Tata Motors Migrates to New MES with Negligible Downtime

Background

Despite a slow start, car manufacturing in India has shifted into the international fast lane.

The nation’s automotive industry – still in its infancy as late as the 1960s – has since accelerated. Today the world’s largest democracy is the sixth-largest producer of passenger cars and commercial vehicles.

Tata Motors has played a pivotal role in transforming transportation in India. During most of the 20th century, a car was a luxury reserved mostly for the rich.

Additionally, the majority of those vehicles either were imported or manufactured in India by multinational automotive companies. Tata Motors set out to become the first indigenous car manufacturer

In 1998, Tata Motors launched the first fully indigenous Indian passenger car, the Indica. In 2008, Tata Motors launched theNano – the world’s most affordable car

Tata Motors is committed to achieving world-class quality in every vehicle it produces. So when the company decided to replace the aging manufacturing execution system (MES) in one of its existing factories, it chose the FactoryTalk®ProductionCentre® system from Rockwell Automation, as a step towards standardizing its MES landscape.

Challenge
  • Challenges in upgrading a legacy MES resulting in availability and quality gaps

Solutions
  • FactoryTalk ProductionCentre Software

Results
  • Migration completed within planned downtime of 0.1 percent – normal production levels maintained
  • Improvements in product quality realized with the FactoryTalk system data-collection capabilities
  • New MES connects plant floor to enterprise, opening door to production, efficiency gains