The engineering and manufacturing exhibition, Global Industrial Expo was inaugurated today by Mrs Vaishali Darade, Mayor, PCMC, Amit Kandhare, General Secretary, All India Nationalist Youth Congress Party and Yogesh Bahal from PCMC and Mr Shinya Hamano from Big Dishowa in the presence of other dignitaries. Organised by Global Media Communication, the first edition of Global Industrial Expo will be on till November 24 at the Auto Cluster Exhibition Centre, Pune.

Looking at the prevailing positive sentiment of the industry, the maiden show is likely to get a good response from various industry verticals.

The event will also witness another first-of-its-kind initiative, ‘E-manufacturing Technology’. India’s first ever integrated manufacturing solution by metalworking giants will also make its debut on the sidelines of the expo. E-manufacturing Technology aims to impact the precision machining industry with a special emphasis on the Die & Plastic mould industry. The event will see like-minded players – MAZAK (machine tool), Speroni (tool presetter), SCHUNK (work holding), DIJET (cutting tools), ESPRIT (CAM) and Big Dishowa (tool holders) come together as a team to demonstrate the value of advance manufacturing technologies. Mike Lauer, General Manager – Asia Pacific, ESPRIT CAM Software says, “We are glad to be a part of the fresh initiative called E-manufacturing Technology. We are into automation and work to come up with innovative and brand new ideas for the manufacturing industry. We are showcasing our latest features in CAM software that will help ease the manufacturing process.”

With the participation of leading brands who showcased their new as well as proven technologies and the who’s who of the industry as visitors, Global Industrial Expo is nothing less than a one-stop shop for the engineering and allied industry professionals. The exhibition features some of the well-known companies such as MAZAK, Speroni, SCHUNK, DIJET, ESPRIT, Big Dishowa, EMTL Sales & Service (Electronica), Syndicate Machines Pvt Ltd, Onward technologies and HITACHI, among others.

One of the exhibitors and part of E-manufacturing Technology initiative Ravi Sane, Country Head, DIJET India adds, “We are showcasing some of the latest tooling solutions along with our partner company at E-manufacturing technology. The idea is to educate people and spread awareness about our latest technologies.”

According to the Global Media Communication team, “It is the best platform for the professionals associated with design, engineering, equipment, supplies, die & mould, machine tool industry and support services to get acquainted about the latest happenings in the industry and connect with potential customers as well as industry professionals.”

“The die & mould industry in India is largely affected by the usage of compromised technology and lack of awareness, with this new concept called E-manufacturing Technology, we are trying to showcase the benefit of sister tool management and throw light on how good technologies can improve the efficiency and reduce the cycle time,” says Ravi Moolya, General Manager, Speroni India pvt Ltd.

According to Mr Ashish Raut, National Sales Manager, SCHUNK Intec India Pvt Ltd, the eco-system of machining process such as work holding, CAM software, tooling, CNC, etc play vital roles in productivity of the job. We are displaying SCHUNK work holding devices to inform the industry about our latest offerings. Many companies in India are not using the work holding device in the best possible way, which affects the overall productivity. Participating at E-manufacturing Technology, along with our partner companies we aim to address this issue,” says Mr Raut

Exhibit range of the show includes machine tool, tooling solution, work holding device, metal forming machines, machining software’s, hand tools, energy efficient systems, industrial equipment, engineering products, etc.

With the opening of the Pune show, organisers have already planned the 2nd edition in Nashik during the month of April 2015.

Let technology overtake manual process
Technology has greatly impacted almost every aspect of human life, we as a nation have embraced it in area of tele communication. Today in order to locate a person without a mobile phone will be like searching for a needle in the hay stack. Unfortunately, although Indians have been forerunners of technology advancement all over the world, as a nation we have been slow in imbibing technology in all its facets where it has the greatest impact. The best example where we have been slow is the manufacturing sector and this has resulted in several core industry requirement shift focus to South Asian suppliers.

Integrated Technology facilitates a manufacturing process by helping achieve consistent quality, on time completion with the efficient use of resources. We are content with going in for CNC machines but we forget that CNC machines need to be complimented with the peripheral technological aids to achieve world class results.

