BW Businessworld conducted an exclusive roundtable on 'Digital Thread Transforming Manufacturing', in partnership with Wipro and Dell India on the 27th October at JW Marriott Sahar, Mumbai. The forum discussed on the changing role of the CIO as a business partner and digital solutions lending to the prosperity and profits of a business, rather than only technical infrastructure.
The evening commenced with a Welcome Address by Praval Sharma, Head-Business Development, MFG-India & Middle East, Wipro, followed by a 'Tech Session on Future Ready IT for Digital Transformation' by Xavier Kuriyan, Director Solutions and Alliances, Infrastructure Solutions Group, Dell India, who introduced the audience to a blueprint Dell has created utilising Kepware and Software AG for predictive analysis of product functioning. While Kepware can do the translation real time, Software AG can translate real time and compare to historical trends.
Kuriyan shared how the use of metrics to predict the functioning of products can help generate meaningful output, for example: If a motor fails on one side of a refinery, how would that effect the output of refinery? Energy management Blueprints are another framework Dell has put together with software partner BLUPillar which will help in optimising power usage within a house or a building, including all ACs, machines etc. All the solution blueprints are available as an ecosystem from Dell.
The panel discussion on 'Digital Thread Transforming Manufacturing' was moderated by Y A Pitalwalla, Consulting Editor, Business India magazine. It highlighted how the role of the CIO has become multi-faceted in the era of social media, digital transformation and analytics.
"In my view the CIO equals IT and IT today stands for innovation and transformation of thinking. They no longer only manage a team and IT infrastructure. CIOs are in a great position to proactively work with business leaders," said Sriram Shankaranarayana, General Manager & Head of Digital -India & Middle East, Wipro.
According to Suresh Iyer, CIO, Bluestar India Limited, "The skills a CIO needs today are more business and customer centric, directed to those who are using the products. Armed with technology, he has to be the innovative human force behind simplification of complicated businesses. Other than that, he also needs to be able to manage politics in the organisation, and direct the management team towards a positive impact on business fortunes."
Digital risk management is the challenge that is bugging IT officers more. Is digital transformation a boon or bane, was another discussion among the panellists. None of the panellists felt it would be justified to shun the benefits of technology because of its evils.
When it comes to manufacturing, the role of digital transformation is manifold. "IoT sensors being autonomous there is a world of difference in modern age predictive analysis. Now it has a CPU, ANU and storage, it can be in mesh with the other IoT devices, does not need to go to PLC, and can take a contextual decision autonomously," Ramnarayan Mohanty, President -Technology, Pidilite Industries added.
"China has dominated manufacturing because of the volumes they are generating. What we can do to combat this is to get to the same levels of productivity, using IoT, cognitive processes, and robotics to get cost effectiveness in the face of volume. Outpacing China on these technologies to ensure quality is the goal to be achieved," said Vipin Gandhi, CIO & Head -IT, Welspun Group.
Reducing warranty and servicing costs is one of the major concerns for manufacturers. Technology can come in very handy here as well. Predictive analysis is on the wave, making it easier for engineers to be ready with a solution. As Pratap Gharge, Executive VP & CIO, Bajaj Electricals, said, "Social disruption and digital has made us look at customer centricity, understand product engineering, and ensure security at the design stage, create teams to perform some functions on partnership basis, provide mobility app facilities to technicians to give customer service faster."
Iyer cited a project wherein 300 chillers located in remote location, have been connected over IoT, sim-card based technology. Engineers in the command centre can track and use data for analytic purposes, effect of operational conditions, and how to manage energy.
Jayant Magar, Vice President & CIO, AMW Motors, stressed on the fact that many initiatives are being taken to enable design, deployment, process-monitoring, controlling, and post-sale service warranty. Looking at feedback mechanism at every stage is the digital thread transformation. A CEO can see the data electronically through mobile apps of analytical streaming. A product configurator has been developed, so that the consumer can have a choice, from pre-developed blocks, therefore now producing vehicles on demand, he shared.
Gharge added, that it is not possible for a single company to build all that. So there is a requirement and expectation from service providers to form standards in the areas of interconnectivity and mobility.
The event was concluded by Shankaranarayana, where he re-iterated the transformation in manufacturing enterprises towards customer 'experience', 'engagement' and 'after sales services', while continuing their focus on connected products & machines, connected value chains and connected workforce. The digital manufacturing enterprise of tomorrow would build up on the existing business model by greater customer connect, collaborative supply chains and smart manufacturing.
He stressed upon, Wipro's focus on reinforcing its core technology services with industry specific digital enablers in areas like Cognitive Process Automation, AI, Machine Learning, IoT, Big Data and Advanced analytics. These enablers have their foundation in Wipro's IP based digital platforms like 'HOLMES', 'Looking Glass', 'Data Discovery Platform' and many others. The digital capability is complemented by an expanding ecosystem of innovation partners, start-ups and the academia. The strategic intent in digital is further strengthened by the acquisition of 'Designit', a global strategic design firm focusing on creating coherent product-service experiences and inculcating design thinking towards achieving business transformation through digital interception.
