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How Industry 4.0, Smart Cities and IIoT could revolutionize the way we work How Industry 4.0, Smart Cities and IIoT
could revolutionise the way we work
MISSION SMART INDIA MISSION SMART INDIA
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`125 VOL. 32 | ISSUE 10 | OCTOBER 2019
Different Perspectives On Data Privacy Policy
TECH TALK
RPA Enthusiasts: Take Note!
High Performance Computing Key To The Future — Arvind Bajaj
— Dan Ternes CTO, APJ, Blue Prism
Co n t en t s
08-30 COVER STORY
REAL ROI WILL BE VISIBLE WHEN AI-ML-ANALYTICS ARE DEPLOYED
P8
P11 P19
P23
P14 P26
P29 P16
IIoT SIs Should Opt For Building Customer Focused Solutions
Digital Solutions For The Social Sector
We Need A Melting Pot Of Multiple Technologies
Key Components Of The
Impending Revolution Information Is The Chief Catalyst Live On “Just The Right Amount”
Principle Where Human Anad Digital Workers
Work Side By Side
Manjanath Nayak, Senior VP, Strategic Accounts, BU & Global
Industrial IoT Business, Microland, explains the status of Industry 4.0 and how we can leverage its benefits to the maximum
KAREN RAVINDRANATH Director
Zoho, WebNMS IOT
INDUSTRY 4.0 INDUSTRY 4.0
SMART CITIES
SMART CITIES
SMART HOMES INDUSTRY 4.0
SMART WORKER
62 Different Perspectives On Data Privacy Policy
66 AI And Blockchain Innovations For Market
68 Technology Driving Change In The After-Sales Service Industry
70 Towards A Passwordless Future
73 Technologies Enabling Industry 4.0
48 Digital Transformation Of Bangalore Airport — Bijon Mullick, Datamatics Global Services
50 WPS Office Enters Indian Market — Om Buffalo, Kingsoft Office
52 RPA Enthusiasts: Take Note!
—Dan Ternes, Blue Prism 54 AI Skilling — Navdeep Sandhu,
Coding Ninjas
56 Analyse And Lend Money!
—Mukesh Singh, Lendingkart 58 Cloud In Clients’ Service
—Manav Sehgal, Amazon Internet Service
OCTOBER 2019
31 A Key Component For Faster Delivery
34 Smart Gloves With Applications In The Enterprise Market
36 Libra — A New Global Currency By Facebook
38 High Performance Computing Key To The Future
40 Hackers Are Leveraging Radical Attack Vectors
43 Automated Smart Factory In China 43 “World’s Smartest Office Building”
43 Alibaba’s AI Chip To Enhance Cloud Computing 43 AI-Powered App For The Visually Impaired 44 India To Have World’s Largest Developer Population By
2014
44 First Fully Blockchain-Powered Smartphone 44 Skullcandy’s Sesh Wireless Earbuds
44 Claw’s G9 Gaming Earphones
44 Gionee Comes Out With Smart ‘Life’ Watch
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4.0 will create new and unprecedented job categories
Sunil Rajguru, Executive Editor [email protected]
Beginning Right from Industry 0.0
I
n India there are some isolated idyllic rural corners which haven’t seen the original Industrial Revolution. Before the current power augmentation drive, there were many local industries which couldn’t reap the benefits of electricity (2.0). Other industries were yet to see the basic benefits of computerisation (3.0). As 4.0 is being rolled out, it is fair to say that very soon all four industries are going to exist at once. (India is such a bundle of contradictions). So if we have to fully adopt 4.0, we will have to do 1, 2, 3 or 4 revolutions simultaneously, depending on the type of industry we are talking about.While the concept of Smart Homes has been around in India for ages—just ask the super wealthy—the concept of Smart Cities is being explored both by the government and private sector in India.The Smart Cities Mission plans to develop 100 cities.Smart Industries are also just about catching on.Another thing that will help is 5G. How soon can we implement it?That may run into trouble due to the financial status of the telecom industry and global concerns over the new technology. India still has to cross many hurdles before fully embracing 4.0.
One component of 4.0 is people-less dark factories.That raises concerns of the loss of jobs. Headlines like “40% jobs to be lost due to AI and robots” are very common in the media.
But the history of mankind has shown otherwise. After the hunter gatherer revolution, one man could hunt and kill food for dozens. After the agricultural revolution, a few dozen people could grow food for thousands. The rest of the people did not stay idle and simply went about creating more job types.
The original Industrial Revolution. The computer revolution. The mobile revolution. They all led to the loss of certain types of jobs but the creation of many many more. The net sum has been always positive. Always. Newer and newer professions are being created all the time.
You can be sure that even if AI can do the job of 40% of the population in the near future, new job types will be created. It will be a gradual process and the tech industry will keep adapting accordingly. We cannot apply the rules of today to the world of tomorrow.
None of us who grew up in the 1980s could even imagine the changes that Liberalisation, India’s IT and mobile revolutions would bring. While India has set a goal to become a US$5 trillion economy, a push towards complete digitisation and multiple revolutions being conducted simultaneously might just do the trick.
Tech Musings
Sunil Rajguru
Is India ready for Industry 4.0? How much work is left to be done at the backend? Which sectors are likely to be the early adopters?
Many Indian manufacturers are yet to evolve from Industry 2.5, which represents an opportunity to achieve full automation. Regardless of this, Reserve Bank of India reported that 1,734 manufacturing companies posted Rs 47,100 crores in Q3 FY2019, up 29.4 per cent from the same period last year.
Technology adoption is the key driver for growth in this sector. India is geared towards the next industrial revolution that will witness blurring of boundaries between the physical and digital worlds.
We are seeing a lot of traction for Industry 4.0 in India. Most of the manufacturers are looking forward to adopting Industry 4.0 technologies as they will lead to improvements in efficiency and productivity.
Our experience so far tells us that the manufacturing and energy sectors will be the early adopters.
