Hyderabad plant joins Global Lighthouse Network

HYDERABAD, India – Dr. Reddy’s Laboratories Ltd. announced the recognition of its largest manufacturing facility in Hyderabad as part of the Global Lighthouse Network (GLN) by the World Economic Forum (WEF).

“With this recognition, the facility joins the GLN, a community of over 100 manufacturers that are showing leadership in applying Fourth Industrial Revolution (Industry 4.0 or 4IR) technologies to drive impact in productivity, workforce engagement, sustainability, and supply chain resilience,” the company stated October 11.

World Economic Forum’s Global Lighthouse Network is an initiative in collaboration with McKinsey & Co. Reportedly, factories and value chains that join GLN are designated by an independent panel of experts.

Dr. Reddy’s embarked four years ago on an ambitious program to “digitize its core.”

“This involved upgrade of infrastructure and digitization of processes for robust and comprehensive data capture,” the company said in a statement. “Real-time data and insights laid the foundation for Project ‘OpsNext’ which was initiated two years ago to transform the plant into an Industry 4.0-driven ‘Lighthouse’ factory, as defined by the WEF. The site saw the deployment of six of the eight technologies of 4IR – Advanced Analytics, Digital Twins, Robotic Process Automation, Augmented/Virtual/Mixed Reality, Digital Performance Management and Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT).”

According to the company, the opsNext team identified over 40 business results linked use cases impacting various aspects of productivity such as customer service, quality, energy consumption, sustainability, equipment efficiency and people productivity. The company also invested heavily in building people capabilities such as digital and analytics translators, data scientists and data engineers.

In response to business scenarios of price erosion, sustainable manufacturing practices, need for constant vigilance and maintenance of uncompromising standards of quality, the journey has already yielded significant results at the site – 43% manufacturing cost improvement, 30% reduction in production lead time, 41% energy consumption reduction, and a significant dip in quality deviations.

“The successful inclusion of our 25-year-old site in Hyderabad as a ‘Digital Lighthouse’ factory is a big milestone in our productivity improvement journey,” according to Sanjay Sharma, global head of manufacturing, Dr. Reddy’s. “We have seen a significant financial and operational impact from the journey. We are in the process of scaling and replicating this to the rest of our manufacturing network. Dr. Reddy’s aspires to be the most efficient pharma operations in the world. Our productivity improvement and digitalization efforts are key to staying competitive, meeting business imperatives, and meeting our ambitious ESG goals. Building such ‘factories of the future’ is integral to innovation and to build health care of the future.”

Sharma also said that this collaborative and cross-functional effort truly helps Dr. Reddy’s fulfill its purpose of ‘Good Health Can’t Wait’.

According to WEF, the global manufacturing community is lagging behind in its adoption of Fourth Industrial Revolution technologies.