Digital Manufacturing in India- Gateway House paper

 

Gateway House with funding from EXIM Bank prepared this paper covering both theory and practice. Excerpts: 

Industry 4.0 promises to create new jobs and products while boosting productivity. The complex array of processes that make this possible – including 3D printing, computer-aided design, data analytics, artificial intelligence, simulation, virtual reality, sophisticated process management and more – are collectively known as Digital Manufacturing. Companies can also achieve digital manufacturing goals independently through the Global Lighthouse Network and Gartner’s Magic Quadrant for Industrial IOT. So far, India has just one company in each segment – Tata Steel for Lighthouse and Altizon for the Magic Quadrant. 

Startups are catching up with Government support.Clairviz, co-founded by Aditya Vermani, an engineer who worked with India’s engineering giant Larson & Toubro and was briefly seconded to the Indian Space Research Organization, has a product similar to Altizon. But Vermani is sitting in a sweet spot because Clairviz participates in the government’s Start-Up India programme and is a beneficiary of government’s mandate that state companies use start-ups and MSMEs like Clairviz for their procurement of goods and services. State-owned oil refining giant Hindustan Petroleum was among Clairviz’s first clients; it installed and monitored sensors at the company’s Mumbai refinery and oil depots, resulting in improved regulatory compliance and a saving of almost $20,000 per year on maintenance and labour costs, against a small subscription fee – another creative revenue model.

SAMARTH

SAMARTH Udyog Bharat 4.0 is an Industry 4.0 initiative of Department of Heavy Industry, Ministry of Heavy Industry & Public Enterprises, Government of India under its scheme on Enhancement of Competitiveness in Indian Capital Goods Sector.  The experiential and demonstration centres for Industry 4.0 have been proposed to spread awareness about I4.0 amongst the Indian manufacturing industries. Five centres of I4.0 having a unique identity for spreading awareness and branding have been sanctioned under SAMARTH Udyog. It is emphasized that these centres would have resource sharing, common platform of industry 4.0 and network each other’s resources so that the utilization of resources is maximised.

Five CEFC (Common Engineering Facility Center) Projects are:

• Center for Industry 4.0 (C4i4) Lab Pune
• IITD-AIA Foundation for Smart Manufacturing
• I4.0 India at IISc Factory R & D Platform
• Smart Manufacturing Demo & Development Cell at CMTI
• Industry 4.0 projects at DHI CoE in Advanced Manufacturing Technology, IIT Kharagpur

Draft Drones Rules, 2021 released

The draft Drones Rules, 2021, replacing the regulations was issued in March this year, Provision on R&D:

26. Drone operations for research and development. – The following persons shall not require a certificate of airworthiness, unique identification number, prior permission and remote pilot licence for operating drones for research and development purposes – 

(a) Research and development entities under the administrative control of, or recognised by the Central Government, State Governments or Union Territory Administrations; 

(b) Educational institutions under the administrative control of, or recognised by the Central Government, State Governments or Union Territory Administrations; 

(c) Startups recognised by Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade; and 

(d) Any drone manufacturer having a Goods and Service Tax Identification Number:

Also read -World of Drones.

Indian Researchers in Commercial Space- nominations open.

Competitive India is built by commercial firms with thousand of R&D persons developing products competing with resource rich global firms. Indian Innovators Association plans to bring out a compilation of those researchers behind the scene.

Nominate them and give them recognition due to them.

Lack of R&D incentives for Domestic Companies in Telecom PLI

 SITARA has written to PMO on this:

RECOMMENDATIONS

 For this we request the following:

1.      We are not asking for a withdrawal of the scheme, as some employment benefits are perceived under it, we are only asking for an Addendum which gives strong incentives for domestic companies investing in R&D including manpower accounted as per Indian accounting standard.

