Smart Manufacturing to improve quality of jobs : Amitabh Kant, CEO, NITI Aayog

Smart manufacturing practices will increase productivity and the quality of employment opportunities said Amitabh Kant, CEO, NITI Aayog. Kant observed that Indian manufacturing sector has to adopt advanced technologies to survive in a highly competitive environment.

Kant highlighted that productivity and efficiency are critical for the growth of Indian industry. Industry needs to produce high quality products at a competitive price to withstand the global competition. Manufacturing unit shop floors are now as fashionable and automated as any other industry and consumers are now directly influencing the shop floors. Collecting and processing data coupled with cutting edge technologies will enable shopfloors to respond to the rapidly changing consumer demands, according to him.

He informed that amalgamation of 9 systems - robotics, big data, 3D printing, analytics, additive manufacturing, automation, electronic system, design, IOTs will lead to Smart manufacturing 4.0. Globally, countries are looking at manufacturing sector for driving their GDP, Europe will be investing over 40 billion Euros in the next 5 years in manufacturing industry. He urged industry to focus on quality and productivity as essential pre-requisites for increasing exports.

Kant stressed on the need for MSMEs to be interconnected and technically agile to be globally competitive and support the Indian industry. Productivity, cost, employment, after sales services, logistics and others facets of production are now integrated on real time basis with adoption of smart technology.

To shape the transformation, NITI Aayog has also introduced robotic technologies in the incubation centers / labs in 500 schools to promote smart manufacturing.

Anshu Prakash, Additional Secretary, Department of Heavy Industry emphasized that Smart manufacturing is a dynamic process which will happen over a period of time and Government is willing to provide enabling eco-system. Upgradation of skills and news skill sets are critical for manpower to adopt smart manufacturing. Prakash informed about an umbrella Capital Goods Scheme to be announced soon. The new scheme includes technology development fund and is also incentivizing smart manufacturing.

Sumit Sawhney, Country Chief Executive Officer & MD, Renault Operations in India focused on smart thinking and smart mindset for promoting innovation in manufacturing. He illustrated the small car KWID segment has been made lean and smart with smart thinking and processes. He concluded that Think Smart - Think Innovative is key to manufacturing and automation will create more jobs in future.

Dilip Sawhney, Summit Chair & MD, Rockwell Automation India mentioned that the Summit is not just a one-off initiative of CII and is aligned with a broader objective of CII Mission Smart Manufacturing programme which aims at promoting smart manufacturing across the Indian manufacturing industry. CII Mission Smart Manufacturing creates a framework at firm level to embrace smart manufacturing technologies. In addition, as per the study conducted by CII to identify Champion Manufacturing industries which have a potential to drive the double digit growth in manufacturing sector, Technology is identified as one of the key drivers.

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