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Leading domestic industrial and engineering companies such as Larsen & Toubro<\/a>, Reliance Industries<\/a> and the Tata group<\/a>, as well as multinational firms including General Electric<\/a>, Siemens<\/a> and ABB<\/a>, are all trying to capture a share of the pie and the timing seems just right.
Most companies are not making huge investments in expanding capacity, although they see merit in putting money into digital platforms, which help improve efficiency and render more profitable the extant capacity.
Industrial firms traditionally entered the services business to offer operations and maintenance support, which gave them additional revenue streams and helped build customer loyalty. Now, they are taking it a notch higher — by adding sensors to products to provide steady data, and analytics, which predict breakdowns and improve efficiency.
“This is a hardware-plus-service business; the value-added services have high margins that will reflect on the bottomline,” JD Patil, senior executive vice-president (defence business) and member of the board at Larsen & Toubro, told ET. “Companies like us have an edge because analytics can be done only when you understand the domain very well.”
Patil heads the L&T-Nxt initiative, which uses new technologies, digitalisation and analytics for industrial solutions, as companies move towards ‘Industry 4.0’.
For instance, L&T has built a digital platform in-house, which seamlessly connects diverse operations, improves efficiencies and cuts decision time. In its Mumbai office, CEO SN Subrahmanyan just walks across to a “control room” for real-time data from 400 company sites operating miles away. The smallest of data, such as the amount of electricity consumed by machines or the weight hauled by a crane at a construction site, are put together and analysed, helping L&T take big decisions to improve performance.
“New age technology has to be built into new assets, but it is also necessary that old assets adopt it if they have to be competitive and relevant,” Patil said. “Three-four years ago, when we were looking at this, we could not find an implementation partner. We innovated and did it on our own. Having done that, we know what has to be done and we can now offer it to others commercially.” Multinational companies such as Siemens and General Electric (GE) too have beefed up digital offerings, with India in focus.GE tied up with the Mukesh Ambani-led Reliance Industries when the latter decided to diversify into this business.
Siemens is partnering companies to provide digital platforms that will solve their problems. For the automotive industry, it offers a digital enterprise suite that enables companies to digitalize and integrate the entire manufacturing value chain, including suppliers. The company worked with Mahindra & Mahindra to set up a digitalized platform that quickly translates market requirements into a viable vehicle platform, including reducing the time taken for new product launches.
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INDUSTRY 4.0<\/strong>
“The boundaries between business, engineering and technology are being dismantled. There is a great opportunity for organizations in this, and if you are not doing it then there is a risk you will get left behind,” said DD Mishra, senior director at technology research firm Gartner. “That is why we are seeing some of these companies getting into these areas and creating ecosystems through partnerships and alliances and incubating companies.”
Technology innovation flowing from the corporate to the consumer-side is passé. Consumer technology is increasingly driving enterprise technology. Unlike in the past, when investments in technology were merely a cost-factor, the shift to the newer model is helping companies add revenue.
This is new way of doing business and is known as Industry 4.0 — the fourth industrial revolution. It includes placing internet-connected sensors on large machines and using analytics, cloud computing and machine learning to predict and prevent issues.
One early success of Industry 4.0 has been the creation of digital twins, using sensors at multiple points to collect data on how a large machine such as an aircraft engine performs and using computer simulations or analytics to predict the optimum time for maintenance.
This market alone is expected to be worth more than $25 billion by 2025, according to business consulting firm Grand View Research.
Industrial houses are ramping up digital services, which are crucial to maintaining or increasing their services business. Digital services providers, in turn, are adding technology to products that they sell or separately offering services for existing assets. These services may carry a lower ticket size, but are high margin businesses that enhance customer stickiness.
Recognising this need, planning body NITI Aayog<\/a> and ABB India organised a workshop on manufacturing in the age of AI. The workshop, held last month, saw participation from entrepreneurs, policy makers, state government functionaries and technology experts.
“Just as we have embraced AI in different formats for our regular lives — from maps to voice search and its integration with other applications — we believe, with the right enablement and innovative business models, it could add significant value to the MSME manufacturing sector and help them navigate a continuously evolving landscape of regulatory frameworks, quality imperatives, climate change, global commodity and business uncertainties,” said ABB India’s MD Sanjeev Sharma at the workshop.
Companies are putting these technologies to internal use first before making them commercially available.
The Tata Group’s power utility has developed its own digital platform, helping customers better manage consumption with realtime information and improving efficiency at its own plants. It is now offering this service to other utilities.
“We understood the flow of electrons but needed expertise in digitisation. We started developing our own IT capabilities using new-age technology,” said Praveer Sinha, CEO, Tata Power Company. “Today, we have more than 150 IT engineers who understand both aspects well and can come up with unique solutions.”
Tata Power has applied for a dozen patents and is working with universities like the MIT, he said, adding “there is a lot of co-innovation work happening in this space.”
Reliance, too, is not far behind.
