FINAL TRAINING REPORT

ALLIED NIPPON LIMITED

ANSHUMAN KUMAR

2011ME20767

Mechanical Engineering Department, IIT Delhi Practical Training

Summer 2014 FORM A. Personal Information

1. Student particulars

Name Anshuman Kumar Entry no. 2011ME20767 Address Anupam House, B96 , Pocket 6 Program BTech NSG Sehkari Awas Samiti Course P & I Greater Noida, Gautam Budh Nagar Tel (H) - UP Tel (M) 7838634465 E-mail anshumankumar.iitd@gmail.com Tel

(other) 9868202415

Blog - PIN 201308

2. About the organization

Name Allied Nippon Limited CEO name Mr NC Agarwal Address A 12, Site IV, Industrial Area Tel +91 120 4539600 Sahibabad 201 010 Tel (M) District Ghaziabad Email anl@alliednippon.com UP (India) FAX +91-120 2896685 Blog - PIN 201010

3. Training program (weekwise)

Start date 18-5-2015 Weekly off Sat, Sun Working timings 11:00 AM to 7:00 PM 5 day working

Week no. From To Training assignment particulars

1 18-5-2015 22-5-2015 Introduction to plant operation, grinding, coating and packaging

2 25-5-2015 29-5-2015 Week with R&D department

3 01-5-2015 05-5-2015 Project related work

4 08-6-2015 13-6-2015 Project related work

4. Executive whom you report to

Name Mr Sunil Tyagi Tel (W) - Designation AGM Operation Tel (M) +91 9899608874 Address A 12, Site IV, Industrial Area Tel

(other) -

Sahibabad 201 010 FAX - District Ghaziabad Tel

(other) -

UP (India) E-mail suniltyagi@alliednippon.com PIN 122001

1 CONTENTS

- ABOUT ALLIED NIPPON LIMITED

- OBSERVATIONAL TRAINING OVERVIEW

- THE PRODUCTION LINE

- PLANT ASSESSMENT

o KEY STRENGTHS

o KEY PROBLEMS

- FINAL PROJECT

o PROJECT BACKGROUND & DESCRIPTION

o PROJECT SCOPE

o HIGH LEVEL REQUIREMENTS

o DELIVERABLES

o AFFECTED PARTIES

o METHODOLOGY

- SUMMARY & TEST RESULTS

2 ABOUT ALLIED NIPPON LIMITED

Allied Nippon Limited is a privately held company which was established as the result of a technical

collaboration with JBI for Brake Lining back in 1982. The consecutive years saw the setting up of a

manufacturing unit for Brake Lining, Brake shoes, Clutch facing and Brake blocks. The company has

been growing and evolving in the three decades that followed. A JV was signed with JBI somewhere

in the 1990s while the companys R&D center was approved by the Department of Scientific and

Industrial Research under Ministry of Science and Technology, Government of Indi in 1999.

More recently, the company has also ventured into production of Railway Brake Blocks in technical

collaboration with NABTESCO, Japan which led to commencement of the supply an indigenously

produced Railway Brake Blocks to Indian Railways.

2004 was an important year for allied Nippon as it saw the start of the production of commercial

vehicle disc brake pads. The company also established a new production line and ancillary facilities

for manufacture of Brake pads for Japanese OEM. In 2008, ANL became the first ever Indian company

to open a brake pad manufacturing plant at China.

Fast forward to the present day and we find that the company has established itself as a key player

in the selected business arena. Allied Nippons supremacy in this area is evident by their continued

commitment to the largest automotive companies and their respective OEMs as well as the presence

and wide acceptance of our own brand in the international market. Allied Nippon takes lead over

others with its development of new technologies through extensive research and trials. Accredited

by internationally recognized bodies, they meet global standards in production, quality and

technology. Beside safety, environmental protection is another important area for the company,

attended to as a priority.

3 OBSERVATIONAL TRAINING OVERVIEW

An entire week of my training was devoted to observational training.

This included guided tours of the various plant areas as well as independent observational

assignments. During this initial phase I was instructed to dedicate one or two days to each of the

major sub-plants and stations along the production line, namely:

Main mixer

Biscuit Mold

Back plate Cutting

Main Press

Slot grinder

Curing Ovens

Coating

Packaging Facility

4 THE PRODUCTION LINE

The brake pads manufactured at the plant follow a sequential process that starts at the mixers where

the main mixs ingredients are mixed together in pre-established proportions. The R&D wing supplies

the appropriate gravimetric numbers according to the product for which the mix is being made. The

major component in most of the brake pads that are aimed at national and international customers

have steel wool as a major component. In some brake pads however, especially those supplied to

local markets include asbestos as the major ingredient.

