The Road To Digital Tranformation
Published on : Monday 01-04-2019
A recent news report mentioned that Paul Krugman, the American economist who won a Nobel Prize in 2008, has warned that India could end up with huge mass unemployment if it does not grow its manufacturing sector.
Since the Government of India is not only acutely aware of the comparatively small share the manufacturing sector contributes to the GDP (around 17% at present), but is also proactively seeking to raise this to a more respectable percentage (25% by 2025), this is not altogether surprising. But Krugman’s caution should draw the attention of policy makers to once again examine why the sector is still not showing the desired growth. However Krugman’s prediction that artificial intelligence could adversely impact India’s services sector is more worrying. Automation is certainly making labour redundant in several industry segments, so unless India expands the still labour intensive manufacturing sector rapidly, the situation is likely to remain worrisome. Though the country has made significant progress on the Ease of Doing Business index, that is just one aspect of the story. There are other bottlenecks of which infrastructure happens to be a major one. While India is quite competitive on the labour cost, it is not so on the transportation and logistics front, for example.
The cover story in this edition on Digital Transformation is particularly relevant in this respect. The developed world is rapidly adopting these new age technologies in order to stay competitive. This is not a new development but an ongoing process over the last two decades and more, which Germany gradually formalised as Industry 4.0 or Smart Manufacturing a few years ago. Across the Atlantic, the US called it the Internet of Things or IoT. Digitalisation is helping the US to get back into manufacturing albeit slowly. A report says 2018 was the best year for manufacturing job growth in the US since 1997. That only indicates the power of Digital Transformation.
India not only has to grow the share of manufacturing sector to its GDP, but has to do it by competing with the developed countries including China, which at the moment is not only a manufacturing powerhouse but also far ahead in adopting digitalisation. In order to stay competitive and grow, there is no alternative but to quickly get on the road to Digital Transformation.
Editorial Advisory Board
Sivaram PV, Non-Executive Chairman, B&R Automation India
PV Sivaram is the Non-Executive Chairman of B&R India. He was the Managing Director of B& R Industrial Automation and has a long association with it, having founded and built the organisation in India since 1996. He is also the President of Automation India Association (AIA), and a Director of IAFSM, which is a joint collaboration of IIT Delhi – AIA Foundation for Smart Manufacturing.
Sivaram began his career in Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC) and later shifted to the private sector. He has worked in various fields like Power Transmission and Distribution, Communications, and Power Plant Automation. He has considerable experience in Distributed Systems, SCADA, DCS, and microcontroller applications. He has worked on software for redundancy systems and managed large projects both in public sector and private fields. He has over forty years of work experience. Sivaram believes strongly that digitisation and adoption of the technology and practices of Industry 4.0 are essential for MSMEs of India. He works to bring these concepts clearer to the people for whom it is more important.
G Ganapathiraman, Country Manager India – ARC Advisory Group
G Ganapathiraman (Raman) is responsible for managing ARC Advisory Group's operations in India.
Raman has been heading the ARC India operations since June 2012. His range of responsibilities at ARC includes supporting the global offices in preparation of market research reports (worldwide, regional, and India specific), organising ARC India forums, and sales/technical promotion in the areas of automation and enterprise. He handles and nurtures analyst relationships with domestic and global clients. Additionally, he collaborates with industry organizations, such as NASSCOM, CII, ISA, and others, as well as with the media.
Prior to joining ARC he superannuated as Executive Director of Electronics Division (EDN) of BHEL. During his tenure in BHEL he headed Project Engineering Management (PEM) and Industrial Systems Group (ISG). He has been a team leader and builder; at BHEL he led a team of 5,000 personnel. Raman's work and commitment to excellence has won recognition at the national and international levels. He has received various prestigious awards, such as ICWA Cost Management Award, CII Business Excellence, and Quality Control (QC) Awards.
Rajat Kishore, Managing Director and VP, PA Hub, Schneider Electric Rajat Kishore is a top professional with 3 decades of insightful experience in leading organisations at CEO positions encompassing the entire Company Value Chain across Strategic Leadership, Customer Relationship Management, Business Development, Sales & Marketing, Operations, HR, F&A. He is an effective communicator with honed leadership skills, relationship management, conflict management, analytical, planning and coordination skills. Capacity to work under pressure situations.
Rajat has flair for spearheading strategic initiatives driving “blue-ocean” growth through affecting quick entry into untapped business segments and certified expert on Digitisation. He has established capability to forge Strategic Alliances in Key Business Sectors and in development of new business sectors organically as well as inorganically through Mergers, Acquisitions & Joint Ventures, and is Competent in Excellence Development, Strategic Planning, Business development, Market analysis, Business planning, target setting and positioning.
Deft in ramping up activities for businesses and projects ensuring deadlines are complied with, achieving optimum resource utilization and cost effectiveness, Rakjat has proficiency in handling planning, executing and spearheading energy projects involving contract administration, resource planning with a flair for adopting modern project execution methodologies. He is competent in managing turnkey projects for Power Generation, T&D, SmartGrid &Water segments. Rajat has matured experience of working under cross-cultural and multi-lingual environments.
Sunil Mehta, General Manager, Automotive Business Development, Factory Automation & Industrial Division, Mitsubishi Electric India Private Limited
Sunil Mehta started his career as a Production Engineer with Messung Systems, Pune. After working for a few years in production, he moved across to the Engineering Department where he developed PLC based solutions for Printing, Plastic, Textile and other industries. In 1995, Messung Systems became a Distributor for Mitsubishi Electric – Factory Automation Products and this gave him the opportunity to work in the Technical Support Department. Mr Mehta was very actively involved in the development of numerous automation solutions like Facility Improvement using Mitsubishi FA products for various Japanese Automotive clients like Maruti Suzuki, Honda Cars and others. In his current position, he is heading technical support team and extends technical support for Factory Automation Products across India.
Sujata Tilak, Managing Director, Ascent Intellimation
A successful entrepreneur and technologist, Sujata Tilak is a thought leader in Industrial IoT and convergence of Industrial Automation and Information Technology. She has ably led Ascent Intellimation as a leading provider of Industrial IoT solutions. Ascent has developed an IIoT platform PlantConnect which is deployed in areas like environmental monitoring, smart manufacturing, reliability engineering, etc. Sujata’s focus is to help organisations recognise and embrace diverse ways in which manufacturing data can be beneficially used by various stake holders.
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