What is the status of Industry 4.0 in the West and other parts of the world?
Western countries and few Asian countries
are ahead of India when it comes to adoption of technology. However, Industry 4.0 still offers a lot of benefits for these countries as well. The goals for Industry 4.0 in these economies are more towards reducing human intervention than achieving incremental improvements in efficiencies. These countries are taking a more holistic approach towards new age industrial technology implementation by
4.0
REAL ROI WILL BE VISIBLE WHEN AI-ML-ANALYTICS ARE DEPLOYED
Sunil Rajguru [email protected]
“Industry 4.0 aims to achieve complete digitisation, bringing unprecedented benefits in efficiency
and productivity. Technologies like IoT, AI, analytics and cloud make the businesses more reliable, predictable
and scalable. IoT enables collection of all critical data. Analytics and AI transform this data into actionable
insights”
Manjanath Nayak, Senior VP, Strategic Accounts, BU & Global Industrial IoT Business, Microland, explains the status of Industry 4.0 and how we can leverage its benefits to the maximum
technology. However, Industry 4.0 still offers a lot of benefits for these countries as well. The goals for Industry 4.0 in these economies are more towards reducing human intervention than achieving incremental improvements in efficiencies. These countries are taking a more holistic approach towards new age industrial technology implementation by
embedding AI, ML and predictive intelligence into their operations. Another area of focus for enterprises across these countries is to make their factories or operational hubs extremely intelligent and resilient to cyber threats.
We see a lot of traction for solutions that enable real time visibility and analytics that lead to actionable insights. Eventually connected enterprises will make the process and Quality initiatives such as Just-in-time (JIT), World class manufacturing (WCM), Advanced Parts Quality Process (APQP) etc., a reality.
Can the government adopt the principles of Industry 4.0 given that schemes like Aadhaar have already reached 100%?
The Indian government presents a large opportunity for Industry 4.0 technologies. It will play a pivotal role in the adoption of Industry 4.0.
Campaigns like Make in India and Digital India have helped increase the pace of adoption of these technologies. Considering the current trends, the government is keen on adopting and accelerating the adoption of new age technologies to ensure we keep moving ahead on the global competitiveness index.
These initiatives hold the potential to transform traditional set ups for improved experiences for all stakeholders involved.
For example, WhatsApp has become a business process work flow form for all sourcing and quotation requests. And the SMB segment has taken this further to invoicing and collectables. The Industry 4.0 principles are designed to enhance Interoperability between systems, virtualisation through concepts such as digital twin to better monitor assets, decentralisation, real time capability to monitor data and take corrective action as well as modularity to ensure operations are able to match with dynamic market demands and that is what the government is encouraging enterprises to adopt.
What about Smart Cities? How much will it be government driven and how much IT-industry driven?
Smart Cities are currently the largest Government led digitization projects in India. Latest data from the Ministry of Housing and Urban Development, which is overseeing the initiative, show that projects worth Rs 50,221 crore are under implementation, out of which projects worth Rs 9,981 crore are complete. It will definitely be led by the Government. The IT industry will continue to be the implementation partners. The industry will continue to bring in the technology best practices to accelerate execution and adoption.
For the common consumer, how would you differentiate between personal IoT and IIoT (Industrial Internet of Things)?
IIoT is usually not visible to a common consumer.
It drives the industries to manufacture smarter
As we see the industry moving towards intelligent Industrial IoT, our
strong data science team is enabling our clients derive value out of their
IIoT ventures. Our global presence and strong technical expertise across
the IT and OT domains enable us to help our clients achieve true digital transformation. Microland is making
digital happen MANJANATH NAYAK
Senior VP, Strategic Accounts, BU & Global
Industrial IoT Business, Microland
products of better quality and at lower prices. IIoT goes into improving efficiencies for creation of goods commonly used by the end consumer. With the rise of smart homes and wearable technologies, the end consumer is now well initiated into the world of IoT.
The scale and impact of IIoT is going to be much larger than consumer IoT. It will also positively impact the experience of end consumers.IIoT will enable availability of better-quality goods in lesser time. For example, the waiting times for new and customized models of cars will go down. IIoT will benefit the industry and these benefits will in turn help the end consumer
What role will AI-ML, Cloud and Data Analytics play in Industry 4.0?
Data is the new oil as we have all heard multiple times. IIoT enables collection of this data for deriving actionable insights. The real ROI of Industry 4.0 will be visible when AI-ML and analytics are deployed to make sense of the vast amounts of data generated from large scale IIoT implementations. With advances in cybersecurity and a need for aggregation of data, the adoption of cloudby the industrial customers is slated for a growth.
Will 5G make any difference towards implementation?
Connectivity and data interoperability have always been the biggest challenges in any IIoT projects. The advent of 5G will alleviate these issues to a large extent. With the next generation of the industrial revolution being triggered by the combination of emerging technology, the impact that 5G has on Industry 4.0 will be unique. While 5G won’t redesign the production line but it will enable new operating models. With network characteristics that are essential for manufacturing (greater speed, greater capacity and lower latency), 5G will offer manufacturers the chance to build smart factories.
What specific things is Microland doing to bring India and the world on to Industry 4.0?
For 30 years Microland has focused on ensuring that the infrastructure that distributes, supports, and enables technology is reliable, predictable, and secure. We enable enterprises access the power of nextgen technologies to cut costs, streamline operations, increase productivity and innovate new products and services.
Microland’s time-tested software engineering skills and deep industrial capabilities put enterprises
on an accelerated path to transformation.We provide IIoT services ranging from connectivity to analytics.
On one hand, our connected enterprise solution aims to enable our clients aggregate useful data from across varied systems. On the other hand, our integrated smart factory solution transforms traditional industries to digital production hubs.
Our experts build remote monitoring centers for industries with geographically spread out assets like energy and utilities. For instance, we are managing more than 1500+ windfarms across 39 countries for a large Fortune 500 conglomerate.
