When the world is shifting towards industry 4.0, India will have to do the same. This will imply that we need to adopt and adapt new technologies in our manufacturing right all through our supply chains. Industry aspires to increase the contribution of the manufacturing division from 15% to 25% of GDP, in the upcoming future. To support this expansion, India will require an ecosystem comprising tier 1, tier 2, with tier 3 suppliers, and a high level of efficiency, flexibility, and eminence spotlight including digitization.

Implementation of Digital technologies to unite the virtual and real world of production, industries can guide the always-increasing challenges in their highly active markets. Digitization assures lower costs, enhanced production quality, flexibility and efficiency, shorter response time to consumer requests and market demands. Additionally, it drives new and innovative business prospects.

The incorporation and interaction of product lifecycle management (PLM), factory automation and digitization which shapes the basis of Industry 4.0 will be the way out to the sustainable progress of the manufacturing sector and it is termed as the future of manufacturing (FOM).

Industry 4.0 will give rise to new ways of generating value and decent business models. It will renovate the design, manufacturing, operation, and service of products and production systems. Connectivity and communications among parts, machines, and humans will shift production systems around 30% faster and 25% more competent and raise customization to new levels.

The Digital Enterprise Software Suite offers an integrated range of Industrial Software and Automation solutions for the separate industry. This lets product manufacturers, machine and line builders to incorporate and digitalize their total value chain together with their suppliers. It is by now an actuality, and companies are chasing its benefits and opportunities through digital transformation, which needs faultless addition of big data besides the whole manufacturing value chain.

Digitization should be a top management preference on two levels

On one hand, companies should support what they offer to reproduce Industry 4.0 and put in digital solutions and services to their collection. Alternatively, they must undertake transformation and cog their internal processes to collect the requirements for digitization. In India, as a few of the large businesses have been in a hurry to shift into this digital world, majority of the Small and Medium Enterprises (SME) in the manufacturing sector are however to set these digital technologies to work.

Industrial development thrives on SMEs. The small scale Industry has been helping outstandingly in the industrial development of the country. It has a share of 40% in industrial production. This sector is providing 35% of the total manufactured exports of the country. This sector is also second in providing employment after agriculture and it gives employment to around 36 million people.

In spite of SMEs have a majority share of the industry; now they are facing several issues which are obstructing their growth. The most crucial issue for SMEs is incessant quality improvement, scope, and scale. Some of the major factors accountable for this are ample manual involvements in processes, interrupted the flow of data and scarcity of skilled manpower. There will be sustainable development of manufacturing only when the SME sector takes part in with advanced technology and skills.

By Digitization, SMEs can improve competency to fight scale, decrease the cost of production, reduce manufacturing defects, and shorten production time. Additionally, they can both offer international quality standards and build up their position as competent suppliers for the global market.

It has been seen in the automotive sector of Indian enterprises that have used modern technology to recover their competitiveness. Since the last 4 decades, the development of the automobile industry has helped the growth of a large ecosystem of SMEs. Providing services to the automotive industry, their standards have been raised and their quality went up.

Besides partnering with customers in their voyage towards Digitization, Siemens India also inaugurated its showcase digitalized Low-voltage Switchgear factory at Kalwa in 2017. The advanced factory using Siemens' own Digital Enterprise technology is the most advanced switchgear manufacturing facility in India and is in sync with Government's 'Make in India' and 'Digital India' initiatives.

Here, all the data is transformed into a digital format. This is a totally digital workshop that begins at the level of product R&D all the way through manufacturing reproduction and then building the manufacturing facility from the optimized and replicated product and plant data. This is what makes it distinctive.

The globally-ranked factory is competent in producing more than 180 alternatives in one line at the rate of one product every nine seconds. Products at the plant correspond with machines and all processes are optimized for IT control, ensuing in a negligible failure rate.

The production techniques used at the plant are likely to be a standard for small and medium-sized manufacturing units in India, accomplishing a visionary model for the future of manufacturing: along with digitization where the real and virtual worlds unite in "Digital Factory".

Indian manufacturers have the exceptional opportunity to combine the availability of advanced manufacturing technologies with a low cost of labor to generate unusual competitive advantage. The need of the time for SMEs is to be a leader in adopting new technologies and make it an integral part of their business strategies. Those who are successful in understanding the power of digitization and connecting it across their businesses will guide this new wave of growth.