Textile 4.0 receives overwhelming response from industry

The Textile Association (India), Mumbai unit organized international textile conference on “ Textile 4.0 – Global and Indian Perspective ” on 22nd & 23rd March 2018 in Mumbai. This was the first such conference on the subject to be held both in Asia and India and therefore, received an overwhelming response from the industry.

V C Gupte, Chairman, TAI, Mumbai unit and also the convener of this conference took the lead in selecting the innovative topics & speakers for the success of this conference. The entire organising work of this conference was done under his able leadership.

Vilas Gharat, President, TAI, Mumbai unit welcomed the chief guest, Dr. Kavita Gupta, IAS, Textile Commissioner, and key note speaker, R D Udeshi, president-polyester chain, Reliance Industries. He also welcomed Shailesh R Sheth, Director & Strategy Adviser, Jost’s Engineering Co. Ltd., the Awardees, Speakers, Press, Media and delegates.

Dr. Kavita Gupta in her inaugural address said “With the implementation of Textile 4.0 and automation, we should maintain a balance between man and machine and be careful that machines don’t overtake human beings.” She observed, we need human beings and a little bit of unpredictability in our lives to keep it interesting.

R D Udeshi in his key note address highlighted Indian textile industry has to focus on holistic growth across the value chain and needs to focus on building quality and scale. This will be possible only by adopting digitalisation and cyber physical systems, which will accelerate growth and build excellence both in manufacturing and consumer experience.” He emphasised on planning today for a new and better tomorrow. In terms of changing dynamics because of automation and Industry 4.0, sourcing needs are also changing. Buyers do not just want to purchase a product, rather they are looking for end to end solutions.

V. Aras, conference chairman while giving the highlights said that the world is on the threshold of a new industrial revolution characterized by automation, robotics, artificial intelligence and internet of things etc. Industry 4.0 is the future of manufacturing which is based on cyber-physical systems, Internet of things, digitalization which would create a “Smart Factory”. These new technologies will enter our manufacturing and supply chain sooner than expected and will have disruptive effects on the present processes followed by the industry.

Shailesh R. Sheth in his theme presentation said that “Factory of the Future is here and can no longer be ignored. For textile industry’s global competitiveness, we have to grapple with the complexities and chalk out a roadmap for us to implement.” In this VUCA (Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity and Ambiguity) world, companies want to ensure their future investments and time of returns on investments. The objective of Textile 4.0 is to optimise inputs and maximise output.

Prashant Agarwal, knowledge partner of the conference elaborated the Textile 4.0 introduces a new concept called “smart factories” in which technology monitors physicals systems & processes and makes decentralized decisions. Adoption of Industry 4.0 tools and technologies in textiles would result in increased efficiency, reduced lead time, improved production quality. Indian textile companies are functioning at various stages of automation depending on size of company. The organized companies need to prepare the way forward for adopting textile 4.0 and the semi organized and un organized sector needs to develop roadmap towards bridging the technology gap and gear up to align with the industry going forward. He said all teammates including top management professions like CEOs etc, need to be educated, trained and aligned with this technological advancement.