The platform engineering services that we deliver help increase the reliability and scalability of IIoT platforms. Considering the huge market potential for IIoT and secure operations, we have started our foray into OT security solutions. Apart from proven capabilities in widely accepted IIoT technologies, Microland is also exploring avenues like Augmented Reality and Digital Twins to deliver future ready solutions and services.
Transformation of Processes and Services
4.0: The next Industrial Revolution is here. Smart factories are factories of the future. The machines and the computers, which are connected to each other, communicate with each other and start making decisions by themselves ultimately. It’s also going to generate enormous amount of data has to be putting into use via an AI powered automation platform.
IT/OT: Connected enterprises aggregate all the data from various computers and systems, bringing in the IT and OT convergence: The Information Technology which exists, which addresses the enterprise systems today, and the Operations Technology, which existed in the Industrial Revolution 1.0.
IIoT: Industrial IoT is embraced by industries, governments and by consumers in their daily lives. The data it generates is helping businesses and industry make the right decisions and get insight into their business processes. Some industries such as energy, manufacturing and transportation are embracing this at a faster pace. In the future, critical assets like big buildings, oil and gas stations, windmills and wind turbines could be connected all over the globe. They could be monitored by driverless cars and drones.
With an IIoT implementation, an integrated smart factory will transform a traditional factory or a manufacturing or a transportation or a logistics operation into a digital hub. This will generate the data and put an application service on top of it to give a real time insight into the business processes and methodologies to take the right information. All these integrated smart connected machines and applications are going to transform the way we produce products and services.
4.0
IIOT SIs SHOULD OPT FOR BUILDING CUSTOMER FOCUSED SOLUTIONS
Sunil Rajguru [email protected]
Karen Ravindranath, Director, Zoho, WebNMS IoT, talks about the importance of a harmonious collaboration between IoT device manufacturers, software platform providers, application developers and communication providers to deliver end solutions in a seamless manner
How are you deploying solutions for enterprise IoT platforms and solutions?
WebNMS is an Enterprise and Industrial IoT Platform provider and is the flagship division of Zoho. For many years, we were one of the leading providers of telecom network management software in India, USA and other major markets across the globe. From the time we transitioned from Network Management Software to core enterprise IoT in 2010, WebNMS had been closely working with IoT solution providers, industry focused SIs and service providers.
Indian industries are constantly under the pressure to be globally competitive.
Optimized operations, streamlined and efficient maintenance can all cause cost optimization and help make Indian industries competitive in a global market. These are the benefits that IIoT brings to the table. Our mission is to support and encourage SIs and technology service providers from the country to fully embrace the new digitally disruptive technologies like IIoT, ML etc to expand their business offering and help the end customers, both industries and enterprises, a much needed digital transformation.
We have partnered with HMS Networks, a leading industrial communications device manufacturer to deploy IoT powered industrial solutions for a vintage line automobile manufacturer in India. The deployment is a collective synergy of implementation partners from the region. WebNMS offers continuous support to the partners right from POC to large scale implementation. We have been working with and encouraging traditional SIs to think beyond server rooms.
What is your advice for industries in India to move towards Industry 4.0?
Traditional industries and SIs should start exploring the potential of IoT, ML and the likes of new and disruptive technologies that will catalyze the connection between people, processes, assets and the business at large, in Industry 4.0. It is time they grasped the momentum created by the digitally disruptive technologies and enable smart and
COVER STORY
KAREN RAVINDRANATH Director
Zoho, WebNMS IoT
4.0
competition ready business environment for their enterprise customers.
On the enterprise side, technology decision makers in India are aware of the potential of IoT and connected data across business operations. However they are posed with the challenge of finding the right IoT strategy to incorporate into the existing system.
It takes a clear IoT strategy coupled with highly functional IoT software platform and right hardware integration to get the desired results. Technology leaders should look for the right IoT partner who can deliver the end-to-end solution leveraging the right IoT platform that can be highly accommodating in terms of integration, be it greenfield or brownfield, offer all the critical features like predictive
maintenance, Overal Equipment Effectiveness (OEE), Remote monitoring, Edge computing and real-time data analytics and reporting and be flexible in terms of hosting whether on-premise, cloud or hybrid.
The right combination of IoT platform, applications and hardware can help avoid initial inertia and quickly scale to other business operations in the future. SIs who are an integral part of the IIoT ecosystem should opt for building customer focused solutions rather than working on the platform from ground up. There are concrete, vertical focused platforms like WebNMS in the market that are armed with all the necessary capabilities and features to launch and deploy a full fledged IoT Solution without requiring few or no coding. All the SI or service provider has to do is choose the right application layer over the platform and start incorporating solution elements for customer focused applications.
What help would you like from the government for all of the above and which are the industries/
sectors that are likely to adopt Industry 4.0 first?
The “Make In India” is a great initiative from the government to encourage manufacturing and industrial growth in India. Stimulus from the government for industries which adopt industry digitization and industry best practices can help Indian industries become globally competitive.
The regulations for industry 4.0 are not as concrete as yet. The market is unorganized, for which there should be policies and regulations to handle enormous data involved in future digital operations. According to a Delloite/NASSCOM analysis, the market potential of the Internet of Things in India alone is expected to reach US$ 9 billion by 2020.Considering the projected potential,
it is time we have all the regulations and security policies in place to encourage future industrial best practices.
For instance, the introduction of AIS 140 regulation for the public and commercial transportation sector in India is a motivator to regulate the transportation industry, improve safety and additionally run data driven fleet operations.
Other major industrial sectors like manufacturing, healthcare, retail, etc. will witness more of such adoption and execution of IoT solutions in the future.
Another important factor is the availability of sufficient skilled workforce to cater to the new technologies. Automation and IIoT may make some repetitive and manual jobs redundant but it has a huge scope to create enormous demand for highly skilled and technology empowered jobs. As proposed in the budget this year, we are hoping for an increased traction in training and preparation of our talent pool that is well equipped to champion the new and disruptive technology adoption in the market.
