Industrial Automation Magazine India

We are getting good traction from SMEs

Published on : Tuesday 30-11--0001

Is the SME sector ready for the transformation to Connected Factory? How do you address their concerns?

KD: SMEs are one of the key focus segments for us and what we see now, especially in automotive and aerospace, they are being asked by the OEMs to adopt certain technologies, e.g., traceability. So we are getting good traction from SMEs. If you see the demonstration on the vehicles, the focus is in fact on the SMEs, and the hubs where it will go are all concentration of SMEs. It will show them the technologies available, which are all affordable to them, offering solutions.

GV: While this is true for the India market, globally we have three growth markets – Business Transformation with OEMs and large companies; Value Solutions Channel for small, tier 2 & 3 companies; and the present solutions which are more relevant to smaller companies, an entry point solution that add lot of value for scaling up. You also may know about the IQMS acquisition which is now DELMIA WORKS which caters to small and mid-sized companies. So we have a global strategy from big to small companies with appropriate solutions for each. This is true for India and also globally.

Is this campaign more inclined towards discrete manufacturing or does it also include process industries?

GV: Both are important to us, and you are probably aware of our recent acquisition, Quintiq, which provides a new reach into industries such as metals, mining, oil & gas, rail, delivery and freight. Quintiq specialises in on-premise and on-cloud supply chain and operations planning and optimisation software. So process industry is important for us. You can find us in food & beverage already – it is in fact one of the key segments of DELMIA, next to aerospace and defence. So we continue progressing and where we lack insights, like with Quintiq and also with our partnership with ABB, we get some of those insights, so expect to see us more in that side of business.

The implementation of AI in the Indian manufacturing industry is very low at the moment. What are the hurdles and how is it globally?

KD: AI, in my opinion, is still in the nascent stage, an emerging technology. There is slow adoption owing to a number of reasons, and the technology is still evolving. There are still not many options yet.

GV: Globally too, there is a lot of cost involved and as of now a lot of R&D is going on and there are use cases too. But first, before going to fancy systems, applying systematically the available technologies is more important. For example much data is captured from the assembly line and using this data to improve efficiencies must be the priority. Of course AI can help improve it further, but that is still work in progress.