“Reliance recognises opportunities in artificial intelligence, machine learning, big data analytics, IIoT, blockchain, 3D printing, artificial intelligence, virtual reality among others and has been hard at work setting the stage to build institutional competencies in these areas,” the company said in its FY18 annual report. Interestingly, the term ‘blockchain’ appeared seven times in its FY18 report, only once in its FY17 annual report and never before that.
OPPORTUNITIES<\/strong>
Even early movers in automation and technology need to keep up with the new or they will end up lagging peers, a challenge as well as an opportunity for these companies.
“These investments come as customers are changing. These services are being demanded by them as their awareness grows,” Girish Juneja, chief digital officer of industrial product manufacturer Dover Corp, told ET in a recent interview. The company, which has about 500 employees in its IT and technology operations in Bangalore, offers services such as monitoring of underground petrol tanks to detect leakage to customers, in addition to other products.
Industrial giants are increasingly developing the capabilities in-house or working with select providers with niche skills, asking for price cuts in the commoditized IT services space.
“We are trying to reduce the number of vendors we use and collapse service offerings to just a few vendors. In newer areas, we will work with specialized companies,” Dover’s Juneja said.
L&T’s Patil said, “Getting data is tough, sometimes there is old equipment which doesn’t have systems to capture data. Even if you have data, analytics is not simple. That’s where companies with domain knowledge would be a better implementation partner.”
For technology companies, the opportunities have increased, but so has the need to stay ahead of the curve.
Technology giants, including the large Indian IT services providers, have trained thousands of employees on industrial internet-of-things platforms such as GE’s Predix or building their own. They are, however, increasingly competing for talent with industrial companies.
Wipro, ABB and Siemens have all opened up job searches for specialists in Digital Twin Technology in Bangalore, a cursory search of professional networking site LinkedIn shows.
“There is an arms race for these skills, which are still not widely available. IT companies have put in training programs but you need actual experience to architect a system,” said a consultant who works with conglomerates on their Industry 4.0 strategy, who declined to be identified. “Getting talent is tougher because all the companies have their arms in Bangalore.”
Although the opportunities are immense, they are not easy to capitalize on, as GE’s example proves.
GE forecast that its digital business revenue would touch $15 billion by 2020. However, as of 2018, GE Digital’s revenue was down 2% at $3.9 billion, according to a filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission. Issues in its core power business and difficulties in growing the software side remain key challenges.
