Indian manufacturers struggle over bandwidth for Industry 4.0
The manufacturing industry is heading towards Industry 4.0. This move promises to change how manufacturing companies operate and is likely to create problems for those without access to the high quality internet connection required for this new technology, as is the case in many parts of India. Nevertheless, companies that have already started to use smart factory technologies are starting to see a good ROI. Indian manufacturer, Hero MotoCorp, has started using smart manufacturing technologies like IoT and its CIO and Head CSR, Vijay Sethi said, "IOT has the potential to change the way manufacturing operations or logistics happen. The real time data collected from sensors can be analyzed and corrective measures taken even without human interventions in many cases." 

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The manufacturing industry is on the brink of fourth industrial revolution.Termed Industry 4.0 , this new wave of smart manufacturing is all about building a new industrial paradigm around IoT , cloud, big data analytics , 3 D printing, M2M , Robotics, horizontal and vertical integration and augmented reality.Powered by these technologies, this impending revolution is hailed as the fourth industrial revolution that promises to bring about a tectonic shift in the way manufacturing companies operate.Organizations that have started to leverage smart factory technologies are getting a hefty ROI.India’s largest two- wheeler manufacturer Hero MotoCorp is one such early adoptor of smart manufacturing technologies like Internet of Things.“IOT has the potential to change the way manufacturing operations or logistics happen. The real time data collected from sensors can be analyzed and corrective measures taken even without human interventions in many cases,” says Vijay Sethi , CIO & Head- CSR, Hero MotoCorp.Equipment suppliers can, for instance, remotely monitor the health of machines and take preventive actions to do condition based maintenance for reducing or eliminating machine down time.Similarly, based on physical conditions like temperature, humidity etc – automatic actions can be taken to control the parameters. Real time information in logistics can help significantly cut down logistics costs and inventory holding while improving customer service at the same time.It helps reduce costs, reduce energy consumption, reduce downtime of machines but also significantly improve efficiency and customer serviceHero Motor Corp took initial steps towards IoT by GPS enabling its fleet, getting real time data of truck location and linking that with its sales and distribution data to take actions as may be required. This also helped its delaers and sales teams to get real time information on location of goods.“ At one of our locations, we put in various sensors like weather sensors, and sensors to monitor levels of humidity, temperature, oxygen, carbon dioxide, pressure etc. and the entire air temperature, pressure, humidity, oxygen is today being monitored using sensors and being controlled remotely, states Sethi.He point out that IoT initiatives deliver results only when the huge amount of data generated from the sensors is transported in real time to the right place and analyzed for intelligent business insights.For this to happen, one needs to ensure availability of high quality of internet bandwidth. “Even today the quality and availability of bandwidth is an issue in many parts of the country,” he highlights.