The Process Plant And Machinery Association Of India (PPMAI) held a panel discussion on topic titled- ‘Challenges and opportunities for process plants’ which highlighted that it is a high time for the process plant and machinery manufacturers to upgrade themselves to be competitive with the global players. To do this, they should consider upgrading themselves to the global standards.

 

The panel discussion opened with current status of the Indian economy, manufacturing and unemployment. India is a $ 2.8 trillion economy and aims to be a $ 5 trillion economy by 2025 and $ 10 trillion economy by 2030. In order to achieve this, the country needs to grow by 11 per cent year-on-year. India currently is growing at five per cent and in the next 2 quarters, even if it grows by seven per cent, it will be way off our target and projections to become one of the largest economies.The panel alarmed that if India does not grow at the rate at which it is supposed to be, it will trigger the rise of unemployment. Manufacturing GDP has been accounting to a share of 14 per cent from long. It has currently moved to 16 per cent with economic growth and new policy upgradations. This clearly indicates that manufacturing is not going as fast as it should be. Interestingly, countries like Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand and China in terms of manufacturing growth are at 22, 20, 27 and 29 per cent respectively.

 

Allen Antao, EVP and Business Head, Godrej Process Equipment, said, “The government has announced tax-cuts and schemes 

that benefit manufacturing sector but as a word of caution, the money which is saved needs to be invested. Investments will help the manufacturing and processing sectors to grow. If these sectors do not grow, it will bring inflation, higher interest rates which will 

affect growth.”

 

Another worrying factor is unemployment. In 2014, the unemployment rate was 4.9 per cent which is at 6.1 per cent. Unemployment in India has gone up to 57 per cent. Getting the investments rightPanels collectively believed that India needs to invest on inspection, testing and measuring fronts to have our products meet quality. If there will be good and consistent investments, it will help develop better products. 

The process equipment industry is suffering from lack of investments from the private sectors. This sector has flourished on private sector investments from long. “The sentiments of investment are completely lost today due to uncertainty in the market, declining GDP, manufacturing sector is down to -2.4 per cent which again went up to 4 per cent in the month of August. Globally, recession-like situations have not been reported in the process equipment industry. There have been investments delays in the refineries but investments are expected soon. The situation needs to be watched and not to be scared,” stated P D Samudra, CMD & MD, ThyssenKrupp 

Industrial Solutions.   

 

As per NITI Aayog, there are 46 reforms pending on the policy front catering to various industries. If these reforms are introduced today, it will affect adversely on the investments and will restrain overall growth. 

 

Today, if anyone wants to have a polymer business, it is difficult due to lack of capital but a big industry player like Reliance, Tata and Adani can afford to do the same. Thus, panel experts believed that such big players should pour investments for industries to thrive. 

Upgrading value chain Specialised equipments like pumps, valves, instrumentations and automation are the industries where adoption of standards and standardisation will be significant. There is a need to adopt global manufacturing standards as a regular practice even if your market is restricted to the neighbouring countries. Additionally, we need to build the skills across the value chain to build global-level productivity. We need to also have human resources to have at the shop-floor level to think it globally. K Nandakumar, Chairman & MD, Chemtrols Industries Ltd, says, “Soon in future, we are going to have a global and regional competition in India. In order to sustain the upcoming policy changes, our products need to be competitive. 

 

For the same, there is an acute need to adopt standards. If the products are standardised, only then we shall be able to stand against the global competition.”R&D investments in India are currently at 0.4 per cent while global investments are around 2 per cent. There is a need to invest, diversify to being competitive on the global front in terms of product quality. Safety and environment should be the focus areas for your own development on the regulatory fronts. There is a need to be ahead of regulations in order to sustain in the market before we are forced to do so by the policy.  

 

A wake up call for the industry

Its is to be noted here that till the last year April to June, more than 110 countries were growing at a rate of five per cent. This year, April to June stats reflects only 15 countries showed growing trend. India has lot of MSMEs. These MSMEs are dependent on domestic demands. If the MSMEs are not able to grow, if would reflect badly over the national growth. 

 

On the positives, with GST, speed of transport has increased. Today a truck reaches from Mumbai to Chennai in 40 per cent less time. The speed of travel has also increased from 50-60 kmph to 100-120 kmph. Currently there are lot of technological disruptions happening in the industry. Process plant equipment manufacturers need to adopt new technologies and perform some structural changes in operations. 

 

Skill development

India has a pool of around 1.5 million engineers, passing out every year while fewer are getting hired. Training new talent will be support the need. General education alone will not be of help for such a huge pool of engineers to be employable. Practical training needs to be inculcated in the academics. “We will need a dedicated programme to inculcate practical training to the new talent. Good skilling programme will help encourage the new talent, to bring in innovation and to help process plant equipment industry to grow,” said Sanjay Joshi, Country Manager-India, Aker Solutions. Some new technologies like VR or IoT-based learning through simulation will help to develop interest to learn and engage young talent to the field of process plants industry. 

 

Quality and aesthetics

Indian companies today have improved their manufacturing facilities by upgrading them to international standards. Many in the industry are interested to get them certified with major globally accepted certifications. The industry is now in position to compete globally with quality products. 

 

Manish Bhuptani, MD, TUV India, stated, “The safety and quality of the equipment is in place but where we miss on is visuals, paint and aesthetics. Some companies from North India take more orders than they can actually manufacture in the given time. Such behaviour deteriorates image of the nation.” 

 

He concluded saying that Indian manufacturers must practice more timely deliveries so that we can harness potential demand in the global market which will help position India to be represented 

in positively.

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Blurb

 

Indian companies today  have improved their manufacturing facilities by upgrading them to international standards. The industry is now in position to compete globally with quality products.