Indian manufacturing warming up to digitisation

By OEM Update Editorial June 30, 2017 4:26 pm IST

Indian companies have realised that they need to invest in these technologies today to avoid huge capital investments tomorrow.

Indian Machine Tool Manufacturers’ Association (IMTMA) is the national Association of machine tools and allied industries. It is the single point of reference for the machine tool industry in India and has a membership of around 475 organisations. P.G. Jadeja, President, IMTMA explains why digitisation is becoming integral part in today’s manufacturing.

Digitisation drives revenues
Digitisation hauls up internal processes, enhances efficiencies, attracts employees and improves the overall profitability of the industry. Manufacturing industry in its early days may have been slow to the advent of digital technologies but of late this has gathered steam with the realisation of the impact of digitisation across the manufacturing value chain. The switch is evident with manufacturers relying more on technology for troubleshooting than ever before. Adoption of digitisation in manufacturing process enables companies to do quick exchange of data, store large chunks of data locally without limitations, enrich processes with digital expert knowledge and generate valuable insights from the ‘big data’ and facilitate communication and partnerships. Digitisation drives the revenues of an organisation, it increases future profitability. As a result, more and more companies are willing to invest in technologies such as sensors, connectivity devices, software and applications such as manufacturing excellence systems.

In industries such as aerospace and defence which are business-to-business sectors deployment of digital technologies impacts product development, manufacturing and supply chain management. For an automotive sector that is focused on a business-to-consumer model, the use of digital technologies impacts product innovation, marketing, customer relationship management and services, etc.

Ready to embrace digitisation
India is an emerging economic powerhouse with a strong focus on growth. This can be gauged from the ‘Make in India’ initiative and the ‘Digital India’ initiative. Indian companies by leveraging the technological breakthroughs can build a digital ecosystem and add significant value for their customers. Manufacturing sector is warming up to digitisation in order to keep pace with its global peers. New age technologies such as Industry 4.0, Internet of Things, Cloud Computing, 3D Printing, and Big Data Analytics are finding favour with Indian companies. Indian companies have realised that they need to invest in these technologies today to avoid huge capital investments tomorrow. In short, the manufacturing segment is ready to embrace digitisation in all its aspects.

‘Smart’ is the future
Today manufacturing is highly automated and IT-enabled. Automation is fairly well established in manufacturing. By linking automation with intelligent devices and information technology, manufacturing systems are becoming “Smart”. Manufacturing technologies are undergoing dramatic changes and evolving exponentially in the areas of machine to machine communication, big data analytics, artificial intelligence and networking. These paradigm shifts are making factories smarter, safer, more productive and sustainable. Smart manufacturing is envisioned as the future of manufacturing. It integrates human ingenuity coupled with data and technology to revolutionise the development and application of manufacturing intelligence to all aspects of business.