IT Adoption Helps Indian Manufacturing Industry In Operational Efficiencies

Manufacturing organisations have multiple functional needs and technologies can be broadly mapped under horizontal and vertical dimensions. Business IT enablers such as ERP (enterprise resource planning) systems have reached a higher level of adoption as general business IT tools of the manufacturing.



The prevalent technologies vary across functions in the organisations. At the shop floor level, CNC (computer numerically controlled), PLC (programmable logic controls), and HMI (human machine interface) provide the industrial automation technologies that serve in the automated control of the physical manufacturing.



More advanced users have matured into centralised plant operations control with SCADA technologies. In terms of product design and manufacturing process design, 3D design, PLM (product lifecycle management), and digital manufacturing are evolving in adoption cycle from the nascent stage of 2D design platform.



Very advanced users, though a few, have evolved to use complete plant modelling and simulation, with virtual commissioning and advanced tools such as process simulate, factory flow, factory CAD and so on. Here, practically before a single rupee is invested in physical plant infrastructure, the entire model and operations can be visualised on different what-if business scenarios.



In the horizontal functions, ERP (enterprise resource planning) has a mature adoption curve, while SCM (supply chain management) systems are in mid stage of maturity in adoption. Very progressive companies have looked at vertical application integrations, between the shop floor and business systems, to provide competitive advantage and have adopted manufacturing execution systems (MES) and manufacturing intelligence solutions.



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