CASE STUDY | Smart Manufacturing

One Solution Meets Variety of Needs for OEM Partner Greatech

Independent Cart Technology provides firm with the flexibility required to design sector-specific production systems.

Greatech Technology Berhad is a Malaysia-based leading automation solutions provider involved in the design, development and production of system, machinery and equipment for its customers’ manufacturing processes.

Kho Kee Chen

Business Unit Manager, Instruments & Control

Challenge

Flexible system design

Solution

Rockwell Automation Independent Cart Technology
MagneMover® LITE™ intelligent conveyor system
QuickStick® intelligent conveyor system

Result

Flexible configuration
System scalability
Increased workforce productivity
Reduced engineering time

Kho Kee Chen is Business Unit Manager, Instruments & Control, for Greatech Technology Berhad. The Malaysia-based firm is a leading automation solutions provider and system integrator. Their machinery and equipment are installed across the world, including in China, India, Singapore, Vietnam, the US, and Europe. They are a Gold OEM Partner in our PartnerNetwork™ as well.

Challenge

Flexible System Design

Greatech serves customers in the solar, semiconductor, consumer electronics, e-mobility, and life sciences industries. While customer requirements vary by sector, they all share a common need.

“Flexibility of system design, especially for EV and solar where they build bigger lines. They require a more distributed panel system, which operates like a distributor center,” Chen explained. “However, in the life sciences and semiconductor industries, they’re lightweight. Everything is designed to be compact, space saving and efficient in terms of speed.”

Solution

Independent Cart Technology Provides Customer-Specific Configuration

Whether requirements are large or small, Greatech uses Rockwell Automation’s Independent Cart Technology to help develop their customer solutions.

“We find great variety in the Rockwell Automation product portfolio, especially a wide range of motion systems that allow us to design specific configurations to meet customer needs,” Chen said. “For example, for semicon and life sciences, we use the MagneMover® LITE™ product, and for EV, which is heavy-duty, we use QuickStick®.”

The MagneMover is designed to move small-to-medium loads while the QuickStick is for medium-to-high loads. Both are intelligent conveyor systems that feature standard building blocks and modular components for easy assembly and reconfiguration to provide the scalability required to respond to production demands.

Result

Scalability for Growth

Chen noted that both motion systems provide the system integrator and its customers with significant benefits.

“The flexibility of the configuration allows customers to expand when they need it, especially in the EV industry where the demand is dynamically changing. They need to grow fast,” Chen said. “The systems are also space saving which allows customers to better utilize their entire production area.”

“One of our key life sciences customers was able to reduce 25% of their overall footprint using the MagneMover LITE transport product through multiple complex networks of processes. This brings us additional cost savings in the long run on overall solutions to our customers,” he added.

Increased Workforce Productivity

For Greatech, the ability to use a technology from a single provider has increased the efficiency and productivity of its engineering team.

“The most important thing we’ve seen as a systems integration company is a reduction in engineering hours by having one brand that is able to support all platforms,” Chen explained. “The unified program allows us to do everything in one place so we can design one system to another system seamlessly without changing a lot of software coding.”

Chen added the single platform also saves time spent training and troubleshooting issues.

“Using different brands and platforms require new skills and knowledge,” he said. “With one platform, the team increases its system mastery rather than having to learn several systems at once.”

Plans to Explore Digital Twin Software

Greatech plans to adopt additional Rockwell Automation technologies to help the firm broaden its expertise and services.

“We would like to explore more opportunities not only in OT but also expanding our capabilities in IT as well as some of the virtual commissioning solutions like Emulate3D™ that allow us to simulate systems before we build them,” Chen explained. “With this digital twin software, we can optimize the process and design to ensure the lines are built and perform as intended for our customers.”

Published November 11, 2024