Indian companies must adopt to process automation, additive manufacturing, Industry 4.0
Q. Highlight the current landscape and growth prospects of machine tools industry in India
The machine tool industry is set to grow to more than 120 billion dollars by 2020 and with the elections behind us, and the same government coming to power, there would be no major disruptions in the policies, which would further boost confidence in the machine tools market.
Machine tools being the back bone of any manufacturing activity and with high growth projection for near future there is an immense opportunity for development of the same.
Indian companies must adopt to process automation, additive manufacturing, Industry 4.0 and other emerging techniques to hop on to this growth bandwagon. This emerging technology would be necessary to cater to huge demand that is going to come from auto components manufacturing, electronics engineering goods, dies and moulds in both domestic as well as international markets. Companies failing to adopt to the same are at risk of being left out.
With the world perspective, India has the right mix of everything needed with huge pool of man force, skilled engineers available at a very reasonable cost and companies willing to adopt new techniques of manufacturing etc and with added advantage of huge domestic demand, it’s poised to take a big chunk of the manufacturing market across globe.
That said, there are also challenges faced by the industries too, huge capital investment are needed for upgrading of technology, for training of man force , retraining of the man force, improving productivity and changing the mind-set of the work force to work with new emerging concepts. Even there is reluctance on the part of the financial institution for lending to the machine tools industry is hurting the growth.
Q. How are your products/services geared up to be in line with recent trends, such as Industry 4.0 and Smart Manufacturing?
The current manufacturing is going through a tremendous change, with focus now being to produce accurate components, very fast, with higher repeatability, increasing productivity and keeping a bird’s eye view for safety for workers, operators, customers and all concerned. That’s industry 4.0.
At Dahanukar Machine Tools, we are working on two verticals. Firstly we are adopting smart manufacturing technologies to streamline our manufacturing process to global bench marks and at the same time making a safe environment for our work force and secondly we are making our products compatible to global safety standards for our customers. With right blend of IOT and smart manufacturing our products are getting ready to be compatible with emerging technique like Industry 4.0.
Although implementation of such things not only requires to change our mind-set, but also puts a pressure on all the resources of the company in the short term. But with committed management, Dahanukar Machine Tools Team is positive to emerge as a recognised player in its field of operation.
Q. What is your vision for your company (in terms of new product launch, innovation/collaborations)? How do you see your brand growing by 2020?
We are currently looking at our entire product portfolio and analysing the same with regards to the demand in the market. Many products that have lost the relevance in the market would be discontinued, but at the same time many new products would be launched keeping pace with the requirement in the market. Being surface grinding machine manufactures we are developing many new machines with different concepts which are not available in the market. This would not only create NICHE for us but also would make us ready to secure our customer base and improve the same. We are also actively looking for collaborating with foreign counterparts for manufacturing, reselling such grinders in India in which we are not present. By 2020 we want to increase the quality of our product portfolio with right blend of niche products, automation and collaboration in the space of surface grinders.