Bharat Aluminium Company Limited (BALCO), India’s iconic aluminium producer, is undertaking strong measures to leverage technology and foster digitalization across business verticals to maximize operational excellence, in line with its vision of contributing to the development of nation holistically. Speaking on BALCO’s vision and manufacturing prowess Mr. Abhijit Pati, CEO and Director, BALCO, said, “The safety and security of our people and assets are of paramount importance to us. BALCO has been one of the early adopters in India to explore the field of smart technologies in its operational set-up. These investments and skills further bolster the culture of safety and productivity that we have meticulously fostered across the organization. The technology driven endeavors are helping to create a future-ready organization that manufactures aluminium for a self-reliant India.”
BALCO has extensively deployed technologies for bolstering safety across business units. Suraksha Sankalp Kutumbh is the company’s umbrella project for digital transformation of safety. The project entails five modules namely Augmented/Virtual/Mixed Reality Training Centre, Video Analytics, Sustainability Mobile App, E-learning course on Safety Modules for Competency Building, and Digitalization of Workforce Connectivity, aimed at skill development, auto detection of unsafe acts and conditions, driving digital safety culture & safety interactions, work force safety, productivity improvement and tracking of red zones. To bolster its security system, BALCO has launched an automated and highly sophisticated Centralised Security Operations Centre (CSOC). Deployment of CSOC enables BALCO’s Security, Traffic Safety and Supply Chain Security functions to leverage digital intelligence and data insights for better and agile decision making.
For integrating smart automation in its plant operations and to cease any manual intervention, BALCO has set up end-to-end Digital Dashboards for real-time data and trend monitoring of various business operations through different projects. For example, ‘Hot Spot Detection System for Coal Yard Using Thermal Image Processing’ offers thermal inspection of coal yard to capture hot spots and raise real-time alarm. Another project for ‘Boiler Tube Leakage Prediction Using AI/ML Pulse Edge’ offers a more reliable and evidential method of prediction analysis of Boiler Thermal Profile, to detect and give warning in advance about leakages. Similarly, BALCO’s HR function has embarked on a digital transformation initiative to build next generation workspace focused on streamlining its HR processes. This project, known as ‘V-Aikyam’, is being deployed across all Vedanta group companies’ aims to bring together the entire employee life cycle in a single platform. BALCO is committed to undertake initiatives continually with the goal of contributing towards building a technology driven India.
About Bharat Aluminium Company Limited
BALCO was incorporated in year 1965 as the first Public Sector Undertaking (PSU) in India and since then it has been closely associated with the Indian Industrial Growth, in a pivotal role. Bharat Aluminium Company Ltd. was an Indian government owned aluminium producer under Ministry of Mines, Government of India. In 2000, the Ministry of Mines, Government of India sold it to Vedanta Resources when Atal Bihari Vajpayee-Bharatiya Janta Party-National Democratic Alliance-led-government was in power. In 2001 Govt. of India disinvested 51% shares of Bharat Aluminium Company Limited (BALCO) to Sterlite Industries Limited a subsidiary of Vedanta Limited. Producing 20% of the country’s aluminium today, BALCO produces nearly 6 lakh tons of Aluminium per annum.