The project aims to guarantee full reliability of the manufacturing processes in terms of volumes, quality and timing. This is achieved by making a huge leap forward in terms of production execution, and along the entire materials management chain.”

 

“After more than a year of analysis during which experts from manufacturing, supply chain and IT carried out thorough benchmark of internal and external best practices, we decided to choose Calais as the pilot location. Not only because it was quite advanced in terms of existing system functionalities, but also because of the organization of the decision making process and the quality and motivation of the resources towards the new challenge.”

 

“We plan to cover about three quarters of our total industrial footprint over a 4 to 5 year period. After the first full implementation in Calais, we will follow two parallel paths. On one hand, we will continue to enrich the FastTrack kernel to cover the rest of the energy plants, and through extended pilot implementations by main manufacturing cluster. On the other hand, we will start to extend the current release to the rest of the telecom optical plants. We have already started preparation work in Slatina Milcov, currently Europe’s the largest plant for optical fibre cables, and the largest in the Prysmian Group worldwide.”

“We faced several challenges during the startup phase and we are fully aware we will face new challenges with the next plants. I believe the decision to focus strongly on extreme commitment of the resources involved was a key success factor. The entire high-complexity project has involved almost 20,000 hours of dedicated effort to date. Bertrand Provost, Telecom System Operations South Europe played an important role in keeping the bar high. However extraordinary the next FastTrack release may be, new ICT progresses, new knowledge and best practices are constantly opening up new opportunities ahead of us. I believe this is not just my vision: striving for improvement is very much part of our company identity.”

 

© Copyright Prysmian Group.

All rights reserved.

Fast Track ensures full traceability of all manufacturing activities and materials, while managing events that may affect production processes and providing all relevant real-time information needed to identify root causes and possible solutions. Eventually, Factory 4.0 solutions will be deployed at all of the company’s 82 global plants. The Fast Track project will be realised in partnership with Dassault Systèmes, the 3DEXPERIENCE Company, allowing Prysmian to leverage best-in-class applications for digital manufacturing operations management for the deployment of advanced IoT technologies and Big Data analytics. “Fast Track can be used to schedule machine maintenance and find deviations at an early stage, making our plants safer and more efficient,” explains Stefano Brandinali, Prysmian Group Global CIO. “We are changing our approach to problems and critical issues, preventing them from occurring rather than just reacting to them. Technology will be key in this.”

 

“To a significant extent, our success results from continuously improving processes, efficiency, product quality and employee capabilities in order to deliver the highest value to customers,” says Prysmian COO Andrea Pirondini. “Factory 4.0 is a transformational opportunity allowing us to streamline the way we work and support sustainable use of resources. Ultimately, this brings more value to customers and stakeholders. Speed and availability of information are core elements of Fast Track. The project aims to guarantee full reliability of the manufacturing processes in terms of volumes, quality and timing. This is achieved by making a huge leap forward in terms of production execution, and along the entire materials management chain.”

 

“After more than a year of analysis during which experts from manufacturing, supply chain and IT carried out thorough benchmark of internal and external best practices, we decided to choose Calais as the pilot location. Not only because it was quite advanced in terms of existing system functionalities, but also because of the organization of the decision making process and the quality and motivation of the resources towards the new challenge.”

 

“We plan to cover about three quarters of our total industrial footprint over a 4 to 5 year period. After the first full implementation in Calais, we will follow two parallel paths. On one hand, we will continue to enrich the FastTrack kernel to cover the rest of the energy plants, and through extended pilot implementations by main manufacturing cluster. On the other hand, we will start to extend the current release to the rest of the telecom optical plants. We have already started preparation work in Slatina Milcov, currently Europe’s the largest plant for optical fibre cables, and the largest in the Prysmian Group worldwide.”

 

“We faced several challenges during the startup phase and we are fully aware we will face new challenges with the next plants. I believe the decision to focus strongly on extreme commitment of the resources involved was a key success factor. The entire high-complexity project has involved almost 20,000 hours of dedicated effort to date. Bertrand Provost, Telecom System Operations South Europe played an important role in keeping the bar high. However extraordinary the next FastTrack release may be, new ICT progresses, new knowledge and best practices are constantly opening up new opportunities ahead of us. I believe this is not just my vision: striving for improvement is very much part of our company identity.”

 

© Copyright Prysmian Group.

All rights reserved.