While manufacturing remains a critical force in driving economic growth, the sector has changed radically, bringing new opportunities and challenges to business leaders. The future looks bright. The question is are we ready to embrace the future, ask Abhay Kulkarni and RN Kulkarni.

 

The manufacturing industry has traditionally been a driver of growth for the Indian economy. The good news is that the potential for further grown remains undiminished – a Deloitte study estimated that India would be among the top 5 manufacturing nations by 2020, joining the United States, China, Germany and Japan. Buoyed by a governmental push towards manufacturing, especially the flagship ‘Make in India’ initiative, Indian manufacturing is on the cusp of becoming a global hotbed of innovation. As evidenced by the opening of the world’s largest mobile factory in Noida by Samsung recently, the nation is becoming a manufacturing hub for global giants such as, GE, Siemens, HTC, Toshiba and Boeing, besides others.

 

Data from the World Economic Forum (WEF) suggests that India's manufacturing sector has grown by over seven per cent per annum on average in the past three decades and accounts for 16-20 per cent of India's GDP. Home to the second-largest population in the world and one of the fastest growing economies, India ranks third, in market size, fifth in demand environment and ninth in terms of the scale of production. The good thing is demand for Indian manufactured products is continuing to rise as the nation is moving towards a more connected economy with about $59 billion investment in infrastructure in 2017.

 

The growing global component sourcing market has also been a driver of growth for the automotive component industry, thereby also driving related manufacturing growth in the country. While China has historically been at the forefront of this market, in recent years, Indian manufacturers have established themselves as an attractive choice for their competitiveness, quality and consistency. As per data provided by the Automotive Component Manufacturers Association of India (ACMA), the auto component industry’s turnover stood at $51.2 billion in 2017-18, a growth of 18.3 per cent from the last financial year. Export of auto components also saw growth by 23.9 per cent to $13.5 billion.

 

Adoption of agile technologies

With the increased convergence and adoption of disruptive technologies like artificial intelligence, simulation, additive manufacturing or 3D & 4D printing, IoT, Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT), cloud, AR, big data, VR and autonomous machines like robots, connected vehicles, appliances, homes and smart cities, manufacturing as we know is undergoing exponential change. A report by the Tata Strategic Management Group on the readiness of Indian manufacturing suggested that four technologies will be particularly important, going forward: additive manufacturing, advanced robotics, the IIoT and augmented reality. It is imperative therefore that Indian manufacturers and Tier-1 

OEMs embrace and adapt to these changes.

 

As the manufacturing industry’s premier partner for advanced engineering, research and development, product lifecycle management and connected enterprise IT solutions, Tata Technologies recognizes the impact of these disruptive technologies. Through its advanced connected enterprise IT offerings, Tata Technologies offers various services including digital transformation, extended manufacturing solutions, data intelligence, Customer Experience Management (CXM), Supply Chain Management (SCM), etc. to digitally enable the entire manufacturing lifecycle.

 

Embracing an automated world

As we step into the fourth industrial revolution, we are seeing increased adoption of automation in the workspace to improve productivity. For instance, lights out manufacturing, or fully automated factories run by robotics where materials and products are produced round-the-clock with little human workforce is proving to be a game-changing innovation for the manufacturing sector, delivering high productivity, enhanced quality, lower energy requirements and reduced labour costs. Such technologies are changing the approach from Just-in-time (JIT) delivery to JIT manufacturing.

 

Human and machine collaboration is also shaping the future of manufacturing. Fuelling this growth requires a fusion of machine efficiency and human intuition. Powered by AI, self-learning, human friendly, collaborative robots (cobots) will empower us to work in sync with machines, driving high performance, synergy and scale – thereby accelerating the pace of growth. This in turn will lead to a huge growth of safer, supportive, affordable, adaptable and easy to install cobots in small and medium-sized enterprises, allowing humans to be more creative. Machine learning will radically change the manufacturing sector as cobots will be able to diagnose, predict and prevent any technical issues to complete work more efficiently.

 

Connected computers will intuitively communicate with people and device to make decisions without human involvement. The combination of cyber-physical systems – IoT (things) and the IOS (systems) – will make the smart factory a reality. This will lead to the emergence of smarter machines, making factories more efficient, productive and less wasteful. As the digital transformation initiative gets all pervasive, it is imperative to identify opportunities, convert data into an asset, analyse data to identify patterns and provide real time insights without human bias.

 

Changes at a policy level

While these new technologies will add a new dimension of growth to Indian manufacturing, there must be a recognition of the fact that change has to come from a policy and a strategy level. It is imperative that the Indian government continues to support this sector by setting up new industries and creating ancillary facilities, infrastructure while linking existing facilities. Side by side, regulatory roadblocks like land and labour laws must be updated while investing in sufficient infrastructure for transport, communication and energy must be created.

 

To stay competitive and remain an attractive hub for foreign investments in the manufacturing sector, our business leaders must embrace forward thinking strategies. They must modernise legacy systems into digital neural systems. Driven by collaboration and co-creation, such digital transformation can help deliver sustained innovation, agility and higher value. This will boost operational efficiencies, optimise asset utilisation, improve yield, ensure end to end supply chain visibility, improve quality, enhance customer experience and drive strategic business value.

 

To succeed and thrive in the digitally disruptive market, our enterprises must embrace continuous exploration, look for new exponential breakthroughs, and adopt a culture of bold innovation rooted in excellence. A systematic and outcome-driven digital transformational approach will help enterprises, big and small, drive competitive business differentiation. This necessitates transforming the core operation, integrating diverse enterprise systems, product engineering, and design and experiential platforms. Enterprise leaders need to reimagine the ecosystem and drive differentiated capabilities, new business models and revenue streams while upskilling the talent for shaping the future. Certainly, the manufacturing sector of India has the potential to reach $1 trillion by 2025. The future looks bright. The question is are we ready to embrace the future?

 

About the authors

Abhay Kulkarni (left) is the Global COE Director (Physical Integration), while R N Kulkarni (right) is the Associate Vice President (Manufacturing) at Tata Technologies which makes product development a reality by designing, engineering and validating the products for the world’s leading manufacturers. Tata Technologies is the manufacturing industry’s premier partner for engineering, R&D, product lifecycle management consultancy and software, and connected enterprise IT solutions.