India is witnessing a tremendous evolution in manufacturing sectors with reception of Industry 4.0 over the last few years. However, as compared to global players across various sectors, the average level of digitalisation in Indian manufacturers lags behind. India needs to significantly increase investments in digital technologies, in order to sustain manufacturing competitiveness. In this context, to enable a progressive shift towards industrial automation and digitisation, B&R Industrial Automation, India on July 12, 2019 arranged Innovation Day in Ahmedabad, one of the largest manufacturing hubs in India. This unique one-day conference was dedicated to building smart machines and factories with an emphasis on the acute needs of fully automated and connected assets and factories.   

Digitisation – Adding value to your customers

The event commenced with the inspiring words of Hans Wimmer, Managing Director, B&R. With a remarkable presentation, he highlighted various B&R accomplishments in 2018 and briefed on how B&R innovations are helping customers across the world to enhance productivity, improve quality, avoid unplanned breakdowns and be ready for Industry 4.0. Subsequently, Jhankar Dutta, Managing Director, B&R India illustrated on how digitisation offers endless benefits to manufacturers as well as factories. This was followed by an attention-grabbing address on ‘Innovation for High Performance’ given by Shirish Divgi, Managing Director, Plastics Machinery Asia, Milacron. Speaking on the topic, he explained on how can corporate innovation leaders build a high-performing innovation team. The session topics covered the need of digitisation, various automation trends, smart technologies and user experiences.

The path to building smart machines and factories

A panel discussion was well received by the delegates, with experts across industries on ‘Building smart machines and factories: Concept to implementation.’ The esteemed speakers in the panel were Premal Patwa, Technical Director, Prasad & Prashant Group; Satish Godse, Director, NU VU Conair; Jignesh Pandya, Director, Gayatri Controls; Rahul  Wathodkar, Sr. Manager Technical Service, Desma India; Subrata Karmakar, President, Robotics Business, ABB India and David Hemetsberger, Strategy Manager – India, B&R Austria. The main objective of this panel discussion was to explicate the various aspects involved in executing successful digital transformation and ways to ensure ROI in the long-term. During discussion, panellists shared with audience the current scenario of Indian machine manufacturing, short-term and long-term challenges and benefits of digitisation and highlighted the importance of digitisation.