HSV aims for growth through digitalisation

Minister for Industry, Science and Technology Karen Andrews has announced a software collaboration to help HSV expand production lines and tap into global exports of their performance vehicles.

The software collaboration brings together HSV, the Advanced Manufacturing Growth Centre (AMGC) and Siemens.

“What’s so exciting about this announcement is that it demonstrates the benefits of going digital in all types of industries,” said Andrews. “By increasing the digitalisation of HSV’s manufacturing process, they expect at least a 20% increase in performance. This will in turn create more demand for the local supply chain.

“Embracing digital technology allows Australian manufacturers to compete on value, not on cost, which is so important to their ongoing success and will allow them to grow and create new local jobs.”

Also present at the announcement were Tim Jackson, CEO of HSV; Jeff Connolly, Chairman and CEO of Siemens Australia Pacific; and Dr Jens Goennemann, Managing Director of AMGC.

Jackson said that the introduction of digital processes will significantly help the teams and support their growing business.

“Right now we have around 350 people, with one of our lines operating 24 hours a day (three shifts) to keep up with demand. The remanufacturing process requires significantly more work to the vehicles than when we were producing the Commodore. This software will make a big difference to the flow of information across our organisation and will connect everyone through a centralised digital thread.”

The software, known as Teamcenter, is designed to connect people and processes, across functional areas, with a digital thread for innovation. People across the organisation can take part in the product development process more easily than before.

“We have a great product that competes in the highly competitive Australian automotive market,” added Jackson. “Each new product adds between 350 and 600 new components. This hi-tech software will support our new model portfolio.

“In order to bring these new vehicles to life we have nearly twice the engineers and five times the manufacturing team than when we rolled the last Commodore off the line. We are proud of the level of design and engineering happening in Australia, and the use of improved software tools to improve our productivity.”

The collaboration, enabled by AMGC’s project fund, will see HSV implement Siemens’ product life cycle management software for productivity gains. Digitalising the manufacturing process is a step towards preparing for the Fourth Industrial Revolution, said Connolly.

“This announcement underlines that Australian companies taking the step of Industry 4.0 technology implementation can confidently compete and play their part within global value chains,” he said. “I congratulate the government and HSV for this real exemplar of the emerging opportunities.”

Dr Goennemann said: “All manufacturers can become advanced manufacturers given the right conditions and willingness to invest. It’s not what they make but how they make it that makes them competitive.”

The update will see HSV set the benchmark for other small-to-medium enterprises looking to digitalise their production capabilities and scale up. AMGC and HSV will share their feedback through a series of workshops in capital cities in the future.

“I’m really proud to see a company like HSV, with such great Australian heritage, adopt digitalisation in their manufacturing facility because it sets a great example of what is possible for the many thousands of Australian SME manufacturers,” said Dr Goennemann.