Voice of Manufacturing – NASSCOM e-Confluence
Published on : Tuesday 08-09-2020
Rebooting the industry supply chain through smart manufacturing and digitally connected operations.
NASSCOM CoE IndDIC (Industry Digital Innovation Consortium) organised 4th edition of ‘Voice of Manufacturing – Managing Manufacturing Challenges Digitally’ was organised on 20th August 2020. The foremost focus of the e-Confluence was ‘Rebooting the Industry Supply Chain through Smart Manufacturing & Digitally connected operations’.
NASSCOM Centre of Excellence IoT & AI engaged with large automotive manufacturing enterprise Mahindra & Mahindra and Endurance Technologies, large OEM to the automotive sector. The session also had presence from Larsen & Toubro Infotech and Foundation of Smart Manufacturing (IIT Delhi and Automation India Association) an Industry 4.0 program under the Department of Heavy Industries (DHI), Government of India.
The e-Confluence saw participation from over 175 industries across various industry segments. Mr Vivek Saha, Director and Head, Digital Transformation & Industry 4.0, NASSCOM CoE, raised the curtain of this session throwing light on how Covid-19 crisis challenges are becoming opportunities for digital adoption, and also highlighted the ‘New Normal’ that industries are embracing/adapting to revive. He has been key moderator across the panellists to circumvent the voice of manufacturing.
Mr Ravindra Barlingay, Vice President R&D – Electronics, Advanced Engineering & eMobility, Endurance Technologies, set the context by discussing the challenging impact of Covid-19 and also mentioned several positive aspects and underlying opportunities in the same, e.g.,
1. Two-wheeler segment likely to benefit due to the increase in demand for personal mobility, and
2. Rural is doing better than the urban sector.
He concluded by stating the criticality of adopting digital technologies and creating a common digital platform to mitigate steep losses due to disruptions in the pandemic situation and the role of technology to revive the industry value-chain.
Mr Amol Deshpande, Head of Digital Agri & Farm, Mahindra & Mahindra, deliberated on the opportunities presented due to Covid-19 and how organisations and people have been pushed to think out of the box – enriching breakthrough thinking. Mahindra, for instance has ventured into manufacturing of PPEs – face shields, low cost ventilators and more.
Over the interactive session, several challenging questions were addressed to the panellists and the key highlights are as follows:
1. Technology is the base but not the only contributing factor but having value across value chain.
2. Disruption such as Covid-19 has pushed for Digital Technology Adoption across industry functions and even to tier 2 and tier 3 cities.
3. Customised framework for transformation – critical to assess the existing situation and technologies – understand what is important and beneficial. Strengths that interplay, areas for diversification, subsequently being relevant in the future and thereby adapting and adopting components of technology framework accordingly.
4. An integrated ecosystem – Collaborative platform complimenting a vital role in creating the pathway to becoming a manufacturing leader.
5. In order to become the Manufacturing leader, two major requirements – good control of designs and best in the market, or being a process champion (low cost, efficient manufacturing processes).
6. A lot of learnings can be taken from the e-Commerce companies that have phenomenally disrupted the logistics in this country.
7. It is also important to understand and package Services – customer excellence at lower costs.
8. Right Cultural Mindset plays an important role in undertaking the transformational journey – top to down approach, continuous learning, continuous adaptation, upskilling.
9. Creating an IIoT Marketplace Framework with protocols and standards for level play - standardisation at country level in terms of data, security, products and services, IT-OT Convergence and more. Policies to protect against factors that can disrupt the manufacturing sector, interplay between ministries is required. Organisations and players need to focus on bringing products and services compatible with established framework and may require to be universal.
Ms Suparna Dutta, AVP & Global Head – Industrial IoT at LTI, discussed and deliberated on the various driving forces of Smart Manufacturing – Mobility, Technology Impact, Market Capture, Product Life Cycle Management, Cost Pressure and more. She also mentioned that aligning with the enterprise priorities is imperative – enabling new business models, enabling revenue growth, transforming customer and employee experiences and mastering next gen efficient operations.
The session was concluded by highlighting that Technology should act as a base but organisations should not only depend on it. Prior assessment of maturity of the organisations – digital maturity, awareness of technologies available, sketching the Industry Value Chain and the focus area for impact, level of outcomes and thereafter choose and adopt integrated solutions.