Leveraging Industry 4.0 in Manufacturing

Recently, three leading women manufacturing professionals came together to talk about the role they can play in shaping the manufacturing landscape with the help of technology.

December 2022: Niranjan Mudholkar, Editorial Director, Pro MFG Media engaged with three women leaders to understand ‘how manufacturing professionals can leverage industry 4.0 technologies. The speakers included Samah Shawky, Managing Director, Birla Carbon Egypt, Sowmya Chaturvedi, Director Supply Chain, Cummins Asia Pacific, and A. Shirisha, Head - Industrial Engineering & New Product Launch, Continental Automotive India. This virtual discussion was part of the Women ACEs of Manufacturing initiative presented by the Aditya Birla Group.

The discussion focussed on the overall impact of Industry 4.0 on the manufacturing industry and why it is important to stay abreast of Industry 4.0 solutions as a manufacturing professional. The speakers also discussed how overall technology proficiency enable manufacturing professionals to grow. They highlighted the role of reskilling and upskilling in the context of technological advancements and underlined that manufacturing professionals can use technology as a tool for collaboration in cross functional operations. The audience included a mix of engineering students and manufacturing professionals.

Samah Shawky, Managing Director, Birla Carbon Egypt, spoke about the key benefits that Industry 4.0 solutions bring in the context of decision making, while saying that Industry 4.0 is having a very important impact on the overall manufacturing industry. “The key advantages for our industry are real time communication and remote monitoring. Manufacturing organizations are today generating a lot of data and thanks to Industry 4.0 solutions, this data is driving better and faster decision making.”

Sowmya Chaturvedi, Director Supply Chain, Cummins Asia Pacific, said that agility is definitely one of the driving factors of Industry 4.0, which brings in a lot of data analytics from the manufacturing perspective. “From a perspective of percentages in terms of adoption of the digital tools, 60 percent is still within the manufacturing sector to improve manufacturing efficiency. Around 50 percent implementation of those tools is in the warehousing space. Close to 35 percent of that implementation has trickled down to supply chain. This is an overall perspective of the adoption of those tools,” she said.

Pointing out the advantages of Industry 4.0, A. Shirisha, Head - Industrial Engineering & New Product Launch, Continental Automotive India, said that the advantages of implementation of Industry 4.0 solutions can be phenomenal whether it is in India or anywhere in the world. “Decision making becomes data drive. There is no human intervention. There is also a huge improvement in terms of quality and consistency. It has also led to agility, flexibility, efficiency and safety,” she added.

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