Recent event in India about smart manufacturing was joined by people from companies including Dell, Microsoft, Tata and Godrej (company with their name on the doorbell camera showing in Brainchip's half year report). This event seems quite relevant because it talks about how the pandemic has changed the way they do things smarter and more data centric. I've copied some of the relevant parts below.
There were comments by Dell about processing data at the edge and Dell's vision for smart factories. I thought the comments by Godrej were interesting, where it talked about how the pandemic shifted the country forward by 8-10 years, and they used this time to reset, reinvent and re-engineer. There was also mention of condition based monitoring and other relevant topics.
https://www.manufacturingtodayindia.com/11365-post-event-smart-manufacturing-summit-2021?ampPost event: Smart Manufacturing Summit 2021
The summit was designed to help companies achieve digital transformation and Industry 4.0 goal by bringing manufacturers and technology providers on the same platform
Manufacturers and technology providers from various parts of the country virtually met to discuss global technology trends and its application in the Indian context at the 5th Annual Smart Manufacturing Summit, 2021. Organised by ITP, the day-long event was presented by Dell Technologies, Intel Innovation Built-in and Microsoft. Collaborating in the partnership were Engineering Design Partner, Autodesk; Energy Management Partner, Schneider Electric; and HVAC Partner, Bluestar
Amritha Mohankumar, Event Manager, ITP Media (India) who hosted the event invited Bibhor Srivastava, Country Head, ITP India, to open the summit. After a brief introduction to ITP, its wide portfolio of market leading digital properties, a number of its initiatives with some of the premium brands, its reach and the range of incredible global titles that it does, Bibhor thanked the partners and the attendees and invited Rishav Bhushan, Director & General Manager, OEM Solutions, Dell Technologies, to present his welcome note.
Bhushan, welcoming all the delegates dived straight in to the discussion on smart manufacturing and shared Dell technologies’ vision on smart factories and how he sees that panning out in the next 3-4 years.
“Year 2025 is a very critical one”, he said speaking about the future of manufacturing powered by emerging technologies. “A lot, in fact 80% of the data will be generated at the edge in the next 3-4 years and that is where all the conversation on technology will shift to.”
“With manufacturing in India projected to hit a trillion-dollar revenue by 2025 and with a lot of it hedged around technology advancement there is a lot of work for technology providers to do,” he added. Innovative technologies and its scalability can transform manufacturing. But, “it is not about a single factory line; it is about the entire connected ecosystem that needs transformation”.
Jagdish Ramaswamy, President and Chief Digital Officer, Hindalco Industries, who gave the key-note address, said, “Digital, data, smart, connected, insights; these are the magic words that are fast becoming buzz words in the board rooms across organisations.”
“Moving ahead of digitisation, what we are now looking at is how we are leveraging these digital technologies to behave and work like a connected enterprise; where humans and machines and processes are talking to each other in real time basis and then seeing if we can leverage this to bring in new business models”.
With these words Ramaswamy sought to trigger the thoughts of how the audience approach smart manufacturing; the subject of the day.
“Today we are at an inflection time,” said Manish Gulati, Director - Corporate Sales, Dell Technologies, referring to the rapid adoption of technologies that has brought the term manufacturing 4.0 into the mainstream. “That is largely due to the availability of IoT infrastructure designed to gain business insights from data and the biggest driver that all of us are waiting for is the 5G that is going to change phenomenally the way things work today versus what we have been doing all the time.”
He further added, “While the IoT is providing deeper insights into the processes, AI looks at the aggregate delivery. Putting this together, you get a larger 360 degrees holistic picture.”
Gulati proceeded to put the entire perspective about smart manufacturing, digitisation and the overall manufacturing process in a nutshell with great precision and clarity.
The VUKA moment is finally here, after all the talks all these years about Volatile, Uncertain, Complex and Ambiguous periods. Rajeev Singh, Partner and Automotive Leader, Deloitte India, coming from among the Big4, began to moderate the discussion with these words; looking to find the way in to the secrets of the recipes of the panel members, trying to get an insight into their business practices that make them successful.
“We are still evolving our SOPs on how to deal with the disruptions caused by the pandemics,” began Ajoy Lall, Vice President, Commercial Vehicle Operations, Tata Motors, who thought that unlike in the immediate aftermath of the first pandemic, “the supply chain industry has now learnt to deal with it. It’s the demand side that weakening the economy.” He narrated anecdotes of how innovative ways were found around the problem by the supply chain.
“The silver lining amidst all the negatives of the lockdowns was that it served as a catalyst especially for the digital initiatives in organisations resulting in sudden and exponential spike in embracing technologies,” said Singh and asked Zurvan Marolia, Sr Vice President and Head of the Manufacturing Council, Godrej & Boyce Mfg, to come in on it.
Marolia absolutely agreed with him and went a step further to say that “the pandemic has actually pushed the nation forward by 8-10 years”. Explaining how his organisation faced the pandemic challenge, he said, resilience, apart from business continuity and safety, became the focus area, at the core of which was digitisation, “We took it as a time to re-set, re-invent and re-engineer.”
Robotics was already there but was enhanced further as part of what he called “appropriate automation”. A process known as ‘manufacturing execution system’ that was already in place was immediately put to use. With this, they were able to run their plans remotely, have unhindered and secured information flow. “The voice of the customer could come right down to the manufacturing floor.”
The discussions took an interesting turn when it touched upon the criticality of capital equipment in the journey of digitisation.
“Machines have to stay healthy and there has to be some standard protocol to assure that they are complied with, “said Arobinda Mookherjee, Director, JNJ Machines and brushed upon conventional condition-based monitoring and overall equipment effectiveness; residual asset-life and asset replacements; system reviews and system alarms. But he also talked of algorithms to check on the health of the machines like an ECG reading and communicating the residual asset-life.
From manufacturing, Singh shifted to supply chain. “Complex and fragmented with the holy trinity of speed, cost and reliability as parameters of efficiency, the capabilities built and initiatives taken by the supply chain is an interesting study.”
(20min delay)