.png)
Glimpses of the webinar
On the backdrop of COVID-19 outbreak and its consequent impact on the manufacturing industry, Manufacturing Today organised a webinar on ‘Practical Approach towards Automation and Robotics’. Participants of the panel discussion included:
- Raghavendra Deolankar, Manufacturing Head, ZF India
- Bhanwar Lal Bishnoi, Group Head -Embedded Design, L&T Electrical & Automation
- Mukul Verma, Vice President Projects, JK Paper
- Sheshagiri Nayak, AVP, Automation & Robotics, Industrial Products Group, Godrej & Boyce
- Ashim Sharma, Partner & Group Head – Business Performance Improvement, Nomura Research Institute
- Prabhakar Shetty, Global Head – Digital Manufacturing Services, L&T Technology ServicesÂ
The webinar started on the note of how pandemic is changing demand in the market and what impact it has on the adoption of newer technologies. The panel also touched upon various other aspects such as parameters to adopt automation, maintenance of the automation solutions, etc.
Raghavendra Deolankar mentioned that the difference between pre- and post lockdown era would be social distancing. Each company will have to follow norms in this regard. Each company will have to see and identify processes where such norms are difficult to deploy. Accordingly, they need to work around and see which stations can be clubbed together, which processes can be automated, etc. AGVs can be looked at as an option to transport the parts within the factory to ensure they are not touched. He further mentioned that in the post-lockdown era, we will have to change our maintenance system from breakdown maintenance to predictive maintenance.
Agreeing to him, Bhanwar Lal Bishnoi said, in the pandemic situation automation and non-contact manufacturing will be helpful and safe from employees as well customers’ point of view. Now that we are looking at breaking the chain of spreading the virus, these things will definitely help and also allow manufacturing to continue.
Ashim Sharma threw light on emerging trends in technologies. He mentioned that companies are relooking at manufacturing from the point of view of social distancing. Automation becomes necessary in some cases. This is three folds – 1. Automation on the machines 2. Automation of back-end processes and 3. Automation of material handling.
Mukul Verma mentioned that lot of SMEs do not have Level 1 automation or tracking systems in place. So they should focus on what exactly their requirement is. Not all technologies have to make sense to every company. So, one needs to be careful while selecting the technology.
Prabhakar Shetty mentioned that today, medical, pharma, CPG are looking for line expansions while on the other hand the auto companies are getting into ventilators manufacturing. “So definitely, there is a need for services to be delivered remotely. As a result, form and shape in which we get in touch with OUR customers are changing.”
Sheshagiri Nayak highlighted that while selecting automation, one should think on a long term perspective and short term. He also explained 14 points to think before implementing automation.Â
Fully understand the process you are going to automate
Establish the business a business case
- Define automation goal & objectives
- Resource requirements
- Get implementation schedules and timelines
- Identify the automation opportunities within the process
- Review the pros and cons
- Level of process complexity
- Automation implementation periodization
- Automation deployment location
- Cost benefit analysis
- Impact on business
- Security risk of the automation
Most importantly, the webinar had very active audience and they participated through question & answer session. Additionally, webinar also had polls wherein audience registered their opinions. To the question, ‘Do you think lockdown and pandemic era will change your perspective towards making investment into new technologies?’ more than 73% people replied as Yes. When asked about ‘With new policies in place for plant operations, what would be your priority?’ Majority of the audience mentioned that need based automation and digitalisation of operations are two priories they have.