Bosch: going digital in Vietnam for ASEAN and worldwide

In the last decade, RBVH has come a long way from just being a support centre, growing into a leading development hub for Bosch Group globally

Bosch Vietnam also operates a centre for research and development for software engineering and business solutions (Robert Bosch Engineering and Business Solutions Vietnam Co., Ltd.) and an Automotive Research and Development Centre in Ho Chi Minh City.

Robert Bosch Engineering Vietnam (RBVH) was established in 2010 to act as a low-cost engineering support centre for Bosch Group. However, over the past decade, RBVH has come a long way to grow into a leading development hub for the global group.

The focused approach of Bosch Vietnam and the availability of skilled local workforce allow RBVH to be at the forefront of innovation and digital transformation. Back in 2014, when German Chancellor Angela Merkel named Industry 4.0 as a growth driver for manufacturing in Germany, Bosch was among the first to devise an adoption strategy.

Bosch is an early adopter of the Internet of Things (IoT) and is already on the path of transforming itself into an IoT company by 2025. Here in Vietnam, Bosch started setting up teams to work on these solutions as early as 2016.

As of now at Bosch Engineering Vietnam, more than 50 engineers work on products and solutions for Industry 4.0.

This talented pool of engineers is trained by Bosch experts in India and Germany for various skills required for developing and delivering solutions for IoT and digital transformation.

Baskaran Rakklappan, managing director of RBVH, said that the vision of his organisation growing into a digital innovation hub within ASEAN for Bosch Group and its global customers while creating value for its employees and Vietnamese people.

Meanwhile, for Aravind H S, head of digital practice atRBVH, said the future of manufacturing will be dependent on how manufacturing value streams are optimised using different kinds of data.

He sees edge computing, machine learning, and AI as growth drivers for the factories of the future, adding that his team has already developed a solution called Device Bridge which can connect and collect data from a range of control systems and sensors.

As many countries in ASEAN, particularly Vietnam, are largely export-driven economies, Aravind said he expects good demand for forecasting, planning, and scheduling supported by digital supply chain tools for the real-time tracking of assets and goods.

The talented pool of engineers at RBVH is trained by Bosch experts in India and Germany for various skills required for developing and delivering solutions for IoT and digital transformation

Many Bosch factories around the globe are already using these solutions and are benefitting from better quality at reduced cost with increased machine availability.

Meanwhile, Nihal Ranjan, senior lead consultant at Bosch, emphasised improving quality and manufacturing efficiency by collecting and analysing the right data.

He suggested organisations to create a robust data strategy to collect relevant data rather than all data. He added that Bosch is already benefitting immensely from data analytics and he predicted further upward trends for Bosch and other global companies.

He suggests extensive use of Auto ML for predictive maintenance and vision solutions using machine learning for various product verification and validation in manufacturing.

Pursuing a dual strategy of leading user and provider for new technology and solutions, Bosch became a carbon-neutral company in early 2020, attesting to the company’s focus on sustainability in business operations.