German Engineering Federation (VDMA) had recently organised its seventh Mechanical Engineering Summit in Pune, which was attended by more than 250 people. India is the second-largest sales market in Asia for the German engineering industry. In his welcome address, Rajesh Nath, Managing Director, VDMA India, spoke about the performance of the current government led by the Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the last 4 years. 

 

The Chief Guest, Rashmi Urdhwareshe, Director, Automotive Research Association of India (ARAI) a presentation on “Implementation of BS VI: Way forward for the automobile industry”. Dr Jurgen Morhard Consul General, Federal Republic of Germany, Mumbai, gave a special address on “Indo-German trade in western part of India”. 

 

Carl Martin Welcker, Managing Director, VDMA Frankfurt, was extremely delighted to see the large response of VDMA members for the summit. At present, VDMA has around 3,250 members. Welcker is more optimistic about trade with India as exports have grown to Euro 1.6 billion. 

 

The VDMA summit special issue was released and for the first time a robot was used to hand over the publication to the dignitaries. The dignitaries also released the knowledge paper on “Primary user industry for machinery manufacturers”. It was followed by a presentation by the Knowledge Partner, BDB India Pvt Ltd.

 

The technical session I commenced with a presentation of Aditya Lakhanpal, Director Corporate Treasury Solutions Global Markets, HSBC, India, on “The importance of meeting the fiscal targets and monetary policy remains focussed on meeting inflation targets”. The post-lunch technical session began, with the release of the report “Best HR practices in the engineering industry” prepared by HR strategy partner Deepmala Datta of Maier+Vidorno. The theme of technical session II was primarily on “Early adoption of Industry 4.0 and its challenges in manufacturing”. 

 

The final session of the Summit was devoted on the panel discussion on “From red tape to red carpet: Ease of doing business”. This panel discussion was moderated by Rajesh Nath, Managing Director, VDMA India. The participants in the discussion were Carl Martin Welcker, VDMA President Germany; Georg Sparschuh, President, SCHOTT Glass India Pvt Ltd; Dharmesh Arora, CEO, Schaeffler India; Girish Ketkar, Whole Time Director & CFO, Thyssenkrupp Industries India Pvt Ltd; and Bipin Jirge, Managing Director, IFM Electronic India Pvt Ltd.

VDMA India associated with SKP Business Consulting as partner conferred the first VDMA Manufacturing Excellence Awards under the categories namely “Energy Efficient and Conservation Award” and “Work Condition and Work Safety Award”. In the “Energy Efficient and Conservation Award” category, the winner was Milacron India Limited and runner up was Siemens Ltd. In the “Work Condition and Work Safety Award”, Siemens was judged as the winner, while the runner up trophy went to Bosch Ltd (Nashik plant).