Industrial Automation Magazine India

Climate change and sustainability are matters of serious concern

Published on : Monday 10-01-2022

Sunil Mehta, General Manager, e-F@ctory Strategic Planning, Factory Automation & Industrial Division, Mitsubishi Electric India Private Limited

How did the industry fare in 2021 after the initial impact of Covid caused widespread disruption in 2020?
Overall, the industry did well in 2021 after the initial impact of Covid-19 that was started from March 2020. Initial few months were a bit tough but gradually the manufacturing industry got acquainted with the situation. Different solutions were developed, so that production on the shop floor continues with necessary resources while following all the safety measures led down by authorities. Last financial year many of the industries performed bare minimum and tried to survive with reduced overheads. Manufacturing Industry did perform well in 2021 and was coming back to usual, but another problem arose which is the shortage of semiconductor products. Semiconductor shortage affected automotive industries and Factory automation product suppliers as the lead time came out to be very long. 
 
What were the changes and new technologies businesses widely adopted in 2021?
In the year 2021, lots of new technologies were adopted to continue business operations. Manufacturing industry observed investments in Digital Transformation at various levels. In the previous year most of the workforce had to travel during the lockdown period which diversely affected various manufacturing units and resulted in absence of a skilled workforce. During this period, various ways and means were found to continue the production without affecting quality of the finished products. 
 
While Covid triggered the supply chain disruption, it now continues in various forms and for different reasons. What could be the solution?
Supply chain disruption has happened due to Covid, it had a long-term effect on managing production. The manufacturing sector got hit due to lack of skilled resources and disruption in the supply chain. The Factory Automation product suppliers like us Mitsubishi Electric India, tried to support our customers and equipment manufacturers by trying out different ways. Even though most of the members were working from home during the pandemic there were continuous communications and updates of the status for deliveries to our customers. Just when we overcame the second wave of Covid-19, supply chain observed disruption due ongoing semiconductor shortage. Semiconductor shortages not only affected the automotive manufacturing industry, but it has also affected all major sectors. While investments are getting back on track it has become difficult for various factory automation product suppliers to match the surge in demand. Effective supply chain management will be needed to keep our future customers aligned. Cost of raw materials will increase and will lose stability. This disruption has also initiated developing alternative sources to be kept ready so that manufacturing should not be affected. Overall cost of freight has also increased and the need for air transportation. Supply chain disruption has also called for new product introduction in short periods in some of the cases. 
 
With new strains of the virus appearing periodically, is the WFH culture here to stay and become a permanent feature?
There could be a possibility that in the near future we may have to face new strains of the virus and Work from Home (WFH) culture might continue to stay. There could be a possibility that Hybrid culture could be adopted, and people might attend the office for critical meetings. In case of manufacturing facilities adoption on automation level will further increase. Workers might need to come down to their workplaces depending upon the order status and availability of raw materials. Many of the IT Industries are still adopting WFH and have adjusted to this work culture well. IT companies have provided necessary tools to employees working from home and this new culture has become stable as of now. 
 
How is the outlook for 2022, given that a lot of lessons have been learned during the last two years?
Outlook for 2022 still looks promising and we will observe sustainable growth. These last two years of pandemic have taught us the importance of many things which are today getting converted into business practices. Importance of automation, digitisation at various levels, skill improvements, integration of smart devices like smart phones, tab etc. for production monitoring in simple and economical ways are few of the key points that we have learned during the last two years. These two years even though brought lots of challenges at different levels of business management, it also created opportunities for Smart Manufacturing and prepared us well to be ready to face similar kinds of challenges in coming years. 
 
Climate change and sustainability are matters of serious concern. How sustainable are present business practices?
Yes, climate change and sustainability are matters of serious concern and we at Mitsubishi Electric keep sustainability and eco consciousness in the centre of every new product that we develop and every new technology that we introduce. We are working to create a brighter future through Innovation to ensure a more sustainable world. Even though many of the companies are doing their bit for the environment, these efforts are still very little. However, the industry as total and government agencies are trying their bit to improve the sustainability quotient of our manufacturing as well. Energy Monitoring, Adoption of modern manufacturing technologies, reduction of waste, more use of recycled products will go a long way and I see the industry at large making efforts to achieve them.
 
What are the technology trends most likely to dominate in 2022?
We at Mitsubishi Electric, have introduced e-F@ctory concept around the year 2003 in Japan and now here in India, we are promoting our e-F@ctory concept for various industry verticals. Our e-F@ctory is an integral concept to build a reliable and flexible manufacturing system offering high speed information transmission over robust and high-speed industrial CC-Link IE Network. e-F@ctory is already implemented at worldwide customers in various fields such as automobiles, pharmaceuticals, solar battery, secondary battery, precision equipment, semiconductors, food, metal processing, etc. We have developed e-F@ctory Alliance Partners to offer various digitisation solutions for different industry verticals with domain knowledge and integration expertise. 
 
Mitsubishi Electric Corporation, our parent company in Japan, has already worked upon AI, 5G, ML, AR/VR/ MR, Robotics, Predicative AI at various levels and we are enhancing our offerings of Factory Automation products by embedding these upcoming technologies in our products. Mitsubishi Electric has also worked in the domain of Edgecross and is part of Edgecross Consortium established in Japan a few years ago. We have also introduced Cobot (Collaborative Robots) product range in recent years. Mitsubishi Electric India has also introduced latest products like GoC (Graphic Operator Controller), IoT Gateways, etc. addressing needs of low-cost automation required for the digitisation journey.
 
Sunil Mehta is General Manager, Automotive Business Development, Factory Automation & Industrial Division, Mitsubishi Electric India Pvt Ltd.