Industry experts weigh in on the value of skill development in evolving technologies for new-age manufacturing
Manufacturing is one of the crucial industry sectors in India. The potential for employment in this sector is immense with new-age, digital technologies disrupting the industry. Training candidates in evolving technologies has become mandatory to cater to the requirements of the skilled workforce in this sector.
Prashanth Doreswamy, President and Chief Executive Officer of Continental India, responded to the query of how new technologies have been incorporated into the manufacturing sector by stating, “To understand why skill development is required in the new edge of manufacturing, we need to understand what kind of transformations are happening, which is important for the success of today and tomorrow as well.”
Doreswamy listed six proprieties – Industry 4.0, demand for quality and efficiency, new technologies and trends, increased focus on sustainability, Make in India, and lastly, gender parity. Elaborating on gender parity he added, “Unfortunately, within manufacturing, I think the involvement of female workers is less than 17 per cent.”
Taking the discussion further, Shailendra Shukla, MD Vehicle Group, Eaton India, questioned why there is a need for new-age technology. He further explained, “We need safety, faster productivity, quality, and efficient delivery, and then there is a cost. According to Shukla, new-age manufacturing will be driven by energy sustainability and digitisation. And I believe that our workforce needs to be upskilled or reskilled.
Vinit Goenka, who was moderating the session, talked about the importance of gender diversity in the manufacturing sector. During the discussion, he mentioned the Pradhan Mantri Kaushal Vikas Yojna, which retained around 1.37 crore workforce, and asked the panellists if the training institutions should update their curriculum to better align it with evolving technologies. Is a degree more important than a skill? To this, Suman Yadav, Vice President – Operations, Hindware said, “The demand and skillset for the manufacturing industry is changing now. The onus is not just on the institution, but also on the industry at large, to collaborate with such institutes and develop an ecosystem.”
Currently, he elaborated, manufacturing companies have established training centres to provide individuals with hands-on experience in their process knowledge. What these manufacturing companies ultimately did was work within their facilities. “I think this needs to change and manufacturing establishments should extend support to institutes in building a curriculum in line with present changes,” Yadav stated.
Ramashankar Pandey, MD, Tata Batteries, felt that we, as Indians, are highly obsessed with degrees and designations. “In our country, the designation moves with the understanding that he or she is skilled or not. In our country, at least any mother who wants to marry her girl child to somebody called a master plumber or the chief technician is little or negligible. This is because society does not recognise the skill and gives more impetus to the reputation that comes with designation.”
Meanwhile, Prakash Guha, MD & CEO, Zuventus Healthcare, explained to the audience that pharma manufacturing is different because pharma is a knowledge-based industry and requires a certain set of skills. He said, “The pharmacy industry has already adopted new-edge technologies such as digitisation and robotics. We are also contemplating bringing AI to manufacturing. But all these activities are driven by skilled manpower because the pharma industry is run by the regulators.”
During the discussion, Bipul Chandra, Managing Director, Ducati India stated that the problem areas in the manufacturing industry are quantifiable, like sales. There is always a reverse process. Increasing the skill level also means giving them (shopfloor workers) ownership of the entire process along with an honest opinion of what the market is thinking about the product. Because, he said, “At the end of the day, what you do in the factory (end product), which is purchased by customers, may come back (with a defect) and haunt us in the future.”