Monitoring the Situation
Remote Monitoring: Operations in large enterprises operated in multiple locations across the globe can be centralized and monitored real- time. Business owners/ internal stakeholders can have access to centralized data using the WebNMS monitoring portal. The platform empowers bird’s eye view to granular drilled down view of all the assets being monitored. The platform permits remote automation and management of assets spread across any geographical terrain. For instance one of our customers, Imtac LLC in Oman was able to achieve improved operational and energy efficiency with WebNMS Smart Lighting solution, through remote asset monitoring and automation.
Process Monitoring: WebNMS Platform offers periodic monitoring, task scheduling and predictive maintenance. It keeps track of assets, people, processes and goods in production. The data can be blended with rest of the enterprise applications like ERP, CRM and HRMS for enterprise level efficiency.
OEE (Overall Equipment Efficiency): Through continuous monitoring and real-time analytics it is possible to improve the efficiency of the equipment connected to the IoT network. The measure will be able to track if the equipment is put to full utilisation.
4.0
Your company talks of uninterrupted multi-protocol data acquisition, processing, analytics, remote monitoring, process monitoring and optimisation and predictive maintenance. Can you briefly explain some of these concepts?
WebNMS is a powerful enterprise IoT platform that offers tools and technologies to build and deploy scalable Industrial IoT solutions for customers.
The platform is engineered to perform high speed data acquisition irrespective of the type of device, be it smart or legacy infrastructure. It provides edge computing, secure data transfer storage and processing, actionable analytics and business app integration.
WebNMS platform offers a wide range of capabilities for real-
time Industrial process monitoring, remote asset monitoring, energy management, quality assurance, localized edge computing, automation, dynamic user insights and telematics capabilities for mobile asset tracking. CTOs and technology leaders who are posed with the challenge of murky operational data across industrial operations, be it production or supply chain can have centralized, real-time access to data using Industrial IoT solution.
Top management can align its operational strategy to business goals, now with the access to periodic insights and reports.
Some of the important elements of Industrial solutions from WebNMS IoT Platform are Plant Performance Monitoring, Machine health Monitoring, Process Monitoring, Quality parameters monitoring SCADA data integration or other business app integration.
Most industries in India are still decades behind the rest of the world. How do we fast track them to Industry 4.0?
India is considered one of the fastest growing economies in the world. According to a NASSCOM report, Indian IoT market size will be around US$ 9 billion, of which Industrial IoT will account for US$
4.95 billion. However when compared to other fast growth economies like China, we are still lagging in
terms of actual IIoT adoption.
The reason for slow adoption could be attributed to various reasons. From our very own observation, we found one reason to contribute majorly to the slow adoption is complexity involved in finding the right IoT fit for unique industrial challenges.
IIoT solutions take more than one component to achieve the desired results. It involves harmonious collaboration of IoT device manufacturers, software platform providers, application developers,
communication providers and most importantly, the right channel players to deliver the end solution in a seamless manner.
Apart from the technical challenges, it is time top management and decision makers discern
the importance of a connected enterprise and digital upgrade in traditional factories.
It takes a top down conviction in any organization to adopt and accelerate the digital transformation for Industry 4.0.
IIoT implementations across the globe have witnessed proven ROI for various verticals. Going
forward, it is imperative that Business owners and Key decision makers have a strategic road map for IOT adoption within their business or organization. This can not only be a great way to sustain competition but also help create new revenue streams and contemporary business models.
Will 5G make any difference towards implementation of all of the above?
5G technology will improve IoT adoption and deployments multiple fold. With a massive speed bestowed by 5G technology, challenges faced due to latency can be avoided.5G has the promise of creating real-time data exchange which is crucial for mission critical and low latency applications in both industries and enterprises.
We are excited to work along with IoT communication providers in India for large scale enterprise deployments where speed and connectivity are critical factors.
Apart from the technical challenges, it is time top management and decision makers discern the importance
of a connected enterprise and digital upgrade in traditional factories. It takes a top down conviction in any organisation to
adopt and accelerate the digital
transformation for Industry 4.0
KEY COMPONENTS OF THE IMPENDING REVOLUTION
PCQ Bureau
What we think of Industry 4.0 on the eve of 2020 may be totally different from what it actually turns out by 2030, because by and large it is still an abstract concept which has to be fully implemented the world over. However, there are important components of 4.0 which will drive the transformation
4.0
out factories” or “Dark factories”.
The AI-ML-Bot trinity: Imagine a smart factory where a robot is doing all the work,taking instructions from a computer bot or digital worker which in turn is controlled by algorithms and AI which is getting better and better due to ML. That’s no longer science fiction. Cognitive computing, with focus on the human-computer interaction, will really take off.
The Cloud: This will be totally supersised on a global level and connect all the industries and businesses of the world. Just as you can keep all your data and applications on the cloud, and may not have any need for a hard device at home, businesses will also be able to fully operate on the cloud. Fog and Edge computing are other things that will gain traction.
3D printing: While this is currently slow to be industrialized, in the future almost every product you can think of could come out of a 3D printer. That’s additive manufacturing.
Cybersecurity: When everything is digitized and nothing is offline, then cyberthreats will emerge as the single most important issues to be countered.
Authentication and fraud detection will also become very important.
IIoT: The Industrial Internet of Things will play a key role. By many estimates there is already more than one IoT device for every human being who lives on this planet. The number is expected to skyrocket and cross 20 billion by 2025. While we already have popular personal IoT devices like Amazon Echo and Google Home, IIoTs will drive the businesses of tomorrow.
Smart manufacturing: Manufacturing that combines the above IIoTs, mechanical robots, total integration of computers, Big Data analytics, the Cloud and smart supply chain management to reach higher levels of adaptability that incorporates real time design changes. It will also adapt 3D printing on an industrial scale. Smart sensors and location detection technologies will also be key.
