Factory Automation, Industrial Automation & Industry 4.0.

This editorial was first published in the April issue of Automation & instrumentation update magazine.

By Anil Kumar, Inovance Technology India

In the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic, most industries, including manufacturing, have embraced digital technologies to enhance their business operations, and the latest digital technologies can help Indian manufacturers in a host of different ways. Digitalization helps to maintain and enhance workflow and productivity, ensuring enterprises are able to meet their goals. Digital transformation is driving productivity, efficiency and uptime by delivering capabilities such as remote monitoring and high levels of connectivity between machine components.

Digitalization was a key focus in the Union Budget for 2023 and Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman has outlined the government's vision for the Indian economy as creating a technology-driven and knowledge-based economy that leverages digital tools and platforms. Presenting the budget last month, the Sitharaman announced a range of initiatives to boost manufacturing, including a focus on production of green technologies, accompanied by tax incentives and customs duty cuts. This is all part of supporting the successful Make in India initiative, launched by the Indian government in 2014, which continues to improve the business climate for local manufacturers. The initiative sets an ambitious goal of increasing the manufacturing industry’s contribution to GDP to 25% by 2025 and has seen strong progress towards this target, driving up Indian productivity. It is clear digitalization will play a central role in the future of India and in meeting the government’s economic and industrial goals, as Industry 4.0 technology helps enterprises replace many traditional and outdated methods over the coming years, causing productivity and efficiency to increase.

Factory automation is increasingly important for companies to maintain their competitiveness. Recent developments in factory optimization have seen machinery and other processes adapted to become more efficient, while Industry 4.0 has revolutionized the way companies design, manufacture and distribute their products. By implementing new technologies such as IIoT (industrial Internet of things), cloud computing, and AI-based machine learning,  digital technologies lead to improved and increased automation, predictive maintenance, optimization and new levels of efficiency. Implementing advanced IIoT helps manufacturing companies to improve quality and productivity.

There are three key reasons why industrial automation matters in today’s fast growing world. First and the foremost is that industrial automation increases and improves processes and productivity of tasks in the factory. Industrial automation systems come with a range of features to reduce errors, boost quality and increase overall efficiency. Secondly, advanced, automated manufacturing processes are a great marketing tool to convince customers that your products are up to scratch. Lastly, and perhaps most importantly, digital automation tools can help reduce greenhouse gas emissions, benefitting the environment and future generations.

At my company, Inovance, we have developed automation technology that helps various industries such as onshore power, electric vehicles, port machinery, central heating systems, injection moulding machines and steel production to cut down carbon emissions and benefit the environment. Inovance manufactures a complete range of industrial automation components and we are investing heavily in R&D over the coming years. We also work extensively with more unusual special purpose machinery. For example, during the Covid-19 pandemic, we delivered full automation solutions for face mask manufacturing machinery and we have now worked with over 140 face mask OEMs.

Industrial automation is opening up many opportunities for technology companies that are innovative and can cater to the automotive or agricultural sectors. Demand is expected to increase in the coming years as companies need more automation to remain competitive. Moreover, Industrial Automation is playing an increasingly important role for companies producing goods in India that are implementing the latest IIoT and Industry 4.0 technologies.

To continue the conversation about industrial automation, email Anil today: anil.kumar@inovance.ind.in