Hindustan Unilever Limited today announced that its Dapada factory has been recognised as a Sustainability Lighthouse by the World Economic Forum. This additional ranking acknowledges existing Lighthouses that are trailblazers for the future of responsible manufacturing - sites that continue to push the boundaries of technology to create digitally enabled manufacturing processes that increase speed, agility and resilience, plus significantly reduce any impact on the environment.

An independent expert panel at the World Economic Forum recognised the factory for implementing a series of advanced 4IR use cases, which are generating an impact on tangible metrics in sustainability. Machine learning powered energy optimisation One of the key initiatives was the deployment of Machine Learning on 1000 manufacturing and energy parameters to identify critical parameters to reduce energy consumption while maximizing productivity.

A model was deployed on the production lines to auto-correct 80% of losses in real-time through predictions based on historical trends. The models were also integrated with weather forecasts and historical energy trends to suggest a production run strategy based on the week's plan to minimize energy consumption. Faster & impactful eco-friendly formulation through Digital Twin To create new formulations and get it first-time-right, a Digital Twin was developed using historical data and key influencers. The digital twin was deployed to map multiple and complex manufacturing aspects to launch formulations that score higher on the sustainability quotient. Through analytics, the Dapada team was able to identify critical process parameters to control quality and improve productivity.

As a result of these steps taken by the Dapada unit, the digital transformation on sustainability has been considerably superior. Lighthouses apply 4IR technologies such as artificial intelligence, 3D-printing and big data analytics to maximise efficiency and competitiveness at scale, transform business models and drive economic growth, while augmenting the workforce, protecting the environment and contributing to a learning journey for all-sized manufacturers across all geographies and industries. The Global Lighthouse Network is a World Economic Forum project in collaboration with McKinsey & Co, factories and value chains that join the Network are designated by an independent panel of experts.