Tea industry examining proposal for digitalisation

The tea industry is examining the proposal to go for increased automation and digitalisation with support from global majors offering IT solutions.

“We are examining the proposal offered by Infocore Engineering and IT Services, Frankfurt, Germany, along with Siemens Industry Software. The industry welcomes such IT applications but wants assistance for installing the right instruments. We have asked for some demonstration on actual usage in tea industry so that the players can be motivated to go for automation and digitalisation,” UPASI President Jayaraman told BusinessLine.

Earlier, the heads of organisations of tea manufacturers – Vineeth, (Managing Director, Indcoserve), Ashok Upreti (Managing Director, Tantea), N Jayaraj (General Manager, Tantea), T Jayaraman, (President, Upasi), and Ramesh Bhojarajan (President, The Nilgiri Bought Leaf Tea Manufacturers’ Association) – undertook a session in Coonoor to create innovation for excellence in production in the tea industry.

At the session organised by the NBTMA, global experts presented papers on ‘R & D innovation in Food and Beverage Industry’ and ‘Manufacturing Engineering Software for Production’.

The experts – Ehsan Shariff, Managing Director, Infocore Engineering and IT Services, Frankfurt, Germany, Shishir Garg and Sachin Sangi from Siemens Industry Software – assured the tea manufacturers of developing apt IT solutions aimed at reducing the time, enhancing flexibility, improving quality, increasing efficiency and upgrading security.

“Technology can help tea industry through automation and digitalisation. Quality starts with internal value chain. Our thrust is on Quality Management System, Advanced Planning and Scheduling, Manufacturing Execution System and Enterprise Manufacturing Intelligence. We are making all these user-friendly and tea manufacturers can monitor them through their mobile phone itself,” Sachin Sangi of Siemens said.

“We are interested in using the best technology. We suggest that to overcome pricing of the IT solutions, a subscription could be levied on manufacturers at a fixed rate for every kilo of tea they manufacture,” Vineeth said.

“We have begun this exercise as part of our endeavour to be in line with the Union Government’s accent on ‘Digital India’ to take the country forward. Tea manufacturers are progressive enough to adapt to technological opportunities in production and e-marketing”, NBTMA President Ramesh Bhojarajan said.

“I feel encouraged as manufacturers, both large and small, have shown keen interest to go for digital enterprise. We see a lot of potential. We have gathered the challenges and requirements of the tea industry and we will come back soon with specific proposals for application of IT solutions from leaf procurement to marketing,” Ehsan Shariff said.

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