When Infosys first worked with the Van Dorn Demag Corporation (VDDC), it started off with simple conversion work. Over time, the relationship evolved and Infy ended up designing a series of successful machines for VDDC. Prashant L Rao relates how it all happened and the challenges Infy faced in convincing its client that India could design world-class products

Dr M S S Prabhu says that while Infy encountered cynicism and contempt earlier, employees are now even getting preferential treatment from VDCC

Van Dorn Demag Corporation (VDDC), part of a joint venture between Siemens AG and Robert Bosch, is one of the largest manufacturers and distributors of injection moulding machines to the North American plastics processing industry. VDDC has till date sold in excess of 30,000 machines in the world marketplace. It has the largest installed base of machines among injection moulding machinery manufacturers in the US today.

Injection moulding machines are used to combine metal with plastic, one type of plastic with another, and paper with wood. They are used to make household electrical appliances, industrial products, automotive applications, as well as precision parts and spectacles. Vertical injection moulding machines are optimal for insert moulding, and when combined with a product take-out device and peripheral equipment they allow manufacturers to set up an unattended production system.

Design and development
Infy’s relationship with VDDC kicked off with a project to convert paper drawings to Pro/Engineer models/drawings in September 1999.

“When we started, VDDC was very sceptical about Infosys’ capabilities. We started small, doing data conversion from one system to another. Then we demonstrated that we can contribute to product development,” says Dr M S S Prabhu, senior vice president, Infosys Technologies.

To do this, Infy provided high-level instructions on how VDDC could modify its product from, say, hydraulic to electrical. Eventually Infosys ended up contributing to the creation of new machines that were successes for VDDC. In the process, they cut time-to-market by 50 percent and costs by 25 percent. Infy’s strategy was to put its experienced engineers onsite and they established a rapport with VDDC’s engineering team. Initially, it was just one person at a senior level, then a small team went and finally that person returned to India to head a team back home.

Infosys got an opportunity to design a new vertical injection moulding machine, which was to be exhibited in an international plastics exposition. This project was completed on schedule and VDDC appreciated the value Infosys brought to the table in a crucial design project. This paved the way for VDDC recognising Infosys as a partner in their design and development projects.

The company also partnered VDDC in the development of two new machines ranges. Of these, two Praxis models are already on the market. ‘ZAP’ is still under development. Infy is also working on upgrades and enhancements to the Praxis line.

Praxis is a vertical injection moulding machine with a rotary table configuration. ZAP, an electrically operated injection moulding machine, is mission critical for VDDC to regain its lost market share.

Infosys’ work for VDDC
Infosys was involved in all stages of development, starting from conceptual design to prototype development. The concept design phase was crucial. A large number of alternatives were evaluated, since the more the number of alternatives tried out at design stage, the better the design is likely to be. Various alternate designs were evaluated for each of the sub-systems, before a concept was taken up for detailed design.

Major components and sub-systems were optimised. Optimisation was carried out in a structured and planned manner. Meeting the design objectives/limits with least cost and least weight requires a number of iterations. During each of these iterations the design was validated using Finite Element Analysis (FEA) leading to higher reliability and lower cost.

Infy used its own tools for project management and defect-tracking. The team also created reusable macros for managing data in the engineering tools used for the project.

Manufacturability aspects were taken into account at the design phase. This minimised the changes after release. The Infosys team consisted of engineering specialists with experience from different industries such as automobile, heavy engineering, etc. This resulted in fresh design alternatives.

Infosys’ Offshore and On site teams worked round the clock resulting in compressing the development time. 3D models, analysis results and other engineering documents were revised daily. Over the course of the project, 2-4 people worked on site and 8 to 12 back in India on the offshore team. The composition of the team changed, however, and people went and came back.

The Infosys team was part of technical presentations to top management/other departments, design and schedule reviews, interaction with vendors for selection/sizing of various OEM components, reviews with manufacturing department and vendors and actively participated during prototype development. Trust was a key component of this relationship, VDDC eschewed micro management and looked purely at results.

Challenges
“The first time we went to them we encountered hostility, cynicism and even contempt. They did not believe that a developing country could be a base for product development,” says Prabhu. He adds that now it is quite the opposite, with Infy people getting preferential treatment, if anything.

The speed of response of the Infosys team was often not matched by the speed at which VDDC supplied inputs. VDDC found it hard to keep up and Infy’s onsite people had to go back to VDDC folks for requirements. To complicate the task of managing the continuous flow of information, it had to be gathered from the client’s dealers, suppliers and principals.

The Aftermath
Today Infy is justifiably proud of this project since it proved the point that engineering product development can take place in India. An offshoot of the engineering work undertaken by Infy is an embedded systems and e-engineering study that the company is conducting. The idea is to collect process parameters from Injection Moulding Machines across the world over the Internet and monitoring it from a central location using a dashboard style interface. “We are working closely with VDDC on this project,” says Prabhu. Here Infy is using technology like RTOS and Java.

Success breeds success and that’s true here as well. Today Infosys is working on the design of a portion of the wing of the Airbus A380. As Prabhu says, “It is the same model, the same activity.”