Smart manufacturing technologies can make companies more efficient and innovative, boosting their competitive advantage. Schneider Electric, as the leader in powering and digitising industry, is uniquely positioned to assist industrial customers in their digitalization journey, says Peter Herweck, Executive Vice President, Industry Business at Schneider Electric. In a tête-à-tête with Rakesh Rao during Hannover Messe 2018 in Germany, Herweck spoke about the relevance of Industry 4.0 and how the fourth industrial revolution is changing the industrial landscape across the world.

 

How is Schneider Electric helping companies in their digitalization journey?

In simple terms, Schneider Electric is an expert in two things – energy management and automation. These two things are coming closer to each other, in particular, in the industrial environment and digitalization goes through both the industries. 

 

If you look at energy management, electricity is around 140 years. In initial 130 years, electricity knew only one direction – from power generation to transmission to distribution to the consumer. In last 10-12 years, it has completely changed with the consumer itself becoming the producer (for example manufacturing companies having their own in-house power generating units, solar and other renewable energy unit), 

thus the complete grid is changing. In this scenario, digitalization is the need for controlling this complex environment and reduce the spending. 

 

In industrial environment for last 30 years, we have been increasing connectivity – connecting things to control systems. Today, it is not necessary to be connected to control system, you can be connected to other devices or data center or cloud to run efficient, incremental applications to increase productivity of the customer or change the business model of the customer.

 

Industrial customers are also worried about power consumption as many of our customers are from energy-intensive industries and cost of energy accounts for large part of their production processes. They are focusing on reducing power consumption, become energy efficient and sustainable. 

 

As the leader in powering and digitising industry, Schneider Electric is uniquely positioned to drive the digital transformation of today’s growing industrial automation markets and assist industrial customers in their transformations. We are also helping customers to become zero-emission companies. This is also our target.

 

What are the factors triggering changes in the field of automation?

The underlining trends, which are accelerating automation industry, are enhanced communication technology, unlimited storage capabilities at marginal cost, tremendous deployment of mobile devices for utilisation in harsh environment and sophisticated software packages. All these have helped to transform industrial automation and thus industrial manufacturing. 

 

We have been using all these technologies for customers to unleash the hidden data that they have to process (along with third party data). For example, farmers (owning large fields) can use weather forecast data and sensors to measure the moisture in the soil, and then calculate the ideal watering requirement. It is not manufacturing, but industrial farming.

 

Just like the example of farming, industries need to send data to the cloud, use mobile devices and sensors, and still employ automation to drive the industrial machines. All these new technologies have made it possible to change the industrial environment vastly.  

 

How is digitalization affecting manufacturing?

Digitalization and electrification are the two trends that are being witnessed across the world. One can say that digitalization is the present, electrification is the future. There is a reason behind this statement. Internet was first used 40 years ago. Today billions of people are connected to Internet and now the challenge is to connect 50 billion things to 5 billion people. This is happening. Customers want to use data to improve their end-to-end productivity and that can be achieved by utilising and analysing their as well as third party data. This also allows them to change their business model.

 

For example, in the past a company may be selling equipment. But in the future, it would like to provide equipment-as-a-service, since the company is able to connect the machines and see all the operational data from far and it is the best expert to optimise the machine at the customer’s end. Thus, the company can sell output to its customers, instead of just the equipment. 

 

How is Industry 4.0 shaping up? 

Industry 4.0, smart factories, factories of the future, etc are some the terminologies coined across the world to denote the next industrial revolution. The common theme is that how can we use new technologies to help customers in their digitalization journey. It may differ from customer to customer, from industry to industry. But there are common things such as connectivity, data analytics, artificial intelligence, machine learning, etc.

 

By combining our expertise (on automated equipment and software) and the customer’s domain knowledge, we are able to increase productivity and efficiency of the customer. 

 

What are the challenges involved in building smart factories?

First, many times customers are overwhelmed by the information about the benefits of these technologies and they want to know how to get started quickly and enjoy the benefits. 

 

Second, many customers have vast installed base at their facilities and they want to know how to upgrade their existing facilities by utilising new-age technologies.

 

To get started, customers first need to identify their pain-points and then identify how can simple digital technologies can help 

them solve these bottlenecks to increase performance of their manufacturing facilities. 

 

For existing facilities, we need to see how to get data from different control systems. Software should be agnostic to what is there in the field. Schneider Electric has the most advanced software that can connect to all controllers, which may not be necessarily from us, very easily. 

 

So the smart technology should be able to do two things – it should be simple to implement and be able to be utilised in the existing infrastructure to maximise output and performance.

 

Is Industry 4.0 relevant for small and medium entrepreneurs (SMEs)?

Yes, SMEs can benefit from Industry 4.0. For SMEs to become Industry 4.0 compliant, new technologies should be easy to implement and cost-effective, where failure is not expensive.

 

Schneider Electric offer many applications/services that are easy to use and are ideal for SMEs. We are also trying to increase the capabilities of our system integrators world over, including India, to provide enhanced digitalization solutions so that they can help the customers in their digital journey. 

 

How is the response for Industry 4.0 complaint products in market like India?

Some of the large companies in India are already at the forefront of adopting new technologies to be a part of the fourth industrial revolution.

 

A lot of Indian companies are curious to know how to deploy some of the new technologies to improve efficiency of their facilities and enhance product offerings to their customers. We are even seeing a lot of interest from SMEs.

 

The agenda for digitalization and to adopt modern technologies is driven from the top by the Government of India, led by the Prime Minister. India is developing smart cities which will also aid the growth of digitalization. 

 

How do you see India as the potential market for your company?

India is one of the key markets for Schneider Electric ranking among the top five countries. We have a large workforce in India. The company has witnessed robust growth in the past and we expect the growth momentum to continue in the future.