Technology is the modern age Genie. Hence, we must ensure that it remains an effective slave to human control and not be enslaved or ensnared by it. This implies establishing a technologically adequate automated process with effective monitoring.

Challenges faced by Indian companies
We are a nation sitting on a gold mine affordable skilled resources (but fast dwindling now with the strong advent of BPO’s). As a result we have created skilled manual interlinks in our manufacturing processes on the pseudo thinking that this will reduce costs. The effect – failure on both the crucial fronts of quality and timeliness. The result – LOST BUSINESS.
Indian industry needs to move out of this cocoon by introducing relevant technological interfaces in their process. Simultaneously, keeping in focus the available gold (skilled resources), we need to channel them through training into the higher level responsibility of monitoring.

Adoption of the latest technology
The Indian industry is generally paranoid on the cost of procurement without realizing the overall cost of ownership, hence, they need to be carefully cultured to appreciate the advantages and impact of an integrated technology approach in the manufacturing process. This cannot be accomplished by a single player – say Machine tool manufacturer – in isolation. We have before us the classic case of Indian hockey, once on top of the world. Our teams, individual brilliance but with inadequate team work, was exploited by the western teams displaying excellent team work. Indian industry will accept proofs not promises and proofs can be demonstrated only when complimentary players come together to understand a customers real needs and offer a technology solution in synergy.

Holistic education of customers can alone create the required break through – united approach by complimentary technology players to create awareness through exhibitions/ seminars, to demonstrating jointly pilot proofs and finally training to ensure goals are effectively realized.

At E-manufacturing Technology
In a small but significant way forward the ‘e- manufacturing technology’ panel has started this unique journey towards demonstrating the power of integrated approach to offer technology in synergy with customer’s actual needs on the vehicle of ‘Global Industrial Expo’. We believe this is just a beginning and that others would join us along the way even in other technology areas. The ultimate vision is to see our nation positioned among the top most technology leaders in the world. We have the intelligence, we have the technology providers, we have the resources – we only need the empowerment through unity to align these strengths towards the vision.

Message to Indian machine tool professionals
Let’s focus on the alliance of the technology we bring to the customer rather than its diversity. In union is strength and success.

Current Scenarios
Globalisation helped India create its place on the vast canvas of advanced technology. Most of us were dazed to witness the technologies which were not until within our reach. Manufacturing sector in particular has experienced a qualitative change. When we were exposed to new concepts of quality, productivity standards and safety norms of the western world, we realised how archaic our perceptions had been, about these concepts.

Today we think that India has reached a lot closer to the advanced engineering practices. How true is that? The question makes us reflective. Its sincere answer reveals the stark difference between the modern technology adopted by the western world and the kind version that we generally adopt in India. Industry experts also believe most of the Indian industries have still not quite tuned in with the most modern technology trend.

“Let technology overtake manual process”
We definitely need to minimise the manual process since it is error prone and does not guarantee constant results. But most of us connect everything with the input cost. We think too much of commercial implications. Our tendency is to look for the lowest input cost option. At several Indian business houses, the modernisation drive is consigned to back burner because of financial implications with high custom duty etc. In many cases, the machine tool or equipment is not looked upon from the performance and productivity point of view. It is more heavily weighed from its cost, so the quality is compromised. Management should be enthusiastic for productive, innovative, reliable and precision equipment which is capable to compete in the world market.

India’s & technology adoption
Today we have very few Indian companies, who have a global face value in true sense. They are the ones who have started taking strategic steps to adopt the latest high-end technology from western world. Such managements believe that unless they have progressive mind and vision towards complete modernization they will not be able to deliver at the global stage in terms of quality, speed and cost. So, to certain extent the trend is encouraging.

But still many other companies are confining their vision on the cost. They are looking for low cost technology, which is abundantly available in Chinese or Taiwanese market. These entrepreneurs are apprehensive about huge capital investment in world-class technology because of the fear factor – the fear of failure. Fear is the biggest hurdle in being innovative. That’s why design or product up-gradation does not take place at times.

In some cases the advance technology is adopted in haphazard manner. For instance, the management invests big amount on installing advanced CNC machine, but doesn’t spend on world-class quality tooling. The low quality tool affects on machine spindle and product finish. As a result company has to incur repetitive cost on buying the tooling.

