Country should benefit from Industry 4.0: expert

‘Product life cycles are shrinking with the advent of new technologies’

The Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) and AP Skill Development Centre (APSSDC), with national partner IIT (Tirupati) and international partner Texas A&M University (USA) on Monday organised Industry 4.0, a conference to identify opportunities, challenges in implementing new technologies and sensitise all the stakeholders.

Industry 4.0 is all about connecting different physical systems using cyber networks. Like computers have penetrated into all the domains, Industry 4.0 is also expected to influence every domain. Industry 4.0 can benefit manufacturing, agriculture, transport, medicine and several multiple disciplines, the organisers said.

In his welcome address, Vijay Naidu Galla (Vice-Chairman, CII - AP Chapter) emphasised the importance of Industry 4.0 for the Indian industry.

D. Ramakrishna (Chairman, Industry 4.0 Conference & Convenor, IT panel, CII ) said that product life cycles are shrinking and in this context, Industry 4.0 is very important. India and China have missed the bus during Industry 1.0 and 2.0. China, however, was able to exploit the Industry 3.0 and benefited immensely. India has the big opportunity to exploit Industry 4.0 and benefit from this.

Industry 4.0 is all about algorithms and creating system of systems. Industry 4.0 comprises data collection, use of analytics and decision support systems and finally taking the action, he said.

Knowledge hub

K. N. Satyanarayana, Director of IIT-Tirupati, said that the State government was trying to make Tirupati a knowledge hub and in this connection, IIT-Tirupati will play a crucial role. The institute had identified some thrust areas, including smart infrastructure, food technology, education technologies, materials and manufacturing, energy and design.

“Industry 4.0 is part of our thrust areas. Presently, manufacturing contributes 15 % of the GDP and it needs to be increased to 20% in the next two years. That is possible by implementing the technologies like Industry 4.0,” Prof. Satyanarayana said.

Later, the IIT Tirupati and Texas A & M university of USA have signed an MoU to work closely on different works in future.

Others who delivered speeches on the importance of Industry 4.0 included Mr. S. N. Eisenhower (Director – Operations, Saint-Gobain India Pvt. Ltd.), Mr. Ravi Raghavan (CEO, Bharat Fritz Werner Ltd), Dr. K. Lakshmi Narayana (IAS (Rtd.), Founder & Director, APSSDC), Mr. Ghanta Subbarao (Founder & Director, APSSDC), Dr. P. R. Kumar (Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Texas A & M University, USA).