India has taken up the ambitious Make-in-India campaign with the target of enhancing the share of manufacturing in GDP to 25 per cent from the present 17 per cent but it is necessary to adopt Industry 4.0 concept to achieve the target in the present scenario, according to several experts.

They voiced the opinion at a session on the theme at the partnership summit of the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) here on Saturday. India should take the great LEAP (leveraging for efficiency, adaptability and productivity) forward to achieve the ambitious target.

Sunil Mathur, Managing Director and CEO, Siemens Ltd., said "it is a very big leap for India as the country has to move from electrified machinery, to automated machinery and then onto digitalised machinery. The fourth industrial revolution integrates digital and manufacturing worlds by using the latest IT tools. Sensors would have to be attached to the machines in the first phase. At present, only less than one per cent of the industrial machinery in the country is digitalised."

He said skill development programmes would have to be taken up, "for smart machines need smart operators." Mass customisation of products would also be necessary, he added.

R. Mukundan, Managing Director of Tata Chemicals, said MSMEs should be involved in the quest to take India to the digital era and their manufacturing practices should be upgraded.

Srini Srinivasan, the Managing Director of Hospira Healthcare Pvt. Ltd., said quality standards in production were critical.

Jalaj Ashwin Dani, the president (HR) of Asian Paints Ltd., said his company setting up a unit at Pudi village in Visakhapatnam district would adopt the best practices.

Ramesh Abhishek, Secretary, Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion, presided over the session. Y.S Chowdary, Union Minister of Science and Technology, spoke.

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