Smart factories: That which will totally
encompass smart manufacturing and also leverage the power of AI-ML in their processes and a higher level of decision making. They will see increased levels of productivities and lesser downtime.
Dark factories: So called because they will be fully automated and not require any human beings on their premises. They will be able to function with all the lights turned off and hence the term “Lights
WHERE HUMAN AND DIGITAL WORKERS CROSS PATHS
Sunil Rajguru [email protected]
Mihir Shukla, CEO & Co-Founder and Ankur Kothari, CRO &
Co-Founder, Automation Anywhere, talk about the changes taking place in the fields of RPA, AI-ML and the role of bots or digital workers in the world economy
About the US $10 trillion market
Mihir: Let’s look at the work done across various office environments, not physical work. If you look at a slice of that work worldwide, about $10 trillion of work is associated with data collection and data processing. That 10 trillion will get automatic. It has to get automated, because it is automated. That is the largest software market in the world. It will go beyond
10 trillion. Things will get automatic and in return we will get quality, speed, efficiency, scale and reliability.
It’s happening across virtually every country.
85% of the largest 50 banks and financial services are our customers, 80% of the largest telcos, 80%
of the largest healthcare and the same in retail.
It’s happening across every industry. It’s a unique phenomenon. I think in my mind this is as large as the
Workers
was a faster adoption of mobile technologies; many countries don’t have to spend billions of dollars on old IT infrastructure anymore. They can go straight to some of the AI algorithms and skip a previous generation.
About the bot-human relationship
Ankur: We have raised it to a different level where humans and bots can interact and work with each. It can work not just between one human and one bot, but teams of people connected to one bot or teams of people connected to multiple bots. It truly creates a team environment between people and digital workers working together to solve a process or a problem. It’s not just connected to you and your own Internet or the smartphone industry where eventually
everything will change because of it. Because every kind of work will change every kind of transaction will change.
Technology has reached a point where bots can write press releases, earnings reports and even compose a few pieces of music, which a layman may not be able to tell is artificially created. So the technology is far ahead.
Ankur: If you look at Japanese Prime Minister Shinzō Abe, then one of the first rules of Abenomics is to automate. It is required for work-life balance because the stress levels are the highest amongst the developed nations.
Mihir: Take a factory in Japan, where it is fully automated. All the data goes to the Automation Anywhere software bots and these in turn drive the hardware robots. In manufacturing plants, IoT (Internet of Things) devices feed the data to software bots and human beings cannot process so much data.
Only software bots can handle that kind of feedback.
Coming to India, we just need to accelerate. The way China created an expertise in manufacturing;
India has the capability to create a Business Process Automationexpertise. China does about 60% of the world’s manufacturing. Similarly India can do 60%
of all Business Process Automation. The way there
MIHIR SHUKLA CEO & Co-Founder Automation Anywhere
ANKUR KOTHARI CRO & Co-Founder
Technology has reached a point where bots can write press releases, earnings reports and
even compose a few pieces of music, which a layman may not be able to tell is artificially
created. So the technology is
far ahead
Also remember, just about anyone can make a bot. All it takes is a human being to have
a need to learn. You can be trained and we expect that to
happen. Just like the way we many of us learn how to use phones and TVs and all the
electronic equipment
machine. This also democratises and puts things in the hands of businesses to automate more and more.
Mihir: In a seamless way, the bot will become part of our lives. I will do something and give something to the bot. The bot will then do something and send it to the supervisor to approve. And so on. It is a chain between people,bots and then other people and other bots.
Also remember, just about anyone can make a bot. All it takes is a human being to have a need to learn. You can be trained and we expect that to happen. Just like the way we many of us learn how to use phones and TVs and all the electronic equipment.
In this new generation everybody will learn how to make a bot and it will become their very nature.
The productivity of digital workers
Mihir: Let’s say the leave management person in HR can be a digital worker as can be a workerin finance.Sometimes a worker can do 40-80% of the job, but in certain kinds of work a digital worker canassist you much more with anAI algorithm.
It varies by nature of work. If it is just doing a transactional work, it can do the work of multiple people because it runs at the speed of the computer you’re putting it on 24X7without taking a break.
That’s the future of innovation and it’s happening worldwide.
So virtually every company we know is now shifting their workforce to this augmented enterprise:
Where human and digital workers work side by side.
So, globally Automation Anywhere has 1.4 million bots and we are heading towards 3 million. For some companies the number of bots working as their work force could be as high as 30%. They are efficient too.
Today a lot of automation out performs and the bot is incapable of making an error unless you told it to.
Ankur: The work performance of a digital worker compared to a human worker has been validated by not just us, but by some of our partners, cutting across thousands of enterprises. The general rule of thumb is that it’s 3x going upto 8x. There’s no upper limit in the future.
And it’s not just about money, time and work force but value. Let’s say a bank was conducting 6 checks before you give someone credit. Now technology can do say 25 checks, which was not feasible before. That changes the risk value for the bank which may be worth more than the 7 minutes saved.
About RPA + AI + Analytics
Ankur: We have combined RPA, AI and analytics
because that’s the only way you can automate every process that can be automated. If you use just RPAyou can only work with structured data and systems. But when you combine it with the power of cognitive and AI technologies and marry that with analytics, it drives the business value from the data.
Taking a look at the entire digital tsunami—IoT, Big Data, Cloud, RPA, AI, block chain—only RPA gives you a return in a few weeks or months. In everything else, there has to be at least a two year programme.
So executives use this as oxygen to drive the digital transformation story further because this is tangible and can be immediately taken across the entire organisation.
About RPA and productivity
Mihir: We discovered when software is created, it initially provides productivity. But then it needs to be upgraded as businesses or ERP systems change.
They took longer and longer to upgrade, eventually resulting in productivity losses. So one of the reasons why RPA is becoming more important in that context, is with RPA, the bots are your configurable software.
