The Economic Times Industry 4.0 Summit to deliberate on digitization of manufacturing

By OEM Update Editorial June 22, 2019 12:46 pm IST

Industry leaders converge to offer their insights and analyse the increased digitalization of Indian manufacturing under Industry 4.0

The last few decades of the 20th century saw Industry 3.0 firmly take root across the world, and the advent of computer systems and automation ruled the industrial scene. India, however, did not embrace this change fully, and in retrospect this proved to be a blessing in disguise as the nation is now geared up to catapult directly into Industry 4.0, which will connect people, processes and machines like never before. The next half decade of manufacturing promises to represent a radical shift in the way industry operates, as existing technologies and capabilities in the manufacturing and production industry radically transform. As traditional manufacturing practices give way to sophisticated technology, it will offer real-time visibility of the complete value chain, thus allowing for better decisions, and speedy recalibration, leading to greater efficiency and productivity.

India’s manufacturing sector is expected to be the 5th largest in the world by 2020, with analysts expecting it to touch US$ 1 trillion by 2025, by which time it will contribute 25-30 per cent of national GDP and create up to 90 million domestic jobs. There are many factors that could help India become a world-class manufacturing hub with favorable business conditions, such as large pool of engineers; young working population; labor wages and growing domestic market for consumption of manufactured goods. This makes it imperative to bring the ever increasing digitalization of manufacturing under the scanner

The Economic Times Industry 4.0 Summit 2019, scheduled to be held on 19th June in Chennai and 21st June in Pune,will bring together 250+ senior decision makers from the manufacturing industry under one roof. Delegates will get to leverage insights from industry leaders, get hands on with the latest innovations, interact with and get inspired by local and global experts.The summit represents a unique networking and ideation platform that will help attendees interface with industry peers and imbibe best-in-class practices.

Sangita Reddy, Joint MD, Apollo Hospitals and Senior VP, FICCI, said, “Technology is today integral to efficiency and sustainability of businesses. Particularly in manufacturing, advancements such as smart production lines, agile customer communication and cutting-edge remote service capabilities will help organizations to save time, cut costs and be much more accountable to stakeholders than ever before. Hence it is vital that manufacturers embrace the change that contemporary technologies can usher into manufacturing and utilise it to make their business models sustainable and address the needs of discerning consumers.”

Hari Om Rai, Chairman & MD, Lava International, opined “Complete automation is more of a dire need of developed economies who had to let go of their manufacturing operations to low cost destinations. With industry 4.0, it is a great opportunity for them to bring the manufacturing back to their homes. India, however, should not be bogged down by the hype created by the developed economies. With millions of people, hungry for employment, we need to draw a fine balance between people and technology and aim to become the next global hub for manufacturing. About 1.38 billion god-made robots along with our software industry can give any kind of robotics run for their money for at least next 25 years. And that should be enough for India to move to the next stage of development.”

Vijay Sethi, CIO, Hero MotoCorp, said, “Digitalization and smart automation era has already started transforming the way organizations work today. For each organization, the journey to Digitalization and Industry 4.0 is inevitable and there will be immense opportunities, but at the same time in every decision makers mind there will be lot of questions that need answers.”

Rajesh Uppal, CIO, Maruti Suzuki, stated, “We are moving past the POC stage and can see some real value in digitalization of manufacturing, whether it’s predictive maintenance, RPA (Robotic Process Automation), we are reaching efficiency in businesses through them. We are fairly adopting many of these technologies. One of the major concerns in Industry 4.0 would be capturing the right data. We need to get machines to handle that and our legacy machines are not capable of doing so. Doing that requires lot of investment, beyond investment we also run the risk of disrupting the current business, so it becomes quite challenging to streamline certain digitalization projects.”

The speakersat the summit will touch upon topics like The Industrial Internet of Things, Cybersecurity, The Cloud, Additive Manufacturing, Autonomous Robots, Simulation, Horizontal and Vertical System Integration, and more.It will also offer:
• Learn from global success stories
• Live interactionswith global leaders
• Insights into innovative technologies
• Focused and exclusive business discussions
• One on one meetings, industry focused tracks that inspire new business ideas

Industry 4.0 is well and truly underway, and those organisations that do not embrace it are at a great risk of being disrupted. By 2023, the competitive advantage of business in all industries will be driven primarily by innovations developed in AI. The fourth industrial revolution will allow for new ways to design organisations to operate and it will also transform the way we work, making an understanding of this new reality not an option, but an industry-wide imperative.

About Times Strategic Solutions Limited
Times Strategic Solutions Ltd., functional under the brand name ET Edge, is an Economic Times initiative founded to empower multiple industries and segments by sharing critical business knowledge through strategic conferences and summits. Encompassing the Indian business vista, ET Edge strives to bring together visionaries and key leaders on its knowledge platforms to create social and business ecology conducive to the positive changes required by the industry.