B&R’s Innovation Day on differentiation through digitisation

Innovation Day is B&R’s flagship event, which acts as a platform for machine builders and end users to understand latest industry trends and technology advancements.

Digitisation has already conquered our daily lives and industry is not far behind, with evidence of on course industrial IoT implementations across India. Digitisation is not only about using digital technology to increase revenue but also creating new business opportunities. In this journey, it is essential to choose a right technology partner for monetising and leveraging these trends, which adds value to customers.

In this context, B&R Industrial Automation took great pride in organising the 5th edition of Innovation Day on January 16, 2019 at Pune. Innovation Day is B&R’s flagship event, which acts as a platform for machine builders and end users to understand latest industry trends and technology advancements. This year’s conference was themed around ‘Differentiation through digitisation – Adding value to your customers’.

During this daylong conference, thought leader from different industries and technology experts from B&R deliberated on various next generation automation concepts enabling Indian manufacturers to lay the foundation for digitalisation. In the keynote, Jhankar Dutta, Managing Director, B&R India addressed the session on what Industrial IoT means to Indian ecosystem and more importantly how it influences the way we run our businesses.

“Digitalisation is fundamentally transforming the way machines are built. It is a viable option for each and every machine builder to build more effective and reliable machine assisting them right from design phase to installation to effective after sales,” said Jhankar. “By leveraging these advance automation concepts together with digitisation, machine builders can differentiate themselves from competition and deliver higher values to their customers.” His talk also highlighted various B&R Innovations for 2019 such as, Integrated Machine Vision, Human Trak collaboration, Hypervisor, Digital Twin and IIoT with ABB Ability, which helps in creating successful digital enterprises.

Everyone knows collaboration plays a vital role for those who are walking on the path of Industry 4.0 or Industrial IoT implementation. Sunil Kango, General Manager Operations, ACG Engineering reemphasised the role of collaborations in today’s changing business scenarios. Speaking on the importance of collaboration, he highlighted the successful association of B&R and ACG for over 15 years. In his insightful and engaging talk, he further explained the significance of choosing the perfect automation partner for achieving success and making machines smart and thanked B&R for being one.

With machines becoming smart, machine design is becoming increasingly complex and software is becoming a differentiating element. Narendra Chaudhary, Managing Director, Synergytech Automation spoke on how his company was able to conquer design complexities in the ultra-frame assembly line through B&Rs Automation Studio and mapp Technology with ease. He acknowledged B&R for providing an excellent consultative approach throughout the project making the process very simple and collaborative.

A panel discussion during the event focused on an intriguing topic for industry enthusiasts. The esteemed panelists from Saurabh Flexipack, Gansons Ltd., Volkswagen India, Ferromatik Milacron India, Reiter India and B&R Austria, shared their experience, knowledge and case studies on the topic, ‘Building smart machines and factories: Concept to implementation’. The discussion was moderated by Pooja Patil, Corporate Communications, B&R India. During the discussion, panelists highlighted the current scenario of Indian machine manufacturers; discussing at length challenges along with benefits of digitisation. Panel briefed on essentials of building smart machines and factories and how Indian MSMEs and SMEs can achieve success by leveraging advancements in software, easy to use automation solutions and vendor-independent communication protocol and solutions.

In another session, two of B&R’s qualified partners, Mayuresh Pimpalkar, CEO, Kokban Automation and Shrihari Naik, Partner, Concord Technologies, presented case studies on connected factory solution and process automation solutions using B&R APROL systems.

With close to 300 delegates, Innovation Day 2019 provided the know-how of digitisation and how it adds value to their customers. B&R was once again successful in providing an ideal platform for attendees to learn and interact with speakers, expert and fellow participants.