2.      To prevent foreign OEMs from availing of the benefits under R&D for assembly operations and IPR which is not Indian, even if the bulk of their R&D is done in captive R&D centres in India with no spillover into the domestic ecosystem, it must be specified that R&D benefits will go only to companies headquartered in India/ owning IPR registered in India and the worldwide profit made on these IPR must be accrued in India only. As of now R&D is capped to only 15% of the investment. Creating Indian IPR should be mandatory as it will ensure the “Indian-ness” of even MNC companies in addition to their low value-addition activities in India.

3.      Also, the companies that can avail of the scheme have been limited to 10 for MSME and 10 for domestic and global firms, of which only 3 are reserved for domestic, leading to the danger that a few  companies will monopolise the benefits. Hence the addendum must also remove the cap of 10 successful companies in each MSME and non-MSME category respectively from 10 – and extend it to all eligible candidates. In addition, to ensure fairness and prevent just one applicant from getting the entire amount, there should be a cap on the maximum subsidy amount given to any single applicant.

Diaspora philanthropy- case of Kamma NRIs

Sanam Roohi is a Marie Curie COFUND fellow at Max Weber Kolleg, Erfurt, currently researching the transnationalisation of the Telangana movement. She defended her thesis ‘Giving Back: Diaspora Philanthropy and the Transnationalisation of Caste in Guntur (India)’ from the University of Amsterdam in December 2016. Her research outputs include publication of a few book chapters and articles in journals including Modern Asian Studies, International Political Sociology and Ethnic and Migration Studies, apart from a co-produced film on diaspora philanthropy. Excerpts from our PhD which primarily focusses on Kamma NRIs in USA.

Guntur district in southern India has been a site of substantial outward transnational mobility by educated professionals (especially doctors and engineers) from dominant caste groups, who started migrating to the USA and other countries in the 1960s. This pattern of high-skilled migration, which intensified in the 1990s, gave rise to a regional diaspora that remains culturally and materially rooted in the region of Coastal Andhra Pradesh. Materialising the dual experiences of belonging and uprooting, these transnational migrants started sending resources back home, in particular through ‘diaspora philanthropy’. Members of this regional diaspora started engaging in social development projects, especially from the 1990s, in the fields of education, health and rural development. The thesis is an attempt to understand how regional specificities – especially caste connections – have shaped diaspora philanthropy in this case, and how diaspora philanthropy in turn has defined or reconstituted a caste group – the Kammas – that has become transnational. Extensive fieldwork carried out in Coastal Andhra and the USA revealed that these philanthropic engagements have been primarily channeled through particularised caste and kinship networks and are usually directed to aid members of the donors’ own ‘community’ – helping this group transform itself from a regionally dominant (agrarian and business) community into an emergent transnational caste.

Sam Pitroda on Path to Development

Sam Pitroda in this blog of 13 sections extensively covers his journey in India trying toe change the system, successful when Rajiv Gandhi was Prime Minister and hounded when Rajiv lost election. There are many episodes of interest, one particularly on interest to me struggling to take Indian innovations to international events was Science and Technology Exhibition in USSR.
One manifestation of these ongoing ties was that back in 1987, Rajiv Gandhi and Mikhail Gorbachev had agreed to hold science   and cultural festivals in India and the USSR. Rajiv was eager to put on the best show possible to showcase India’s achievements, and the government had allocated funds to put on a large, wide-ranging science- and-technology exhibit as a part of the ‘Festival of India’ scheduled to be held in Moscow, Leningrad and Tashkent. The problem was that the ministries involved told Rajiv that it wasn’t feasible to mount the science exhibition on the schedule he and the Soviets had agreed on. They said it was impossible, that there just wasn’t enough time for it. This resulted in Rajiv asking me to do it. He was as frustrated with the country’s bureaucracy as I was, and he found in me someone he could use to cut through the red tape and foot-dragging. He asked and I said yes. The science-and-technology exhibition was going to be huge— the Soviets had allotted about 200,000 square feet for us, which meant we had to fill all that up. The first thing I did was call Air India to book two 747s. Then I worked backwards. Along with Gulshan Kharbanda, a museum technology expert, I designed layouts for the space. Then I called a meeting with the heads of the various science and cultural departments and industries. ‘The PM said this has to be done,’ I told them, ‘so we have to do it well and on time.’ I described the overall scheme and the space allocations for each category. ‘Aeronautics and space industries, you have 4000 square feet; leather crafts, you have 2000. Drug industry—I want a capsule that people can walk through and be shown the Indian drug industry. The capsule should be 8 feet high and 20 feet long. Technology, I want two robots. As visitors enter they will be able to walk between the robots—a female robot in a sari, and a male one in maharaja clothes, saying: “Welcome, welcome.” Delegate this to some institute, they’ll design the robots and put Indian dresses on them. Visitors walking in should see a big slide-show—India, a land of deserts and mountains and tigers. Water, dancing, music, a ten-minute show, 150 slides. Everyone has ninety days to produce their exhibits and booths. You don’t have to worry about transportation or anything other than designing and producing your part of the exhibition. You just have   to get it done in time.’
The Festival of India and the science-and-technology exhibition were a great success. The skills, creativity and talent it displayed were striking. As I saw it, the effort it took to design and create the exhibits was equally exceptional. My role in that effort was simple. The only thing I had to do was lay out the requirements and provide people with the necessary motivation and direction. After that, they were on their own. Once they knew what to do, they did it superbly.