For commercials vehicles the process also include another major component known as the back-plate.

The plate is designed according to the specifications provided by the automobile manufacturers and

involves processes like blanking, punching, deburring and powder coating.

The brake pads are then subsequently manufactured by molding the mix into preforms. These are

essentially blocks of the mixture kept at a minimal pressure enough to ensure some rigidity. These

are then loaded into a hydraulic press which operates at a pressure of 2000 ppsi.

Once they have been given the time in the press as prescribed by the R&D department, the brake

pads are transferred to a curing oven where they stay for around 8 16 hours depending upon the

mix volume.

The pads, now rigid and ready to be ground are fed into a conveyor belt which runs them under a

grinding wheel. This process introduces a slot into the brake pad. This is done primarily for five

purposes:

i) The slot facilitates removal of the dust that is produced due to brake wear

ii) In some models, it serves as a set for the wear detection lead

iii) It allows the heat to escape better ( increased surface area )

iv) Provides allowance for expansion

v) Prevents partial failure

These brake pads are then forwarded to product specific packaging lines. Some of these pads are

powder coated with a disc cleaning agent which facilitates suitable mating of the brake pad with the

disc.

5 PLANT ASSESSMENT

Key Strengths

5.1.1 KAIZEN

The word Kaizen is a Japanese word which means good change. All around the plant, I was made

aware of numerous examples of Kaizen implementation where the management and the workers had

come together to implement small changes in the fixtures/work methodology/ emergency protocol

to make the functioning of the plant smoother. To me the most elegant solutions were those

implemented to facilitate efficient collection of grinding dust. Most of these are seen in the form of

minute changes to the dust collection network which flows through the entire plant and is latched to

all machines involved with the grinding process. This dust is then used again in the mixture and makes

for a significant part of the mold mixture. The company seems to have been highly influenced, as far

as the developmental and improvement strategy goes, by its technical collaborators and is making

plant level efforts to implement their suggestions and methodology.

5.1.2 5 s

5S is the name of a workplace organization method that uses a list of five Japanese words:

seiri, seiton, seiso, seiketsu, and shitsuke. Transliterated or translated into English, they all start with

the letter "S". There are five primary 5S phases: They can be translated as Sort, Systematize, Shine,

Standardize and Self-Discipline. The method describes how to organize a work space for efficiency

and effectiveness by identifying and storing the items used, maintaining the area and items, and

sustaining the new order. The decision-making process usually comes from a dialogue about

standardization, which builds understanding among employees of how they should do the work. The

managements emphasis on the implementation of this system was quite impressive and this has in

turn led to a variety of short term benefits.

5.1.3 Worker Motivation

The ANL plant in its entirety has a number of mechanisms in its framework which promote labour

cooperation and enthusiasm. A dedicated Fairness Committee, an Open door policy, worker

counselling services and incentives for quality of work are among the few things that I found

particularly positive for worker morale. The managers are responsible for nominating at least one

worker everyday as the Star Worker of the Day who if selected on the plant level, is suitably

rewarded.

The management lays special emphasis on reduction of disputes. I also witnessed a very convivial

relationship between some of the permanent workers and the manager. Tea time breaks are often a

time where the entire team, including workers and managers alike sit together and discuss each

others small issues.

Key Problems

5.1.3 Excess Movement

The layout of the plant struck me as a fairly inefficient one. The production line curves in and

around rooms at multiple floors and buildings. A lot of the material flow that happens right now is

highly inefficient as special personnel have been employed for that sole purpose. The management

however is aware of the situation and upon raising the issue, the reasons were very obvious. Fact is

that the current plant area is 300% of what it was twenty years ago and each time a new piece of

land was acquired around the old plant, the system became more and more complicated. Plans of

bringing the entire plant under one roof are currently under consideration and will hopefully be

implemented soon.

6 FINAL PROJECT

6.1 PROJECT BACKGROUND AND DESCRIPTION

As an intern in the plant, it took me a fair deal of time to understand the ongoing production and

planning processes. The problem statement that I've identified is a simple one.

The brake pads being manufactured at Allied Nippon are all exposed to certain quality tests which

ensure their proper functioning under a majority of all possible usage scenarios. These include:

1.) Hardness-50 to 100 HRR

2.) Specific Gravity-2.65 to 3.10

3.) Mold thickness must be .5mm more than standard thickness prescribed for that part

A new initiative by the R&D branch shows that these properties are achieved satisfactorily when the

press operates between certain pressure ranges.

This initiative explores the possibility of making pressure (and not compression distance achieved)

the operating parameter for all the operating presses as this could possibly ensure a better quality

as well as drastically reduce the machining tolerance required.

