Govt facilitating industry to boost Digital Manufacturing Ecosystem

To discuss and deliberate on the role of Digital & Smart Technologies for transforming manufacturing companies in terms of capacity building, improving productivity & efficiency, and upscaling the overall growth, CII Northern Region organised the 3rd edition of its flagship Conference on Digital Manufacturing today.
 
Manufacturers are always looking to invest in technology that drives greater efficiency and visibility, and many are already using innovative manufacturing technology. Leading manufacturers have been quick to adopt innovative technologies in recent years, driving an urgent and growing need to connect these technologies through a truly integrated smart manufacturing approach. Understanding the value and ROI potential of smart manufacturing will enable businesses to pursue the technology they need to become more agile, resilient, and prepared to maximize future growth.
 
CII’s virtual conference, thus, aimed to provide a platform for manufacturing, technology and telecom players to discuss the various aspects and trends that are poised to act as a key enabler to create digital manufacturing ecosystem in India. The topics revolved around factories of future, disruptive technologies in Manufacturing, challenges in digitization journey, Local (Aatma Nirbhar) ecosystem of service providers, etc. The conference saw  speakers from L&T, Mahindra & Mahindra, ITC, Tata Communications, V-Guard, Siemens, Vodafone and others.
 
The Chief Guest at the occasion, Kumar Vineet, MD, UP Electronics Corporation Ltd, Government of Uttar Pradesh shared the State’s efforts to facilitate the industry in creating and boosting the Digital Manufacturing Ecosystem. He said that the state manufacturing Policy provided very attractive incentives over and above government of India incentives. He stressed and emphasized on education and skilling students that would help absorb and assimilate as good manpower in a digital manufacturing ecosystem. “Only when the industry works in coordination with the States with an economic vision, can rapid economic development in the country be achieved”, said Mr Vineet.
In his welcome address, Ravi Pisipaty, Conference Chairman and Head of Plant Operations, Hero MotoCorp Ltd said, “Digital Manufacturing trends are going to change the manufacturing landscape in times to come. The adoption of Digital Manufacturing is something that we have to do together.” He alluded to autonomous robots, simulation, big data and analytics, augmented reality, the cloud, cybersecurity, additive manufacturing, horizontal and vertical integration, the Internet of Things and artificial intelligence, which impact the entire production value chain. He further added that India as a country had embraced technology and the focus on up-gradation of skills, and the country's highly flexible, resilient and adaptive workforce, which is multi-skilled and can undertake digital tasks from anywhere rather than a fixed location.
In her inaugural remarks, Esha Arya, Conference Co-Chairperson and Vice Chairperson, JBM Group said that the right mindset and the right digital partner were ‘key’ to successfully navigate the digital journey. “What we need to remember is that technology adaptation might be initiated in silos but for an organization to fully transform to a digitally enabled organization, AI has to become a part of the boardroom discussion. Strategy has to be devised, operational models and business models are to be rebuilt, culture has to be changed, thoughts have to change, people have to be trained and risks have to be accepted”, mentioned Ms Arya.
 
 
Addressing the participants, Lalit K Mishra, Conference Co-Chairman and Country Head, Cognex Sensors India Pvt Ltd mentioned that the extensive adoption of excellence models with digital technologies is the need of the hour in Indian Manufacturing. He added that Make in India through Digitization was an important transition in the manufacturing sector and it would bring competitiveness, Aatma Nirbharta, and make our manufacturing sector a bigger contributor to the GDP.
 
Alignment of trends and technologies is essential for products and process of smart mobility. In his address, Mangal Dev, Director, Hitachi India Pvt Ltd said that Digital Manufacturing would create a competitive advantage in the mobility sector. He emphasized that digital transformation could be achieved through social innovation.