As India aspires to become a global manufacturing powerhouse, it must navigate fierce global competition, evolving business landscapes, and rising customer demands for speed and customization. To address these challenges, ET Auto and ET Manufacturing organised the Design & Manufacturing Summit on August 27.
The summit, held in Chennai, welcomed speakers from across the industry to deliberate on how Indian manufacturing companies must embrace disruptive technologies that boost innovation while optimising performance and efficiency. ” The key discussion topics of the summit were: Unlock the Potential of AI in Manufacturing; Impact of a Digital Factory in Maximising Efficiency in Manufacturing; Unified Data Environment’s Role in Transforming Decision-Making; and Connected Manufacturing Solutions Enabling Adaptive and Efficient Production Processes.
By encouraging collaboration and knowledge sharing, the event aimed to build a roadmap for the holistic adoption of these technologies to design and make better products, driving Indian manufacturing companies toward progress and profitability.
The event kicked off with an inaugural address by Parminder Singh, Country Head, Design and Manufacturing & Media Entertainment, Autodesk India & SAARC. Singh emphasised the importance of innovation in driving this transformation. He remarked, “Design thinking is not an option today, it is a must for all of us.” Highlighting the sector’s pivotal role in India’s economic growth, he added, “The manufacturing sector has to increase from 17% to 25% to make India the third-largest economy.”
Singh concluded his address on an optimistic note, stating, “There are a lot of opportunities, and the onus is on all of us on how we take advantage of them.”
Srinath Jonalagadda, Vice President of Industry Strategy – Design and Manufacturing at Autodesk, addressed these key points by introducing the concept of the 3As—”Automation of work, Augmentation for innovation, and Analysis for decision-making to drive productivity for manufacturers.” He also pointed out the challenges in adopting new technologies: “There is a lot of initiative in India for manufacturing, but a challenge remains in adopting digitalisation, which will help sync manufacturing processes.”
Anurag Vohra, COO of TI Clean Mobility, stressed the era of constant innovation, stating, “It’s an age of smart tech, and organisations need to have continuous data flow.” He emphasised the role of data flows in syncing processes and eliminating redundancies.
Meenakshi Sundaram, CTO of the Amalgamations Group, redefined ROI as Return on Innovation rather than Return on Investment, which sustains the manufacturing processes. He also emphasised preferring a Right-cost product over a Low-cost product.
Digitalised manufacturing and data security were key issues raised in the panel discussion. Kartikey Joshi, President and Business Head of CREAT at UNO MINDA Group, referred to digitalisation as being as easy as the quality of data and the people who implement it. Srinath Jonalagadda further discussed data security, asserting the golden rule of data security: being paranoid but not paralysed.
The summit explored the convergence of digital transformation and advanced technologies such as Artificial Intelligence (AI), Machine Learning (ML) and Cloud Computing in revolutionising design and manufacturing processes and integrated software platforms that unify design, manufacturing, analysis, and data management. By delving into the practical applications and benefits of these technologies, the conclave provided attendees with insights on how they can be leveraged to achieve superior outcomes in their organisations.
