Chinese and Italian companies were represented by their Indian representatives and many other important people from India and Europe participated in the 68th Indian Foundry Congress & IFEX 2020. It was an event of awakening, of noticeable change with the well-fitting title “The Paradigm Shift” in Chennai.
“India as the 2nd largest casting manufacturer in the world has to climb to the top as a preferred manufacturing destination,” said IIF President Sanjay Shroff, as he pointed out that India needs to realize the massive technological shift that is going to impact the industry.
Change before you have to, face the paradigm shift now. This basic mood was felt by all parts of the event.
With rapid adoption of path-breaking technologies – 3D Printing, IoT, 5G mobile, Artificial Intelligence, Big Data Analytics, Deep Learning and Virtual Reality, and Robotics manufacturing - is already in a fundamental shift. Also, the foundry industry has to accept it as an absolute necessity.
Actually Indian foundries face several challenges, such as increasing production costs, raw material shortages, price pressures, environmental issues, skilling, manpower deficits, international competition and technical requirements. Now it is necessary to open up a new view in a kind of reboot to pursuit the zealous mission of Zero Waste and High Quality!
From this point of view, Chennai 2020 differed from previous events, because the spirit of a new start was palpable, and more than a declaration of intent. Perhaps even driven by the harbingers of the Corona Crisis accelerating digitization faster than expected and immediate thinking about global supply chains.
There is a lot to do now in the Indian foundry industry, and we are curious whether the blueprint of paradigm shift will prevail.