6.2 PROJECT SCOPE Objective: To achieve higher cost efficiency in brake pad production by manipulating pressure and

time in press of various brake pad variants instead of the compression stroke and hence saving on

the volume of mix required to create a suitable tolerance.

6.3 HIGH-LEVEL REQUIREMENTS It was established that the new set of process parameters should ensure the following:

Quality: The products produced must conform to the pre-established quality standards:

Hardness-50 to 100 HRR

Specific Gravity-2.65 to 3.10

Mold thickness must be .5mm more than standard thickness prescribed for that part

The pressure applied should be within the operating range of the existing presses.

Overall cost effectiveness

Low investment if possible

6.4 DELIVERABLES

The project aims to deliver tweaks in the way production processes associated with brake pads at

ANL are parametrized so as to achieve:

Reduced instances of defected product instances

Direct material cost reduction

Shift of variable pressure from temperature and pressure to just time

6.5 AFFECTED PARTIES

Press Operators

Shop floor Management

Quality Control Department

Downstream Process Chain stakeholder e.g. Grinding, curing, packaging etc.

Downstream supply Chain Stakeholders e.g. Suppliers of various ingredients, Customers of

Allied Nippon Limited etc.

6.6 METHODOLOGY

In order to better understand the problem and ensure that my suggestion were in coherence with

what is required to solve the problem the opinion of all stakeholders was considered. All members

of the management team were interviewed and opinion was sought from workers as well. It was

evident that changing the pressure and press temperature were activities that involve heavy setup

time as sometimes the dies needed to be given time in order to stabilize at the new temperature.

However, time inside the press was something that required no setup at all and could be readily

altered. After a preliminary analysis of the problem, some important aspects of the issue were

realized. A very basic barrier to the implementation of the new system was that changing the

parameters of the process would require some R&D work on the material parts and this would

essentially have to be started from scratch.

As is evident, a large volume of destructive testing would be required in order to establish the

required empirical correlations between the mix volume and the time in press. The operators

however felt that this one time investment would allow them to operate at a better efficiency and

by all means if a system based on this principle was put in place, it would make their life much

easier. It all comes down to proving the cost effectiveness of the solution.

7 SUMMARY & TEST RESULTS

Keeping in mind the pros and cons of the above mentioned ideas, and with the advice of my

internship coordinator, iterations were carried out at parameters calculated by the R&D

department for selected products representative of various product families.

The savings achieved have been tabulated below.

SAVING IN MIX BY FINE TUNING IN CV MOLDING 20/04/15

PART NO.

(R&D) MIX WEIGHT

(grm.)

(AFTER) MIX WEIGHT (grm.)

MAIN MIX

U/L - M4

MAIN MIX

U/L - M4

DIFF IN MAIN MIX

DIFF IN U/L

PRODUCE IN APRIL

SAVING IN MAIN MIX IN

KG

SAVING IN

UNDER LAYER IN KG

ACV-014 1120 210 1080 170 40 40 1840 73.6 73.6

ACV-016 700 100 680 100 20 0 320 6.4 0

ACV-017 900 170 880 170 20 0 280 5.6 0

ACV-029 1150 210 1080 170 70 40 280 19.6 11.2

ACV-032 470 70 450 70 20 0 1656 33.12 0

ACV-038-I 630 100 550 100 80 0 800 64 0

ACV-043 760 150 730 150 30 0 3080 92.4 0

ACV047 800 150 800 150 0 0 2640 0 0

ACV048 790 150 770 150 20 0 640 12.8 0

ACV050 660 110 660 100 0 0 680 0 0

ACV-055 1070 190 1040 170 30 20 3940 118.2 78.8

ACV-058 1200 210 1170 200 30 10 8680 260.4 86.8

ACV-059 830 150 800 150 30 0 640 19.2 0

ACV-060 770 120 710 120 60 0 1200 72 0

ACV-061 750 150 720 150 30 0 2960 88.8 0

ACV-062 900 170 900 170 0 0 7640 0 0

ACV-063 1090 190 1000 180 90 10 1600 144 16

ACV-065 760 150 720 150 40 0 3200 128 0

ACV-066 950 170 920 170 30 0 640 19.2 0

ACV-075(o) 630 100 600 100 30 0 1250 37.5 0

ACV-077 750 150 720 150 30 0 2920 87.6 0

ACV-078 1000 210 1000 200 0 10 3400 0 34

ACV-080 1120 200 1060 200 60 0 280 16.8 0

ACV-081 1000 170 930 170 70 0 280 19.6 0

MAIN MIX DM06 NAO503M ULM4

WEIGHT IN KG 2319.02 744.4

RATE /

KG 115 111 85 VALUE IN Rs 266687 63274

TOTAL VALUE IN Rs 329961