What needs to be done?
The chronic problem that the Indian industry has been facing is the ‘chalta hein’ attitude. It reflects in almost all the operations and at every level. This is why we see lack of accountability. Once this attitude is built up it is very difficult for an industry to shrug it off. It is therefore, essential to nip it from the bud i.e while imparting training to apprentices and engineers. At ITI level, the apprentices who are under vocational training courses should be aware of the skill requirement. Even the century old machines have to be replaced with new ones. Sense of accountability must be inculcated in their minds during this stage. At present many instructors in various ITI’s are less experienced and lack passion for imparting training and developing skilled craftsmen. They can take help of retired skilled employees from industries and their experience and knowledge can easily be transferred to apprentices. This will help the industries gain better trained craftsmen.

Companies that have set an example
Certain global technology leaders are making conscious efforts to change the conventional approach of Indian Corporate Houses. They are pushing only for real world-class technology by constantly trying to introduce the best, in terms of accuracy, efficiency and reliability.

In the recent times, some Indian companies like L&T, Mahindra, TATA and the likes, who have acquired global presence in true sense have taken best efforts to come out of the conventional thinking. They have not only have adopted to the best technology, but with commitment and consistency they have significantly changed the perception and work culture at their work places. Their TQM, KAIZEN, 6 Sigma and 5S or similar other campaigns are not launched for academic record but to bring all-round progress. These companies have also done exemplary work on power saving, non-conventional energy resources, environment preservation and house-keeping etc. They have been able to keep their workforce committed and passionate about their work. If this type progressive approach is adopted by all industries and their vendors with the Government’s good support, India will be on fast track to full-fill the dream of “MAKE in INDIA”.

“With the fast evolving technology, especially in the manufacturing sector, customers are looking for more value, less risk and better integration of process. So there is a need to change the manufacturing strategies that can result in improved performance thereby meeting the customer demands,” Ravi Moolya, General Manager, Speroni India Pvt Ltd, Pune.

India gaining ground
The 21st century led our nation to the global platform in terms of technological advancement. Many industries took this opportunity to project their capabilities on the global stage. They undertook modernisation drive, upgraded their manufacturing processes, embraced the changes with confidence and faced the challenges with courage. As a result, the ‘Made in India’ brand has undoubtedly gained better acceptability in the world market, than before. This is encouraging. Yet, we need to take little extra efforts to rub shoulders with world-class manufacturing giants.

Your take on ‘Let the technology overtake the manual processes’
India is a fast developing country with enormous growth potential. We are witnessing many changes as well as challenges. The manufacturing sector, in particular, is facing the challenge of higher quality and less through-put-time in manufacturing. Especially in the aerospace industry, auto sector and other precision manufacturing industries, huge investments have also been made on technology upgradation and automation. Manufacturing concepts are changing today. Managements are embracing the change by investing in top-class machine tools, software and tooling, but the work culture still remains the same. As a result, the return on investment is not achieved as desired and industry professionals hesitate to bring in big technology changes. Therefore, manual processes are still followed at many work places.
But considering the limitations of manual processes and the extent of losses incurred due to over-reliance on manual work, it is time to make conscious efforts to create proper work culture and spread awareness about the advantages of adopting the latest technologies. Reduction of manual work will reduce/ eliminate the chances of rejection, rework and while providing better quality.

India’s position on technology adoption
Well, in most of the industries the managements are ready to invest for high-end technologies, but at times the resources who are actually involved in utilising or putting it to use show cold shoulder to the management initiative due to the fear of losing their importance. But this cannot be blamed out rightly. Lot of effort needs to be put into education and awareness to create leaders at the bottom, but unfortunately the Indian industry in general is badly hit by the ‘chalta hai’ attitude. This attitude is spread across industries like an epidemic and is often the root cause of poor work culture. Decision makers at user level need to be encouraged for improvement.
In some industries good technology is sidelined due to management’s concern about the cost. As a result the quality is compromised and only make-shift solutions are adopted with less costs incurred. But with changing times, certain industries have successfully tried to overcome this problem by creating a better work environment and investing in training and spreading awareness among the employees. They are being involved in management policies, which have helped in creating a sense of accountability in them.