The Compendium of Demand-Driven Technologies for Rural Entrepreneurship

 

India’s Rural Technology Action Group (RuTAG) has catalogued dozens of essential technologies that have emerged from rural India. RuTAG’s Compendium on Demand-Driven Technologies for Rural Entrepreneurship details 48 technologies.

Download the compendium.

See the videos.

How to develop an Oxygen Concentrator in open source and make it available to small manufacturers

 Here is the story:

As the Coronavirus continues to sweep across countries around the world,  a group of innovators known as the PillarTribe led by Maher Daoudi came up with the Oxikit, an open-source Oxygen concentrator anyone can build. The Oxikit provides immediate access of up to 24 liters per minute (LPM) of O2 with 92% concentration. The current target oxygen saturation range recommended for COVID-19 patients is between 92-96%.

TCE , the engineering consultancy division of Tata responded to COVID crisis by evaluating open source ventilator deigns and integrated COVID infrastructure solution with hospital design, Viral load reduction unit, vaccine refrigerator and Oxygen supply. TCE conceptualized an innovative idea and engineered the conversion of existing PSA Nitrogen plants to PSA Oxygen plants. TCE also prototyped an Indigenous portable O2 Concentrator using opensource Oxikit design with 100% Indian components. All components with Indian suppliers list is made available to Indian MSMEs.

Technido is a robotic startup that has taken this design, further simplified it and offer it in India under Marut brand name. 

There are many designs developed by Indian research organisations and offered as open source, free of charge technology but engineering upto component level as per Indian supply is a missing link. In this case TCE bridged the gap.

Read: ET article

Public Procurement for Sustainable Development by Thiago H. K. Uehara

Thiago H. K. Uehara is a researcher at Chatham House. He was previously adviser to the Office of the President of Brazil and consultant to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) on sustainable livelihoods. Thiago has advised organizations on sustainable production and consumption, and created the first course in sustainability at Brazil’s National School of Public Administration and the first sustainable logistics plan of Brazil’s central administration. Thiago is author of Sustainable Procurement and Poder Público e Consumo de Madeira, with Luciana Betiol and others. He is currently completing a PhD in political economy and rural development at Imperial College London.

Discussion of sustainable procurement tends to emphasize ‘impact mitigation’ and ‘reduction of negative impacts’ as policy priorities, but these ideas send the wrong message. This paper shifts the narrative away from the pursuit of damage mitigation and towards the promotion of equities for sustainable development. The paper proposes a revised definition of sustainable procurement, so that goods, services, works and utilities are procured in a way that achieves value for money on a life-cycle basis, while addressing equity principles for sustainable development to the benefit of societies and the environment across time and geographies.