When your business processes change, you can change them. You don’t have to wait for a two or five year ERP upgrade cycle. In fact it can change in two hours and you have new software. This is the kind of software actually provides productivity.
Let’s call AI Augmented Intelligence
Mihir: We have to think of AI as an Augmented Intelligence. Big difference! When I say Artificial Intelligence, you think of Hollywood’s Terminator, because anything artificial doesn’t sound like a friend. I call it Augmented Intelligence because I actually augment myself with all kinds of tools and technology all the time. The narrative has to be changed.
Workers
COVER STORY
DIGITAL SOLUTIONS FOR THE SOCIAL SECTOR
Sunil Rajguru [email protected]
Dr Rishi Bhatnagar, President, Aeris Communications & Chairman, IET IoT Panel says that with a proper IoT application strategy, India can bring back agriculture as a main contributor to the GDP with the help of smart farming
What kind of IoT solutions is Aeris doing?
At Aeris Communications,we deliver cost-effective and secure end-to-end IoT solutions. Irrespective of the industry, Aeris can help you stay connected. With our range of cellular connectivity options, we make it easy to connect and gather data through remote monitoring devices. We offer flexible plans, the lowest TCO in the industry, and excellent data security for IoT implementations.
We are working across sectors and with multiple enterprises. While we started our journey in the automotive sector, we have now extended our services to telecom, agriculture, healthcare and state projects. Our flagship solution ‘Aeris Mobility Platform’
is being widely used by the industry leaders such as
Maruti Suzuki, Honda Cars and Mitsubishi to name a few.Infact, insurance and finance is one sector where AMP makes a lot of sense due to shifting risk models, diverse customers and changing business models. Another offering is personnel for workforce security, by tracking and monitoring workforce location, especially in remote locations, factories and hazardous areas.
Some recent use cases from Aeris Mobility Platform can be tracked below:
t 0LJOBXB4DPPUFST&OIBODFT$VTUPNFS Delight with Aeris Mobility IoT Platform: Aeris partnered with Okinawa Scooters, one of the leading 0&.TPGFMFDUSJDWFIJDMFTJO*OEJBUPQSPWJEFTBGFUZ and security features on the next generation of
The momentum for IoT-enabled ecosystem is building up in India.
There are multiple prospects lying that need to be tapped with innovation. We must look beyond such challenges and consider them
as opportunities. Even in the case of 5G, the Indian Government wants the nation to get 5G along with rest of the world and that is a
significant step DR RISHI BHATNAGAR
President, Aeris Communications &
Chairman, IET IoT Panel
concept of uberization of farm equipment with the
‘tractor-as-a-service’ IoT solutions in partnership with Hello Tractor, addressing the needs for small to medium land holding farmers in Africa, Bangladesh and couple of initial PoCs are now active in India too.
We are also making a difference with IoT electric two-wheelers. The partnership will bring
connected and green transportation to India as the country aims to reach 100 percent electric vehicles by 2030
t "FSJT#4/-UPSPMMPVU*OUFSOFUPG5IJOHT products and services for rural India:Through the partnership, both companies offers packaged IoT solutions and services to enterprises, small and medium businesses and public sector undertakings among other segments in India
t 1BSBHPO'PPUXFBS*NQSPWFT0QFSBUJPOBM Efficiency with Aeris: Paragon aimed to address the issues of unexpected delays due to vehicle breakdown or wrong routes taken, leading to
unpleasant incidents. After a thorough research of the information technology (IT) vendor landscape and as a first step towards digitizing their supply chain, Paragon decided to implement the Aeris solution across its nationwide fleet, thus making them a single connected entity.
We are also actively working in the field of agriculture and have IoT based water and soil management solutions. Aeris has brought the
As hackers become sophisticated, so should response and risk mitigation strategies. The first step
towards protection is awareness followed by vigilance with diligence. A multi-layered security policy that helps detect and isolate
risks across the threat lifecycle will also help. But strategy must address all the complex layers and
integrations IoT is built with
Technology in the Social Sector. Aeris is working with leading not for profit organisation on river rejuvenation and water conservation projects.
We have created TechNirmal, a connected digital solution, leveraging industry-grade mSELL solution for water conservation & social impact for Welthungerhilfe and Tarun Bharat Sangh founded by Dr. Rajendra Singh. Other social organisations include, Jal Jan Jodo Abhiyan, Parmarth Samaj Sevi Sanhthan, Prayog Samaj Sevi Sanstha and indirect partners such as the donor fraternity and government agencies working in the not-for-profit sector. The beneficiary states include Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, Odisha and Rajasthan. At the Art of Living, Aeris IoT solutions are being used for Impact Assessment
of the River Rejuvenation Projects running in multiple locations in India, namely, Karnataka, Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu. We are using our cutting edge, connected vehicle technology to manage the Art of Living fleets across India and also in the ‘Project Impact’ an initiative by Sarasvati Seva Foundation and Innovant International, supported by IET, Aeris and IIT BHU for sustainable social change through social
entrepreneurship using E-rickshaw.
What are the major upcoming trends in IoT?
NASSCOM estimates that the Indian IoT market to reach US$15 billion by 2020, and the global market will grow by US$3 trillion. Consumer and industrial applications are expected to drive IoT growth, with sectors like manufacturing, logistics, automotive and transportation anticipated to enable the growth of IoT in India.
Some of the notable trends that can be witnessed in the upcoming time are:
Edge Computing: This is on the verge of revolutionizing the way data has been managed earlier. IoT and related network industries will start to more deeply employ edge computing, bringing the site of IoT data processing closer to the deployed device sensors and their signals. IoT applications, such as self-driving cars, public security, medical
equipment, and time-sensitive manufacturing, where immediate data analysis and response is necessary, will become more viable in 2019 as advancements in edge computing ensue.
Personalised Data Management Solutions will empower Data Insights: IoT applications have reached every industry and are permeating both consumer and business markets. This ubiquity of connected devices is translating into massive amounts of data.
