The Journey to Industry 4.0
VDMA India recently organized its international symposium on Industry 4.0, which emphasized on India’s readiness for Industry 4.0, how it can transform the country’s manufacturing sector and challenges in implementation. The symposium highlighted how Industry 4.0 plays a critical role in achievingthe vision of making India a global hub for manufacturing, design and innovation
A key concept in modern manufacturing, Industry 4.0 is driving a paradigm shift in manufacturing globally. Centred on the idea of new ways of human machine-interaction, advanced robotics, increased connectivity and huge sets of data, Industry 4.0 has the potential to fundamentally reconfigure the industry. This disruptive technology has recently found its curve of progression and is fast gaining momentum world over.
India is no exception to this global trend. Backed by the government’s vision to develop India into a global manufacturing powerhouse, the country is actively evaluating advanced technologies and is steadily increasing its share of Global Manufacturing GDP. A report from Tata Strategic Management Group states that 80% of the Indian manufacturing industry plans to adopt the advanced technology trends by 2020. India currently is standing on the cusp of a unique opportunity to innovatively pave its own road to Smart Manufacturing. Industry 4.0 is expected to transform manufacturing in India by bringing operational efficiencies to industries like automotive, electrical and electronics, aerospace, etc.
Against this backdrop and to sensitize local manufacturing industry, VDMA India organised first international symposium on “Industry 4.0 – The future Concept of manufacturing” on June6 at Shangri La hotel in Bengaluru and on June 8 at Hyatt,Pune respectively.
The symposium focused on how Industry 4.0 can transform the automotive, aerospace, machine tools, construction & material handling, food processing & packaging, heavy and process engineering sectors. It was attended by industry veterans, policy makers, research institutions and academia.
The event in Pune started with the lamp lighting by the chief guest Andreas Jahn, Vice President, Manufacturing Engineering Planning, Volkswagen Indiaalong with the Guest of Honour, Rashmi Urdhwareshe, Director, Automotive Research Association of India (ARAI); Dietmar Goericke, MD, Forum Industry 4.0, VDMA Frankfurt; and Sandip Roy, Regional Head – East, VDMA India.
The symposium in Pune featured seven enlightening technical sessions from VDMA member companies including EPLAN Software, HARTING India, Pepperl + Fuchs, Pilz India, SAP India, Shaeffler Group and Zimmer GmbH. The sessions gave a complete insight into India’s readiness for Industry 4.0, the advantages and challenges. One thing that was unanimously emphasized by all the speakers was the fact that Industry 4.0 is a journey and each organization needs to embark on that journey to reap the benefits.
The symposium kick-started with a welcome address by Sandip Roy, which outlined the digital disruption, Industry 4.0 and its significance to the manufacturing industry and how the VDMA members can support the Indian manufacturers towards process optimization through automation. He also emphasised the importance of adopting Industry 4.0 concept to achieve the ambitious target of making India a global hub for manufacturing, design and innovation, and augmenting the share of manufacturing in the GDP from the current 17% to 25% by 2022.
In his address, Andreas Jahn emphasized upon the application of Industry 4.0 in the automotive industry with extensive examples of how Volkswagen factory in Chakkan implemented Industry 4.0 and the benefits they are noticing.
Another enlightening presentation was given by Rashmi Urdhwareshe, where she spoke at length about the government policies and ARAI’s (Automotive Research Association of India) initiatives for supporting Industry 4.0.
Making Manufacturing Future-Ready
Dietmar Goericke from VDMA Frankfurt said that India has done a great job in building the mind-set for Industry 4.0 in manufacturing. He busted a common perception about Industry 4.0, emphasizing that it’s a concept and not available as a technology. Companies have to develop and implement Industry 4.0 on their own. He said that to be a success, Industry 4.0 needs a dedicated digital strategy.
In his presentation on the topic ‘Industry 4.0: Digital Transformation in Manufacturing’, Neeraj Athalye, VP- Innovation & Digital Business, SAP India asserted that a massive change is happening in the market. He stressed that although India has traditionally been a laggard in adopting technology, currently there is a lot of enthusiasm regarding disruptive technologies. He highlighted the different kind of use cases that are emerging for Industry 4.0, such as usage of wearables for connecting workers with machine. He further asserted that up till now people on the shop floor and IT have worked in silos. However, for Industry 4.0 to be successful, they have to come together.
Umesh Pai B, MD, EPLAN Software and Services shared a presentation on Digital Twin – Single Source of Truth.He underlined the importance of creating a twin for every product while implementing Industry 4.0 in the shop floor. He said that digital is the way to go for Industry 4.0 as integrity of the data is most critical thing for Industry 4.0 to be successful.
In another insightful presentation, Girish Rao, MD, HARTING India showcased the advantages of embracing Industry 4.0 in the company’s own production unit in Germany. He said the results have been encouraging and phenomenal. The company now has more visibility into the wear and tear of the machine and CO2 emission level per part. It has registered reduced downtime and enhanced inventory management.
The symposium also included a presentation on ‘Implementation of Industry 4.0 in India’ by Ravi Agarwal, MD, Pepperl & Fuchs Factory Automation. He highlighted how the country can benefit by harnessing automation in the manufacturing sector and become a preferred destination of global companies to realize the Make in India initiative of the Indian Government.
In his presentation on challenges on the way to Industry 4.0, Sanjay Kulkarni, Managing Director, Pilz India highlighted the data safety and security of the systems and solution offered by Pilz India.
Unlike other speakers who mostly covered on the digital part of the Industry 4.0, speakers from Schaeffler Group and Zimmer made their presentation on the physical part of the Industry 4.0. Pramod Francis talked about the Schaeffler Smart EcoSystem for Machine Tool, while Ulrich Doll spoke on Zimmer’s Innovative 4.0 products for handling and clamping Technology.
The daylong symposium concluded with a Hi-tea and B2B session which offered a good interaction and networking opportunity for both the audience and the participating companies.
