Manufacturing sector embraces AI; 54% of firms implement Artificial Intelligence

The shift in customer preferences, new distribution models, geopolitical uncertainties, supply chain disruption, and ESG regulations have given rise to new opportunities for the manufacturing sector in terms of redesigning and innovating the existing business models. Various government initiatives like the production-linked incentive schemes (PLI) and ‘Make in India’ have also contributed to the development of a favourable environment in the domestic market to the manufacturing sector.

In a report by PwC, Indian companies are showing an upward trend toward adopting analytics and AI with a current implementation rate of 54%.

In a survey, titled Reimagining Digital Factories of Tomorrow, the PwC India underscored that manufacturing companies currently prefer to adopt one standardised digital solution across plants.

Domestic firms majorly focus more on people, policies, and mindset while global companies prefer building up systems for driving any transformation, the survey said.

However, 38% of the Indian companies that participated in the survey revealed that they do not have any plans to adopt digital technology for their businesses.

Notably, a majority of Indian manufacturing firms are following the global trend of implementing advanced technology solutions such as additive manufacturing, analytics, artificial intelligence (AI), augmented reality (AR)/ virtual reality (VR), and smart devices.

The survey highlighted that every company is at a different stage of evolution in its digital transformation journey. For instance, industrial manufacturing, hi-tech and electronics, and pharma and MedTech have seen a bigger change in adopting digital technology.

The survey showed that the innovation rate and TTM strategy are gaining significant prominence with an expected growth of 38% in Indian companies, while the cost leadership and efficiency improvement approach is declining with an expected drop of 11%.

The report highlighted that 32% of the Indian champions are opting for PLM compared to 46% of global champions, whereas 21% of the Indian manufacturing ring firms are opting for IIoT compared to 31% of global champions. Low code automation is gaining importance in Indian champions as compared to their global counterparts.

The technology adoption rate in India is promising. According to the survey, more than 50% of the Indian digital champions have implemented technology across industries. In India, additive manufacturing industries are where technology has been adopted the most with an adoption rate of around 55%. Global champions are majorly focusing on analytics and AI, with an implementation score of around 88%.

Companies in India that invested at least 3% of their entire revenue in digital transformation had a higher proportion of high returns than those who invested 2% or less of their revenue.

“This is a very interesting time for organisations, especially in India, who have embarked upon the digitisation journey. Organisations are focusing on improving the efficiency of processes, such as reducing the downtime of assets, minimising the maintenance cost of expensive equipment, cutting down the cost of poor quality by understanding the parameters needed for the golden batch using digital twins, automation of processes like connected workstations using IoT for better visibility at the shop floor and workflow-based automated solution for efficient scheduling,” Sudipta Ghosh, Partner, Industrial Products Sector and Data and Analytics Practice Leader, PwC India, said.

Updated: 20 Jun 2023, 03:43 PM IST