Chennai based Xcellent Automation started 23-years ago,as a regular supplier of sewing machines, but when the industry from the region started to perish, Xcellent invested its time in finding out the reason for such downfall. “In India apparel industry’s growth was steroids, a company would start with 100 machines and in a year would expand up to 500 and then later to 4000, after that it would start to perish. That is because the companies would become unmanageable,”Said Mathew V Thomas, Managing Director, Xcellent Automations Pvt. Ltd.
That is when the company ventured into developing a system with the aim of increasing the overall equipment effectiveness (OEE), shop floor efficiency and material tracking. “There are various similar systems present in the market from European and American companies, but they have not been successful in India, asthey are designed for larger volumes, whereas India requires something which can cater to smaller volumes and runs on numerous styles,” explains Mathew.After four years of intensive R&D, the company came out with Inspire Online Supervisory Control and Data Analysis system (SCADA) with OEE at its core to enable optimum utilization of the complete workforce and machines.
The system not only presents all kinds of shop floor related reports to the management, but also enables communication of instructions through the terminals straight to the operator. “You create the operation bulletin and enter it into the operating software of the system and it is communicated to each operator individually,” adds Mathew. Although a new entrant in an already competitive market, Xcellent has installed more than 3,000 terminals all over India, in just a year.