Challenges faced by Indian companies and how to overcome it
I believe, for any rotating Tool the nature of challenges is almost same, be it an industry in Europe, the US, Japan, China or India. What is different is the approach towards it. The western world focuses on quality solutions and long-term returns, whereas most of us look for cost-effective solutions. This approach prevents the high-end technologies to make way into the process. And perhaps this is the reason why few of the foreign manufacturers have discarded the low-end (compromised) technology provided by the Indian manufacturers, which has become obsolete in the western world long time ago.
Secondly, there are instances where people who possess manual skills, resist the change. But with intense pressure of globalisation and market competition the Indian Industry has to adopt the ‘process effective solutions’ as against the cost effective solutions in order to survive in the long run. We Speroni India take lot of effort in spreading awareness about the advantages of adopting the latest technologies and improve the process. We focus more at the bottom line than the top management. Our aim is to educate at user level.

Companies that have set an example
Usha Enterprise was using HSS small size cutter with conventional methods by number of passes and inspect & re-inspect method. For making grooves of 6 mm width with 50 microns tolerance took lot of time, efforts, operator dependency & rejection chances. If the slitting was 6 mm width they would use 2 mm tool then shift it and check the size. This whole process was time consuming & no quality assurance.
Once Usha Enterprises bagged order of 10 components that they had to deliver within 2-3 months time, they initiated talks with some reputed big names cutter suppliers. The reason being, the then existing conventional method and tool would have taken them 6-7 months to achieve the target. The company specifically used Speroni STP MAGIS 600 tool measuring machine, which could show the acuurate result and help Usha Enterprise finalise the cutter. After checking all the cutters available in the market only Walter’s cutter could meet the requirement of run out tolerance. The run out of Walter cutter was within the requirement and cutter’s reliability justifed the ROI. Speroni India helped them a great deal with setting tool within required tolerance, with the induction of new high-end technology, the cycle time was brought down to only 18 minutes, as against 20 hours.

My take on “Let technology overtake manual process”
It’s an idea that is also the current need of Indian manufacturing industry. Recently, India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi also stressed upon the idea to improve the manufacturing status of India on the world map. This is the most important step that has to be taken to improve the manufacturing standards of the Indian companies. This is an era in the manufacturing history where the production team believes in automating each and every process – from tightening a screw to programming a part on the machine.

India & technology adoption
India is riding the growth curve as we are taking a big leap from basic manual manufacturing methods to better technology which not only saves time and money but also helps to maintain the global standards. We can see small companies coming up with excellent manufacturing ideas and investing in high-end machines, improvised and customised tools and moving into CAD/CAM/CAE software’s for executing their projects in an efficient manner. Having said this, there are certain areas where we are still behind, like technology adoption & understanding, R&D and confidence to look beyond old and conventional methods.

Challenges faced & how to overcome it
The biggest challenge for the India manufacturing industry in India is the transition and change of the thought process. Indian companies have to understand the need of automation before looking for the immediate & short time solutions. Companies will have to adopt latest technologies, move out manual programming and see that the employees are well trained. Adopting softwares like Esprit will not only provide them programming solution but will also help them grow in terms of productivity and profitability.

Training & technology
The technology that we are talking about is not that complicated to understand. But yes, understanding and implementing is completely different. According to our experience an engineer working in a manufacturing company on Esprit CAM software must have some basic knowledge of CAD features and CNC machines. An engineer with such knowledge will generally take a month to be fully equipped with the product after having undergone a training of 10 days. In a span of 3 months, the engineers will be able to program almost all the parts that comes to them if the practice and implementation is done regularly. The training should be provided by experienced people who have indepth knowledge of the product, so that they can also share their practical experience which is highly recommended.

Automated activity
DP Technology’s product- Esprit CAM software is a fully automated product that helps users to move out of the traditional form of manual programming of NC codes on the CNC machines. Esprit is an high-end automated manufacturing solution having full spectrum solution for 2 to 22 axis turning, 2-5 axis Milling, TURN MILLS, Swiss Style machining and Wire EDM etc. Esprit CAM software has its own simulation engine by which the operators and engineers can see their parts being cut on the CNC machine in their computer, this is what we call Virtual Machining.

We have patented technology called Profit Milling, an high-end machining solution where the cycle time of the part gets reduced by almost 50% and customer is also able to save 75% of their tool life.

