Bharat Forge Aluminiumtechnik

Bharat Forge Aluminiumtechnik, an aluminium forging supplier to the automotive industry based in Brand-Erbisdorf, Eastern Germany, faced mounting energy costs across its production facility. The company relied on manual meter reading to track consumption — a slow, error-prone process that offered no visibility into real-time demand spikes. As a certified high energy user subject to strict legal documentation requirements, Bharat Forge needed a compliant, modern alternative. Without automated peak load detection, the facility's three high-temperature furnaces could operate simultaneously at maximum draw, generating avoidable demand charges and leaving energy costs per product undefined.

Bharat Forge partnered with Rockwell Automation to deploy an integrated energy management and analytics platform across its new casting house, built in 2013. The system combines Allen-Bradley CompactLogix programmable automation controllers and POINT I/O modules for data acquisition with FactoryTalk Historian for time-series archiving and FactoryTalk VantagePoint EMI for real-time visualization and reporting. Energy data from gas, water, and electricity meters is collected via Modbus and M-Bus protocols and routed through the CompactLogix controllers into the historian layer. Rockwell Automation's service team handled initial commissioning and staff training, while the architecture was designed for internal administration — enabling Bharat Forge to build and modify custom reports without relying on external vendors. A phased rollout began with the casting house, with planned expansion across the full production facility.

The Rockwell Automation deployment delivered measurable operational and financial improvements:

• 15% reduction in peak load occurrences by enabling furnace communication to prevent more than two units operating under high-energy conditions simultaneously
• 5% reduction in overall energy consumption within the casting house
• Renegotiated energy supply contracts based on actual consumption data, reducing unit costs
• Precise per-asset energy cost mapping, enabling more accurate product pricing
• Replaced manual meter rounds with a continuous, automated data capture process
• Real-time OEE analysis and historical data management enabled through live machine data integration

The shift from reactive to predictive energy management gave production management the information needed to act before peak charges occur.

• Furnace coordination is a high-leverage intervention: In aluminium forging, simultaneous high-load furnace operation is a primary driver of demand charges — enabling inter-machine communication can eliminate this without capital-intensive equipment changes.
• Start with one production area: A phased rollout allows staff to build familiarity with the system and surfaces configuration issues before full-facility deployment.
• Internal administration capability reduces long-term cost: Designing the system for self-service reporting cuts dependency on vendor support and speeds response to changing regulatory requirements.
• Real usage data strengthens supplier negotiations: Granular consumption records provide objective leverage when renegotiating energy contracts.
• Compliance requirements can drive ROI: Mandatory energy documentation for certified high users becomes a strategic asset when the underlying system also delivers operational insight.