Bangalore: Technology major Siemen’s EVP Digital factory division, Ashish Bhat, said digitisation in machine tool manufacturing will make the Indian SME environment vibrant and buoyant.
In the manufacturing industry, machine tools – similar to lathe machines – are used for shaping other rigid materials by cutting and grinding. Siemens works closely with OEMs in this space offering digitised solutions for the manufacturing of machine tools.
Bhat, who took part in the Indian metal cutting industry event IMTEX 2017 said, “Machine tool vendors are enthused about digitisation, as the demand for more high-tech machines in on the rise,” adding, “by adopting digitisation, everyone wants to improve their productivity”.
The Small and Medium Enterprise (SME) sector forms the backbone of Indian economy contributing 17 % to the GDP and is expected to increase to 22% by 2020. The sector is currently going through a transformative phase with the adoption of digital technologies.
“The biggest challenge for most SMEs is scaling up the production. Virtually designing a 3D model of the product using CNCs before releasing it for production, reduces the time to market,” Bhat said, adding that it increases flexibility and efficiency of the SMEs.
The Technology and Application Centre (TAC) in Bangalore aimed at skilling people working on machine tools has trained about 1500 workers since its inception in 2014. The TAC centre provides hands-on experience of the latest Computer Numerical Control (CNC) systems and solutions from Siemens and its partners.
Siemens follows a build-operate-optimise process towards digitalisation in the machine tool space enabling SMEs to overcome the entry barriers of scale. The company offers a range of CNC and metal-cutting machine tool technologies – tool-and-die, mold-making, automotive, aerospace and medical part manufacturing amongst others.
Source: The Economic Times