There is a great opportunity for businesses to gain valuable insights with this data, although many companies are struggling to keep up with the influx of information.
Electric Vehicles: Today, the four technology- driven trends that dominate the automotive sector
are electrification, shared mobility, connectivity and autonomous driving. At Aeris, we are convinced that soon there will be huge necessities for managing the burgeoning Internet of Moving Things as these drifts will shift markets and revenue streams, change mobility behaviour and open new avenues for collaboration, even with competition.
There is still less awareness about IoT in India. What kind of IoT implementations can SMBs, large enterprises and governments go in for?
Enterprises, SMB’s and government bodies have established working groups dedicated to achieving this goal. Despite there being several models of standards development, such as the proprietary- and government-led models, collaborative standards development has held a superior position. Creating an application ecosystem,preparing the network infrastructure and establishing strategic partnerships are essential to helping develop sustainable business models for IoT ecosystem.
Will IoTs pose a security hazard on the network?
What are the safeguards being taken by the industry?
When it comes to cybersecurity, India is equally vulnerable like the rest of the world. Recently a joint report published by ASSOCHAM and EY claimed that
The IoT Action Plan
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in a hyper-connected India, IoT has the potential to reach an estimated 2 billion connections, unlocking revenues of US$ 11.1 billion by 2022. IoT is getting featured in almost all the security prediction lists for 2019. Beyond all-too-common corporate attacks, 2018 witnessed increased threats across a diverse range of targets and victims. As IoT matures and scales up, the security issues that distress the wider internet are also present in IoT.
Over time, more 5G IoT devices will connect directly to the 5G network rather than via a Wi- Fi router. This drift will make those devices more vulnerable to direct attack. However, with IoT, the security issues are much larger in magnitude and complexity as any IoT solution or service is not standalone. It is accompanied by numerous devices, hardware, software and application weaknesses that are specific to IoT applications and services.
Security right at the design level is propelled by Aeris as a leading IoT company providing wide range of IoT solutions and services in India. The company believes that it is crucial for securing IoT offerings at the design stage rather than attempting to hold back the tide of attacks by attempting to add security to systems once they have been deployed. Given the way world is getting more and more connected, security can no more be an afterthought for IoT players. Security measures must be designed in from the start and treated as an ongoing process.
Billions of new IoT devices will lead to a flood of even more data. How is AI-ML helping with that?
With IoT getting the momentum, the volume of data generated by the devices will be humongous.
It will be important to manage and distribute the content across multiple channels to the IoT applications. AI infuses intelligence around content to gain a deeper understanding of the data being valuable or not. These technologies analyse data at scale with utmost precision, helping enterprises determine what content best resonates the best with their audience,whereas Machine Learning helps understanding the performance of the gamut of data on a more granular level. These insights help the corporates improve the management, creation, and delivery of required content.
How can IoT specifically benefit India, especially in the agricultural and rural market? How can India really leverage IoT in the 2020s?
Industries are witnessing the IoT revolution and it is being deployed across various verticals including
agriculture. With the advancement in technology at hand, the opportunities for IoT to revolutionise the agricultural sector is magnanimous. It is predicted that agriculture will contribute about US$1 trillion of India’s GDP by 2022, hence, it is important that India shifts its focus to revolutionising this sector.
To achieve this growth, India needs to create a blueprint on integrated technology for agriculture and embrace the technologies at our disposal. There is a huge void that needs to be filled to transform the agricultural methodologies applied and processes followed with automation to make operations more effective, leading to better crop yields. With a proper IoT application strategy, we can surely bring back agriculture as a main contributor to the Indian GDP.
Digital transformation, implementing smart farming and improving agriculture should be a focus for India today. As mentioned earlier, Aeris is bringing right sized agricultural use cases to the Indian market.
COVER STORY Cities
WE NEED A MELTING POT OF MULTIPLE TECHNOLOGIES
Sunil Rajguru [email protected]
Karthikeyan Natarajan, Global Head, Integrated Engineering Solutions,Tech Mahindra, says that India is very well placed as far as progress on the Smart Cities Mission is concerned, be it infrastructure or technology
Tell us about your Smart Cities Accelerator Programme
We have been successful in implementing smart and safe cities project across India and we plan to take this offering to a global level. Our implementations in Uttar Pradesh (UP Dial 100), Gandhinagar, Jabalpur and Kanpur have been successful. We are helping our cities manage all sorts of safety challenges, thus ensuring security of citizens. We aim to improvise their lives by bringing in digital governance. We now plan to take this concept to smaller cities of Pune, such as Chinchwad and Nashik.
Additionally, we are also collaborating with our counterparts in Vietnam, South Africa, and Bangladesh to inculcate the concept of smart living.
As part of our TechMNxt Charter, we are betting big on new-age technologies like 5G, Artificial Intelligence, Internet of Things, Blockchain, Machine Learning, Robotics and Analytics to solve complex real-world issues.
How is India placed to embrace all these new technologies?
India is very well placed as far as progress on the smart cities mission is concerned, be it infrastructure
Cities
As far as consumer IoT is concerned, there is an explosion of smart personal care devices and smart products like vacuum cleaner, water purifier, scooter,
home, etc. However, the adoption is slow and compelling propositions are emerging in niche pockets
spotlight on a particular service line, since digital transformation cannot happen with one technology or service line in isolation; rather it has to be a melting pot of all of them. But if we really have to mention a few, we would state AI. We believe that AI is going to disrupt every industry possible. AI will make healthcare affordable and accessible to all, AI will help create smarter machines, AI will protect data and information.
or technology. Countries across the globe can take cues from India’s strategy and follow the model being adopted here.
On Industry 4.0, India’s manufacturing sector contribution to GDP is around 15% and we have an aspiration to move to 25% over the next decade.