“GE was the most bullish company and certainly far ahead of the others when it came to this, but even their results have shown that it isn’t easy,” the consultant quoted above said. “They used to say every company is a software company, but you have a large industrial business to retool. It’s like turning the Titanic.”
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国内工业和工程等公司Larsen & Toubro公司,信实工业公司和塔塔集团,以及跨国公司包括通用电气(General Electric),西门子和ABB,都是试图捕捉一份派和时机似乎刚刚好。
大多数公司并没有取得巨大的投资扩大产能,尽管他们看到价值在资金投入到数字平台,有助于提高效率和渲染更有利可图的现存的能力。
传统工业企业进入服务业务提供操作和维护支持,这给他们额外的收入来源,并帮助建立客户忠诚度。现在,他们正在一个等级更高,通过添加传感器产品提供稳定的数据,分析,预测故障,提高效率。
“这是一个hardware-plus-service业务;增值服务有高额利润,将反映在底线,“JD帕蒂尔、高级执行副总裁(国防业务)和Larsen & Toubro公司董事会的成员告诉ET,“像我们这样的公司有优势,因为分析可以做只有当你明白域很好。”
帕蒂尔头L&T-Nxt倡议,它使用新技术,数字化和分析工业解决方案,随着企业走向“行业4.0”。
例如,L&T已经建立了一个数字平台内部,无缝地连接不同的操作,提高效率和减少决策时间。在孟买办公室,首席执行官SN Subrahmanyan只是走在“控制室”实时数据从400年公司网站运营英里远。最小的数据,如机器所消耗的电力或重量拖吊车在一个建筑工地,放在一起分析,帮助L&T采取重大决策,提高性能。
“新时代技术必须建立在新资产,但也是必要的旧资产采用它如果他们有竞争和相关,”帕蒂尔说。“三四年前,当我们看这个的时候,我们不可能找到一个实现合作伙伴。我们在我们自己的创新,做到了。做完了这些事,我们知道必须做什么,我们现在可以提供其他商业。“跨国公司如西门子和通用电气(GE)也加强了数码产品,与印度在焦点。通用电气与穆克什Ambani-led信实工业当后者决定扩展到这个行业。
西门子公司合作提供数字平台,将解决他们的问题。对于汽车行业来说,这提供了一个数字企业套件,使得公司能够以洋地黄治疗和整合整个制造业价值链,包括供应商。公司曾与Mahindra & Mahindra建立数字化平台,迅速将市场需求转化为一个可行的汽车平台,包括减少所花费的时间的新产品发布。
4.0行业
“业务之间的界限、工程和技术正在被拆除。组织在这方面,有一个很好的机会,如果你不这样做,有可能你会留下,”DD Mishra说,高级主管技术研究公司Gartner。“这就是为什么我们看到有些公司进入这些领域,创造生态系统通过伙伴关系和联盟和孵化公司。”
技术创新流动从企业到消费者方面已经过时。消费者技术日益推动企业技术。与过去不同,当投资技术仅仅是成本因素,转移到新模型是帮助企业增加收入。
这是做生意的新方法,称为行业4.0 -第四次工业革命。它包括将联网传感器在大机器和使用分析,机器学习云计算和预测和防止问题。
4.0工业早期的成功之一是创建数字双胞胎,使用传感器在多个点上收集数据等大型机器如何飞机引擎执行和使用计算机模拟或分析预测维护的最佳时间。
这个市场就将价值超过250亿美元,到2025年,根据业务咨询公司大观点的研究。
工业房屋增加数字服务,这是至关重要的维持或增加他们的服务业务。数字服务提供商,反过来,分别添加技术销售的产品或提供服务为现有资产。这些服务可能携带一张大小的低,但高利润率业务,增强客户粘性。
意识到这种需求,规划机构镍钛Aayog和ABB印度组织了一次研讨会上制造时代的人工智能。上个月举行的研讨会,参与企业家、决策者、政府工作人员和技术专家。
“就像我们接受了人工智能在不同格式定期生活——从地图到语音搜索和其与其他应用程序的集成——我们相信,有了正确的实施和创新的商业模式,它可以大大增加MSME制造业的价值,帮助他们在一个不断变化的景观管理框架,质量要求、气候变化、全球大宗商品和业务的不确定性,”印度MD (Sanjeev ABB Sharma说车间。
公司将这些技术内部使用之前,先使其商业化。
塔塔集团的电力公司开发了自己的数字平台,帮助客户更好地管理与实时信息消费和提高效率的植物。现在是向其他实用程序提供此服务。
“我们理解电子的流动,但需要在数字化方面的专业知识。我们开始使用新时代技术发展我们自己的能力,“Praveer Sinha说,首席执行官,塔塔电力公司。“今天,我们拥有超过150名工程师理解这两个方面,提出了独特的解决方案。”
塔塔电力已申请十几个专利,正在与大学如麻省理工学院,他补充说,“有很多co-innovation工作发生在这个空间。”
依赖也紧随其后。
“信实承认机会在人工智能、机器学习、大数据分析,IIoT,区块链,3 d印刷、人工智能、虚拟现实等,努力构建制度奠定了基础能力在这些地区,”该公司表示FY18年度报告。有趣的是,“区块链”一词在其FY18报告中出现七次,只有一次在其FY17年度报告,之前从来没有。
机会
甚至在自动化和技术先行者需要跟上新的或者他们最终将落后同龄人,挑战以及这些公司的机会。
“这些投资之际,客户正在改变。这些服务被他们作为意识的增长,要求“首席数字官Girish Juneja多佛集团工业产品制造商,在最近的一次采访中告诉等。该公司拥有约500名员工在班加罗尔和技术操作,提供服务,如监测地下油罐检测泄漏客户,除了其他产品。
工业巨头日益发展利基的能力与选择供应商内部或工作技能,要求降价的商品化服务空间。
“我们正试图减少供应商的数量,我们使用和几个供应商服务崩溃。在新的领域,我们将与专业公司,“多佛Juneja说。
L&T的帕蒂尔说,“获取数据是困难的,有时是旧设备,没有系统获取数据。即使你有数据,分析并不是一件简单的事。这就是公司领域知识将是一个更好的实现合作伙伴。”
对于科技公司,增加了机会,但也需要保持领先。
科技巨头,包括大型印度IT服务提供商,拥有训练有素的成千上万的员工等工业物联网平台通用的Predix或建立自己的。然而,越来越多的与工业企业竞争人才。
Wipro, ABB,西门子都开放的工作搜索数字双技术专家在班加罗尔,职业社交网站LinkedIn的粗略搜索节目。
这些技能,“军备竞赛仍然没有广泛使用。公司把培训计划,但你需要实际经验的系统架构师,”顾问说他们的行业与企业集团4.0策略,不愿具名。“人才是严厉的,因为所有的公司在班加罗尔手臂。”
机会是巨大的,虽然他们不容易利用,作为通用的例子证明。
通用电气预计,其数字业务收入将接触到2020年150亿美元。然而,在2018年,通用电气数字的收入下跌2%至39亿美元,据一份提交给美国证券交易委员会(sec)。问题在其核心业务和困难在软件方面保持增长关键挑战。
“通用电气是最乐观的公司当然远远领先于他人时,但即使他们的研究结果表明,并不容易,“上面引用的顾问说。“以前说每个公司是一家软件公司,但你有一个大的工业业务重组。就像泰坦尼克号。”
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