During FY 2020-21, the Indian manufacturing industry saw impressive investments of $5.5-6.5 billion in Industry 4.0, according to a NASSCOM report.
Avi Dahiya, founder and CEO of Twyn, a phygital twin deeptech company, says the future of manufacturing will be a synergy of human and robots.
Twyn, which helps large manufacturers and OEMs to enable smart manufacturing, recently secured $1.25 million in funding in a pre-series A round, led by JITO Incubation & Innovation Foundation (JIIF) and ah! Ventures. Other investors include HEM Angels, Bestvantage and Beej Network.
The platform creates phygital twins that not only replicate a live and connected version of the physical asset and environment, but also brings back insights from the digital twin to the physical environment for on-ground optimisation of machinery, inventory and human resources for the manufacturers.
Dahiya says, “The deeptech ecosystem in India is moving away from nascency when it comes to investors’ confidence in the potential of advanced technologies to bring the next stage of technology innovation. India is being recognised on the world stage for its strengths in building enterprise SaaS with global players looking at ‘made in India’ solutions to solve industrial and business challenges. There is also a concerted effort by large manufacturers and OEMs to adapt to Industry 4.0 where the role of artificial intelligence, robotics and immersive reality is far more pronounced than earlier times.” Deeptech’s proofs of concept are available at several leading companies such as HP, Samsung, Maruti Suzuki, P&G, Uno Minda and JBM Group. Twyn aims to deploy the fresh capital to expand across auto, petrochemicals and steel hubs in the Middle East and Europe. In addition, the startup wants to strengthen its leadership team in India and in Dubai, to support its growth plans and market expansion.
The startup’s platform powers enterprises across auto, oil and gas, steel, pharmaceuticals, FMCGs as well as smart city projects to deploy high fidelity digital twins. It helps large manufacturers and OEMs to custom build digital twins of their physical assets across multiple factory sites — on ground, underground or underwater as well as across geographies.
The phygital twin model simplifies the way decision-makers analyse, engage and act on real-time data from physical assets, significantly reducing the time, cost and resources required for process completion.
Covid push
There was an increased focus on Industry 4.0 soon after the pandemic, when businesses, big or small started to rely more on technology. The manufacturing industry is labour-intensive and relies heavily on the shopfloor or physical environment. Covid-19 caused significant disruption to this workflow. China’s zero-Covid policy, for example, posed challenges in procurement of raw materials and disrupted supply chain management at an unprecedented scale, particularly in emerging economies.
“This led to the manufacturers realising the importance of digitisation and the need to move towards flexible manufacturing, equipped with state-of-the-art digital technologies. Covid-19 gave a significant boost to manufacturers to increase the usage of robots on shop floors, use sensors and data analytics and adopt IoT technologies,” says Dahiya. “Manufacturers started to leverage emerging technologies to optimise production, enhance agility and to monitor factories remotely.”
According to a PwC report, India reported the highest increase in the use of AI at 45% following the outbreak of the Covid-19 virus compared with major economies such as the USA, Japan and the UK.
Talking further about the future of manufacturing and the synergy between human workers and robots, Dahiya says while humans will bring to the table a range of dexterity, problem-solving abilities and decision-making skills, robots will excel in monotonous tasks on the shop floor.
“In the coming years, manufacturers must navigate the path to unlock the full potential of human-robot collaboration, creating seamless interfaces. Besides, there is a need for manufacturing to pivot towards hyper-personalisation, catering to individual consumer needs through intelligent, connected systems,” he adds.
