Smart Industry Conference 2017, organized by the Ethernet POWERLINK Standardization Group, brought together over 100 delegates and 12 industry experts, who shared their experiences and recommendations on various Industrial IoT and Industry 4.0 topics such as digitalization in manufacturing, technological trends and business model transformation.HMS India, Utthunga Technologies, Ascent Intellimation, A&D India and B&R Industrial Automation organized the joint event held on September 12, 2017 in Pune.
Through its keynote address, four presentations, two panel discussions and live demos the conference provided a platform for the challenges and solutions of Smart Industry implementation.The conference focused on the journey of digital transformation toward smart, connected devices with security, analytics and cloud solutions.Sandeep Dawkhar, GM Robotics-TAL Manufacturing, delivered the keynote on “Networking architecture for Industrial IoT”, which addressed the potential for synergy between Industrial IoT and robotics.He elaborated on the benefits of real-time data acquisition, which will allow robots to anticipate opportunities and failures based on external events and to plan production accordingly.He suggested that this would eliminate the need for scheduled maintenance of robots and make it possible to perform maintenance only when required.This would improve system reliability and flexibility, optimize processes and reduce manufacturing downtime.
Smart Manufacturing – A path forward for success
Well-received by the delegates, the event’s panel discussions focused on the fundamental realities faced by manufacturers and the way forward for the Indian manufacturing industry to become competitive on the global market.
The topic of “Smart Manufacturing – A path forward for success” was addressed by the first group of panelists, which included Santanoo Medhi, Managing Director & CEO, Premium Transmission; Arun Janarthanan, Principal Advisor Smart Manufacturing, Markets and Markets; Arundhati Thomas, Managing Director, Plazma Technologies; PV Sivaram, Managing Director, B&R Industrial Automation & President, Automation Industry Association and Aniruddha Kadkol, Head Manufacturing IT Systems, Mahindra & Mahindra.The discussion was moderated by Shekhar Jitkar, Chief Editor, A&D India Magazine.
Panelists addressed the challenges faced by Indian manufacturers in their endeavor to adopt smart manufacturing practices at an organizational level.The experts affirmed that smart manufacturing represents the future of the industry.The speakers agreed that the people, processes and technologies for smart manufacturing are readily available – singling out a change in mindset as the primary obstacle to moving forward.The experts pointed out that the key challenge to adoption of smart manufacturing lie within the organizations themselves.Transforming threats into opportunities requires cooperation, coordination and collaboration across disciplines, companies, countries and cultures.During the discussion, PV Sivaram remarked “The word ‘smart’ means acting efficiently and responsively based on current requirements.The need for real-time measurement is an indispensable part of this and can be achieved only if a factory has a sufficient amount of digitalization.In addition, data from the field has to be converted into valuable information, which is possible with our smart automation solution – Orange Box.”
Digital transformation – Ensuring ROI
Today, digitalization is transforming how companies in every industry go to market, interact with customers and carry out their daily operations.The digital transformation required, however, is complex, time consuming, and expensive – and it affects every aspect of the enterprise.It is therefore essential that companies actively plan and monitor their digital investments in order to get their money’s worth out of the effort.The panel discussion on “Digital transformation – Ensuring ROI” proposed how digital transformation can drive effective ROI for organizations.Sujata Tilak, Managing Director, Ascent Intellimation; Santosh Tatte, Country Manager, HMS India; Rushendra Babu Guntur, Director of Engineering Solutions, Utthunga Technologies; Rajalakshmi Hegde, Sales Head – Pune, B&R Industrial Automation were the panelists and Megha Roy, Assistant Editor, publish-industry India Pvt Ltd., moderated the discussion.
Rajalakshmi Hegde quotes, “Today, it is important to improve asset management, including uptime, productivity, and equipment utilization.Machine-to-machine and machine-to-cloud connectivity is gaining prominence in order to satisfy these demands.B&R is committed to open technologies such as OPC UA, POWERLINK and openSAFETY, which enable the end-to-end solutions that factory operators need to succeed in their endeavor to become Industry 4.0 ready.”
Achieving operational excellence with smart manufacturing
The focus of manufacturing units is on operational excellence, business reinvention, customer service, trust and compliance with better ROI.While addressing these concerns, Krishan Bansal noted, “Overall Equipment Effectiveness, energy and condition monitoring and remote diagnostics are the needs of machine builders and factory operators.B&R offers complete solutions for satisfying all of these needs and is an ideal partner for successful Industrial IoT solutions.Users can benefit from B&R’s various edge architectures and satisfy their needs for IT / OT convergence.”
The conference served as an ideal platform for the latest technology trends and helped in drawing a roadmap for Indian manufacturing companies to become globally competitive.Delegates received helpful guidance on effective application of these state-of-the-art technologies in all the key sectors.