Download report: https://www.chathamhouse.org/sites/default/files/2021-03/2020-11-19-public-procurement-for-sustainable-development-uehara.pdf

Evolution of Electric Pressure Cooker

Prestige Pressure cooker is often one of the products carried by Indian travelers to USA. Now InstaPot is available. 

The first steam cooker in India was developed by Indumadhab Mallick in Bengal called Icmic cookers. Soon Bombay had Santosh cookers and Madras Rukmani cooker. But the rise of pressure cookers ended the reign of these traditional all-in-one cookers. In 1935 the Automa pressure cooker was launched . Prestige came up with the Gasket Release System making steam pressure cookers safe. 

Electric rice cookers were developed in Japan after World War I, and by the late 1950’s, such cookers were a standard appliance in Japanese homes. Their manufacture and use spread throughout the rest of Asia where rice was the dietary mainstay, and then to the rest of the world where rice-eating continued to grow over the next years of global contact, trade, and culinary exchange.

Chinese scientist, Yong-Guang Wang, filed the first electric pressure cooker patent on January 9th, 1991. This patent is currently owned by the world’s No. 1 electric pressure cooker manufacturer, Midea Group. The origins of the multi-cooker appear to be a hybrid of the slow cooker/crock pot of 1950’s America and the rice cooker of 1950’s Japan. Appliance giant Rival® bought an US patent, redesigned, rebranded and launched their new iteration of the slow cooker and sold 2 million slow cookers. Instant Pot®  was developed by Robert Wang.

Dr. P Chandra Shekara, MANAGE discusses the importance of innovation in ...

History of Oxygen concentrators

India is struggling with second wave of Corona and this time the culprit is -supply limitation of medical grade oxygen. A brief history of oxygen concentrators:

Oxygen, the element, was discovered in1772, by Swedish chemist, Carl Wilhelm Scheele. From there, it took a little under 100 years for scientists and doctors to understand how to use oxygen to help those with varying illnesses and diseases. In 1885, the first ever recorded use of oxygen was documented for a medical purpose. This medical procedure was to treat a patient with pneumonia. This revolutionary treatment was administered and pioneered by Dr. George Holtzapple. Just two years later, a product was invented and sold that stored enough oxygen for intermittent use. At the turn of the twentieth century, a nasal catheter was used as the connection between the oxygen and the patient. It wasn’t, however, until 1917 that Jon Scott Haldane invented the gas mask to protect and treat soldiers who had been affected by dangerous chlorine gasses during the First World War.  Medical use of oxygen made major leaps and bounds up until World War II. Oxygen was mainly being used in hospitals to treat patients with a variety of respiratory issues. It wasn’t until the 1950’s that the first form of portable medical oxygen therapy was invented. This portable oxygen was used strictly in ambulances and on the scene of medical emergencies. 1970’s was revolutionary for medical grade oxygen therapy advancements. Finally, you could own your own oxygen therapy unit in your home. Over the next 30 years, oxygen concentrators began to shrink, due to the demand by younger and more active oxygen therapy patients who wanted smaller and more mobile machines. Presently, oxygen concentrators are small enough to fit in a purse, bring bike riding, or even store under your seat on an airplane! Nowadays, some concentrators can weigh less than 3 pounds, others have over 10 hours of battery life, and some home units have an oxygen output upwards of 10,000 ml per minute. (Source-https://www.oxygenconcentratorstore.com/history-of-oxygen-therapy/)

Check the patents:

https://patents.google.com/patent/US8016925B2/en

https://patents.google.com/patent/EP1401557A1/en

Invention story is not complete without patent infringement litigation. Check `Separation Design Group IP Holdings, LLC,  filed a patent infringement lawsuit against Inogen,

Value Chain Governance and local innovations.

This paper `The influence of value‐chain governance on innovation performance: A study of Italian suppliers Emanuele Brancati, Carlo Pietrobelli and Caio Torres Mazzi' explores how value-chain governance affects the innovation performance of suppliers of intermediate products.

