ARC Advisory Group’s fourteenth India forum for process and discrete industries, titled Industry in Transition: Navigating the New Age of Innovation attracted close to 270 delegates. The theme was apt because the industry is transitioning through constant changes in terms of new and innovative technologies; and only those companies that can navigate through all the available information and technology and effectively implement them will emerge successful. In today’s marketplace innovation is the buzzword, and this innovation is not confined to just product changes - it encompasses innovation at all levels of the value chain from the shopfloor to the end user. It is about becoming collaboratively networked enterprises, managing dispersed centers of technology, engineering, production, and resources. This two-day forum (July 7-8, 2016) was structured to disseminate information and technology effectively and provide end users, solution providers and decision makers an opportunity to network and get an overall view of the market and its requirements.

Industrial growth hinges on effective networking and collaborating – and ARC forums provide the right platform and visibility to all attendees. New technologies, such as cloud computing, mobility, social technologies, Industrial Internet of Things, Big Data/analytics, and digitalization have now taken center-stage; and most of the presentations at the Forum emphasized these topics. The session topics were: Automation and Enterprise Trends; Advancement in Control Strategies and Asset Performance Management; Industrial Cybersecurity, Automation & IIoT Trends; Strategies to Achieve Operational Excellence; and Smart Manufacturing, Energy Efficiency Trends for Growth. There were close to 30 presentations – the core of which was implementing new technologies to forge ahead in a competitive market. Sessions ended with interactive Q&A with the session speakers on the dais.

Andy Chatha, President & CEO, ARC Advisory Group’s video presentation highlighted how digital transformation is gaining momentum across all industries and how innovative companies are disrupting the status quo. He said that today’s proprietary systems are ripe for next-gen digital transformation as process plant assets are usually more than 35 years old and are prone to failures and incidents. The other keynote addresses which set the tenor for the forum were given by B.R. Mehta, Senior Vice President, Reliance Industries; Achyuta Ghosh, Head of Research, NASSCOM; Bob Gill, General Manager, SE Asia, ARC Advisory Group; and B. Ashok, Deputy Project Director, Aeronautical Development Agency. Speakers were from the sponsors, industry association sponsors, and invited end user speakers.

Forum Sponsors – Siemens (Global Sponsor); Silver Sponsors – ABB, Bentley Systems, Kaspersky Lab, Mitsubishi Electric, OSIsoft, and STEAG.

Industry Association Sponsors - AIA, CIO Forum, and CSIA.

Media Sponsors – A&C Today, A&D, Chemical Industry Digest, Chemical Engineering, Chemical Engineering World, Control Engineering Asia, Engineering Review, Industrial Products Finder, OnWindows, Pharma Focus Asia, Pharmaceutical-Tech.com, IBK Media, World of Chemicals.

At the end of ARC’s two-day forum it was clear that although the road ahead has many obstacles, these can be overcome by adopting new processes and technologies.