This cannot be achieved without making the factories smart and efficient. Even though the adoption is slow at present, it is likely to accelerate over the next 5 years, with enhanced technology adoption by Indian manufacturers and improved labor productivity.
As far as consumer IoT is concerned, there is an explosion of smart personal care devices and smart products like vacuum
cleaner, water purifier, scooter, home, etc. However, the adoption is slow and compelling propositions are emerging in niche pockets. For this to become mainstream, IT business model transformation needs to pick up momentum.
Most industries in India are still decades behind the rest of the world. How do we fast track them to Industry 4.0?
India has an opportunity and tremendous potential to grow with respect to its global
counterpart, by riding on the new age technologies wave and by enhancing manufacturing prowess.
Businesses need to look at their digital transformation journey as an effective way to change the growth trajectory. There must be an increased focus on improving the quality and productivity by using digital technologies to make fully integrated factories. Additionally, the smart factories of future need to have remote monitoring centers for factory throughput, quality and process efficiencies.
What are the next generation technologies and solutions to disrupt and enable digital transformation?
In the digital era, it is not fair to put the
KARTHIKEYAN NATARAJAN Global Head, Integrated Engineering
Solutions, Tech Mahindra
Personalised Data Management Solutions will
empower Data Insights: IoT applications have reached
every industry and are permeating both consumer and business markets. This
ubiquity of connected devices is translating into
massive amounts of data
At Tech Mahindra, our strategy is built around AI- Inside (use AI to make customers’ internal operations efficient and smart e.g. Supply Chain Transformation for an Auto industry and AI-Outside (use AI to offer smarter products and services e.g. understand customer psycho-graphy and generate patterns to offer customized products for a retail industry). We have aligned all our industry solution offering to AI- first.
The next big thing is the combined service offering of physical design, digital customer experience and technology – what we call as
“Humanized Experience”. We are strategically positioned to take it all together to our customers through our
partnerships with BIO Agency and Pininfarina.
Third is Blockchain.
The Blockchain market is expected to grow from about US$ 400 million last year to about US$7 billion by 2022 and is going to have widespread application on Payments, Exchanges, Smart Contracts,
Documentation, Digital Identity, Supply Chain Management, and GRC (Governance, Risk Management and Compliance). We
are working with government entities to bring all motor vehicle records on Blockchain to bring in transparency and traceability. We are also putting land records in distributed ledgers to eliminate corruption. Our partnership with ChromaWay, Adjoint, BlockApps and Andhra Pradesh government are testimonies to our long-term vision to Blockchain technology.
Fourth and the last bet is on Cybersecurity. We have not only partnered with Israeli firm ContextSpace Solutions to develop the world’s first global software privacy ecosystem, MyData Shield, but are also actively working with 20 others to help our customer create a secure environment for their data.
Customer Experience – through real time analytics and Artificial Intelligence will also be a key differentiator.
We have done many firsts in all of these areas:
1) We have jointly created the first AI marketplace
in collaboration with AT&T and Linux Foundation.
2) We are the first in India SI to bring Physi-Digital offering to our customers as an integrated offering.
3) The Telangana State Information Technology, Electronics and Communication department (ITE&C) has signed an MoU (Memorandum of Understanding) with the global digital transformation provider Tech Mahindra to Launch India’s first Blockchain District in the state of Telangana.
4) We have collaborated with the government of Andhra Pradesh to establish country’s first Cyber Security Operations Centre (APCSOC) in the city of Vijayawada.
Can certain aspects of the Smart Cities project be adopted by India’s agricultural and rural sectors?
Farm productivity can be enhanced through smart sensors, drones and data analytics. The next green revolution enabled by digital technologies could help in water conservation, reducing chemical usage and improved farm productivity per acre of agricultural land.
Can you also talk about smart energy management and how it can be applied across urban and rural India?
Jabalpur is a classic example wherein solid waste management process is being used to generate electricity through a power plant. It has in turn generated 15 MW of energy. This also avoided the need for landfill and helped in converting waste into energy. We believe that this brilliant idea can be further scaled up across the cities and in rural India.
Will 5G make any difference towards implementation of all of the above?
With benefits like increased bandwidth and lower latencies, 5G can help in real time monitoring, quality improvement and logistics with mobile edge computing in smart factories. In smart cities, 5G can help in enhancing the overall quality of life through multi-modal transport system and intelligent traffic systems through Vehicle-to-everything (V2X) infrastructure.
Cities
INFORMATION IS THE CHIEF CATALYST
Sunil Rajguru [email protected]
Rajiv Bhalla, MD, Barco India, says that as Indian consumers demand better services, service providers – whether public or private – will need to leverage advanced technological solutions to meet their growing requirements
Can you share briefly what work you have done in the Smart City domain in India?
Barco provides networked visualisation solutions to smart cities across the world. Drawing on our proven track record as a leading provider of smart city solutions in the world, we have the technological proficiency as well as the expertise to support the building of a robust, efficient, and reliable interconnected infrastructure for Indian smart cities.
We believe that good data gathering, monitoring, and planning are essential for optimizing urban operations and tackling the ever-increasing demand on the existing infrastructure in major cities.
Smart, as well as safe cities, are the next stage of urban living. They are powered by technology and data, and function at the intersection of seamless interconnectivity with processes and people, leading to optimized processes and efficient workflows which promote greater productivity, livability, workability, and sustainability. Information is the chief catalyst
that makes this elaborate arrangement work. This is where Barco steps into the picture as a technology partner.
We provide cutting-edge solutions that optimize data flow and information sharing between various stakeholders for all critical safe city applications. We have large control room-focused video walls and software solutions that can help in improving the performance of various departments such as traffic management, security, telecom, utilities, and process control systems.
By facilitating real-time information sharing between different stakeholders, we allow individuals, businesses, and public enterprises to identify and respond to incidents in real-time.
Can you speak a bit about your control rooms and collaboration?
Barco is the global market leader in equipping, integrating and connecting control room video wall