When the complexity of the relationship becomes too high, GVC linkages tend to depart from arms-length market transactions and firms have to rely on coordination mechanisms other than the mere setting of prices and quantities traditionally studied in economics. In ‘relational’ value chains, for example, complex transactions are managed through a high level of explicit coordination between buyers and suppliers, which tends to involve more enduring relationships and important exchanges of tacit knowledge across firms. On the other hand, companies in ‘modular’ value chains rely on technical standards and codification to exchange complex information, which provides them with higher flexibility and reduces switching costs, as well as the level of explicit coordination needed between buyers and suppliers.

They conclude that supplying intermediates is associated more strongly with innovativeness when the governance of the value chain is similar to a modular governance. 

Production Linked Incentive Scheme for Food Processing Industry

 Salient features:

• The first component relates to incentivising manufacturing of four major food product segments viz. Ready to Cook/ Ready to Eat (RTC/ RTE) foods, Processed Fruits & Vegetables, Marine Products, Mozzarella Cheese.
• Innovative/ Organic products of SMEs including Free Range -Eggs, Poultry Meat, Egg Products in these segments are also covered under above component.
• The selected applicant will be required to undertake investment, as quoted in their Application (Subject to the prescribed minimum) in Plant & Machinery in the first two years i.e., in 2021-22 & 2022-23.
• Investment made in 2020-21 also to be counted for meeting the mandated investment.
• Press release: https://www.pib.gov.in/PressReleasePage.aspx?PRID=1708691

A new growth formula for manufacturing in India-McKinsey paper

From fiscal year 2006 to fiscal year 2012, India’s manufacturing-sector GDP grew by an average of 9.5 percent per year. Then, over the next six years, growth declined to 7.4 percent. In fiscal year 2020, manufacturing generated 17.4 percent of India’s GDP, little more than the 15.3 percent it had contributed in 2000. (By comparison, Vietnam’s manufacturing sector more than doubled its share of GDP during the same interval.) 

In this article the writers identify 11 value chains....

 Recommended article from mckinsey: https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/advanced-electronics/our-insights/a-new-growth-formula-for-manufacturing-in-india?

MeitY invites second round of PLI (Production Linked Incentive) scheme.

 Last date for receiving application is 30-3-2021.

Items covered under the 2nd round are: components, discrete semiconductor devices including transistors, diodes etc, passive components including resistors, capacitors, printed circuit board, assembly, ATMP (assembly, testing, marketing and packaging) units etc 

Also read  Make in India strategy for electronics:

https://niti.gov.in/writereaddata/files/document_publication/Electronics%20Policy%20Final%20Circulation.pdf

Technical Brochure on Atal Tunnel Rohtang “An Engineering Marvel in Himalayas”

Technical Brochure on Atal Tunnel Rohtang “An Engineering Marvel in Himalayas” prepared based on experiences gained during the Planning and Construction of world’s longest highway tunnel above 10,000 feet by Border Roads Organisation. The young Himalayan Mountains with their complex geology and geotechnical conditions always hold surprises during tunnel construction. Careful and detailed geological investigations are required prior to and during the execution of the project which required involvement of all stakeholders i.e. Contractors, Engineers, Designers and Clients. Only combined efforts throughout all different project stages (Feasibility study, Design, Execution and Implementation) will provide the necessary flexibility of the construction process that allows instant and immediate reaction to changing geological and geotechnical conditions.

Download report:  http://www.bro.gov.in/WriteReadData/linkimages/4131323875-t1.pdf

Suggestions invited on Draft UGC (Academic Collaboration between Indian and Foreign Higher Education Institutions to offer Joint Degree, Dual Degree and Twinning Programmes) Regulations, 2021

 UGC has placed the draft Regulations on Academic Collaboration between Indian and Foreign Higher Education Institutions to offer Joint Degree, Dual Degree and Twinning Programmes, in the public domain and invited suggestions from all the stakeholders. Last date- 15th March 2021.

