Documente Academic
Documente Profesional
Documente Cultură
For more than 20 years now, India and China have been competing for the lion's share of global
manufacturing -- and until recently it looked like China was about to win the battle. In fact,
India's manufacturing contribution to GDP still is a mere 13% compared to 30% for China. There
is, however, an opportunity to turn the tide in India's favour as China's shrinking labour arbitrage
and strengthening Yuan against the US Dollar have encouraged investors to look towards more
cost-effective destinations like Vietnam and Indonesia.
India's advantage is its ample supply of skilled technical labour, although infrastructure issues,
bureaucratic hurdles and unreliable supplies of resources like power and water could have a
dampening effect. Already Havells, Godrej, Bosch and other large manufacturers have shifted
units to India.
India has a humungous task ahead in its dream of becoming the world's preferred manufacturing
destination. And only half the battle will be one if it manages to clean up its infrastructure,
manage its bureaucracy and improve ease of doing business. In the race against China, we must
not seek to imitate but instead keep our eyes on the trends and changes that are shaping the
industry while playing on our key strength of engineering skill and know-how.
According to an HIS Technology report, industrial automation accounted for more than half of
the installed base for all Internet-connected devices in 2012. "By 2025, the sector will account
for nearly three-fourths of all connected devices... a compound annual growth rate of 36.3 per
cent." The opportunity is humungous, needless to say.
Here are a few steps that India needs to take to ensure a manufacturing success story in Industry
4.0.
Grow its fledgling Internet of Things (IoT) industry: Without seamless data integration there
can be no Industry 4.0 - its future is in the growth of the Internet of Things market. IoT is needed
to connect all the heterogeneous devices in the industrial automation system and network them
together to create the Smart Factory. The Indian IoT industry although nascent, is an important
part of the Digital India imperative to transform India into a digital, knowledge-driven economy.
India's IoT industry is expected be worth US$ 15 billion by 2020, which means our share will be
a less than 10% of the global opportunity, which Gartner estimates to be US$ 1.9 Trillion by
2020. India will need to invest in skill and technology development as well as R&D facilities to
develop the local market.
Develop a robust data security environment: While the Internet of Things forms the backbone
of Industry 4.0, without a robust security infrastructure there can be no practical application of
the Smart Factory. From protection of intellectual property, IT networks in manufacturing
systems, company and customer communications, security needs to be imbibed into the factory's
architecture. Steps towards building a more conducive environment have to be two-fold, with
more stringent government regulations for data protection and security, backed by a developed
Security Services industry with the ability to manage advanced targeted cyber-security threats
and attacks.
India's manufacturing GDP contribution to the targeted 25% and become the "smart factory of
the world'.
2.