“Intelligent applications or Apps will impact the lives and drive people at both personal and industrial level. These 
apps will no longer be the apps which we use today, but will be much more intelligent, advanced and loaded with AI and Digital Twin”, said Dr. Jitendra K. Das, Director FORE School of Management, New Delhi.
Dr. Das was the Chairperson of the session themed – Role of Robotics, AI and Automations to Make In India at the recently held “8th Manufacturing Innovation Conclave” – Building manufacturing, Building India, organized by Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) with co-panelists – Harish Mehra, Business & Solutions Head, Tata Consultancy Services; Kush Mishra, Chief Technology Officer, SenRa; Prabhakar K Chaudhary, Managing Director, HAL Robotics.
Talking about the manufacturing industry which is undergoing a paradigm shift centered around technologies like the Machine Learning, IoT, Autonomous or Assistive AI, Dr. Das mentioned how India needs to seriously think of investing on developing resources in these technologies, which promises better quality, greater efficiency, higher speed while enabling the per unit manufacturing cost to be lower. To achieve this goal, China is increasingly building capabilities in AI-based solutions.
Gartner predicts that by 2021, “50 percent of large industrial companies will use digital twins, resulting in those organizations gaining a 10 percent improvement in effectiveness”.
Harish Mehra, Business & Solutions Head, Tata Consultancy Services, explaining how even a small change in design, can impact productivity in any manufacturing unit and how the advance robotics technology shall do wonders in such scenario, spoke about Industry 4.0 and how Robotics, AI & Automation shall play critical role in the success of the “Make in India” programme. The applications of Advanced Robotics where a robot is not just performing a task but also is capable to take decisions, is something the industry will take help from. The digital twin technology shall record how things are working in the factory in real time and autonomous or assistive AI will analyze and take control of the machines accordingly and in case of a potential failure will shut down a particular machine unit.
“Robotics has to be of assistance to the human kind and to be used by the humans rather being replacements for human beings”, said Prabhakar K Chaudhary, MD, HAL Robotics. “India missed the opportunity during PC revolution and the Smart Phone hardware industry. Manufacturing has to be the core area of opportunity and employment and hence India has to gear up to be a key player by adapting to newer technologies faster”, he added.
Kush Mishra, touched upon AI technology used in Tesla cars, equipped with sensors to prevent loss of lives by precisely averting accidents acquiring real time information from the streets, providing critical inputs to the driver and taking control of the braking system, if required.
The session focused on understanding Industry 4.0 trends those are driving manufacturing Innovation like the Internet of Things (IoT), Augmented Reality and Digital Twin and analyzing the challenges which manufacturing industry may face. When looking at AI, decision makers however must distinguish between autonomous and assistive/augmented solutions as it pertains to accelerating the demonstration of business value for optimizing operations and not for negative impacts on the mankind.
~-By Nirmalya Pal