These Regulations shall apply to Indian Higher Education Institutions intending to collaborate with Foreign Higher Education Institutions leading to award of diploma(s) and degree(s) including Post Graduate and Doctoral programmes, and Foreign Higher Education Institution intending to collaborate with Indian Higher Education Institutions. Academic Collaboration between Indian and foreign higher education institutions under these Regulations shall facilitate Credit Recognition and Transfer, Twinning Arrangement, Joint Degree Programme and Dual Degree Programme.

Download the draft..

INDIA BETTING BIG ON PRODUCTION INCENTIVES TO ATTRACT GLOBAL VALUE CHAIN- Part 1

Recent decades have seen the emergence of global value chain (GVC) production arrangements in

which firms fine-slice production processes and disperse activities over multiple countries. Most

international trade no longer involves exchanging finished goods but rather intermediate inputs, which

firms increasingly use to produce their own exports. Many firms only concentrate a sliver of the value

chain in their home country, not the production of entire goods. Furthermore, they connect more and

more with foreign value chain partners to make final goods and services. As a result, trade in

intermediate inputs – those goods and services which are used in the production process to produce

other goods or services rather than for final consumption – now accounts for roughly two-thirds of all

international trade.

Firms can connect with foreign value chain partners in two directions to produce goods and services:

upstream and downstream. Upstream, they can import intermediate inputs from their foreign value

chain partners which they then use for the production and export of their own goods. This is called

backward participation in GVCs. Downstream, firms can export intermediate goods to their foreign

value chain partners which in turn use them to make their own exports. Starting with Hummels et al.,

scholars have used the foreign value added share embodied in gross exports as an indicator of a

country’s backward participation in GVCs, since it indicates how heavily a country relies on imported

inputs to produce its exports. To capture a country’s forward participation in GVCs, the TiVA data set

allows a further decomposition of a country’s domestic value added into two subcategories: (1)

domestic value added consumed in the destination country and (2) domestic value added embodied in

foreign countries’ exports. The latter term captures a country’s forward participation in GVCs.

The main actors in GVCs are not countries but firms. One way of illustrating GVC participation is by

looking at the number and share of firms that both import and export. These “GVC” firms account for

only about 15 percent of all trading firms on average , yet they capture almost 80 percent of total trade .

These are the “superstar” firms, many of them multinational, that drive countries’ trade performance.

Foreign investment by these firms is a key driver of GVC participation.

Readings:

Global value chains and the fragmentation of trade policy coalitions

(https://unctad.org/system/files/official-document/diaeia2019d1a2_en.pdf)

World Development Report 2020 Trading for Development in the Age of Global Value Chains

(http://pubdocs.worldbank.org/en/124681548175938170/World-Development-Report-2020-Draft-

Report.pdf)

India opens Geo-spacial data for all Indian entities

Geospatial data is data about objects, events, or phenomena that have a location on the surface of the earth. The location may be static in the short-term, like the location of a road, an earthquake event, malnutrition among children, or dynamic like a moving vehicle or pedestrian, the spread of an infectious disease. Geospatial data combines location information, attribute information (the characteristics of the object, event, or phenomena concerned), and often also temporal information or the time at which the location and attributes exist. Geo-spatial data usually involves information of public interest such as roads, localities, rail lines, water bodies, and public amenities. The past decade has seen an increase in the use of geo-spatial data in daily life with various apps such as food delivery apps like Swiggy or Zomato, e-commerce like Amazon or even weather apps.

The Ministry of Science and Technology Monday released new guidelines for the Geo-spatial sector in India, which deregulates existing protocol and liberalises the sector to a more competitive field.

Read: 

https://dst.gov.in/sites/default/files/Final%20Approved%20Guidelines%20on%20Geospatial%20Data.pdf

https://indianexpress.com/article/explained/explained-why-india-is-opening-up-the-geo-spatial-sector-7190149/