Showcasing….
We will be showcasing our Esprit CAM software, one of the high-end automated product in the market. Our focus is to provide customers a complete digitalised manufacturing solution, to understand the market requirement and then work to provide a complete packaged solution. We will also showcase our patented technology – Profit Milling, which is not only applicable in 3 axis milling but can also be used efficiently in 4 and 5 axis milling. It will help the customer reduce 50% of cycle time and also save 75% of tool life. This is a mind blowing feature of the software, which will combine with one of our other feature where we will show automatic tool selection and automatic feed & Speed data selection, depth of cut detection through our knowledge base technology. We will be providing a complete demonstration of the full spectrum of our manufacturing solution that we can provide through our software in all spheres like turning (2-22 axis), milling (2-5axis), turn mills, swiss style machining, wire EDM etc.

Message for Indian machine tool professionals
Focus and understand the requirements and then work accordingly. Change is always good, thus, it is profitable to learn about new technologies and applying it practically and then see where they currently stand in terms of the amount of improvement needed in their manufacturing process.

Companies should be ready to adopt new features and technologies and not lag behind. According to us, India is growing market in terms of manufacturing needs, and if a product has some good packaged solution for the companies, people adopt it. Lastly, we are very hopeful to see India being one of the most important players in the global manufacturing industry.

E-manufacturing Technology, an event to showcase unique integrated manufacturing solutions has been organised during the Global Industrial Expo scheduled from November 21-24, 2014 at Auto Cluster Exhibition Centre, Pune. With an aim to impact the precision machining industry with a special emphasis on the Die &Plastic mould industry, the event will witness like-minded players presenting as a team – machine tools, CAM software, tooling, tool inspection/ presetter, cutting tool manufacturer, component inspection/ probing, tool/ die steel manufacturer and component holding systems among others. It is a first-of-its-kind initiative where metalworking giants have decided to come together to demonstrate the value of advance manufacturing technologies.

The partner companies will integrate their technologies to demonstrate the importance of automation. Companies that will be showcasing their best solutions are MAZAK (machine tool), Speroni (tool presetter), SCHUNK (work holding), DIJET (cutting tools), ESPRIT (CAM) and Big Dishowa (tool holders).

Ashok Raj, Mentor, E-manufacturing Technology says, “Pune is one of the biggest hubs for die and mould manufacturers in India. However, much of this business is slowly but surely migrating to the overseas market of Taiwan, Thailand and China, primarily due to cost and quality considerations resulting from the high degree of manual intervention (matching / lapping) in the manufacturing process by Indian suppliers. Through this platform we desire to integrate these partners together and demonstrate how this business can become highly competitive through improvement in quality, productivity and cost reduction.”

Talking about the awareness of latest technology S Ravishankar, Deputy Managing Director, Yamazaki Mazak India Pvt Ltd says, “There should be awareness or knowledge as to what is the right technology and the purpose the technology will serve. Awareness can only be developed by witnessing the technology exhibitions, attending seminars etc. Today, with the advent of internet, the distance is no more a concern and information can be brought to individual desks. Hence, it is much easier to spread awareness where there is interest.”

The event is planned in such a way that it will benefit both the operator and management. Management can learn about the importance of the automated technologies, while operators can learn best shop floor practises.

Ravi Moolya, General Manager & Country Head, Speroni India Pvt Ltd adds, “At times we see that companies have good machines but compromise in tooling systems, etc. This not only affects the quality of the product but also their business. Through this seminar we would like to spread awareness among the professionals that how using the best technologies can help them achieve better productivity thus reducing the cycle time. We are also inviting people working on the shop floor to talk about tips and tricks of various machining activities.”

India is slowly losing out to other nations due to lack of a cohesive support from the government, inadequate awareness of latest technologies and lack of technological know-how. In order to raise awareness, MFGTechupdate.com has been selected as the official media and marketing partner for the event. The premium machine tool media house will help the event to reach out to the potential audience. Apart from online media, Efficient Manufacturing, leading machine tool monthly magazine is also on board as an official print media partner.  The event is said to address some major issues that the Indian companies have been facing.

See you at E-manufacturing Technology, Global Industrial Expo!!!