Panasonic To Integrate Divisions

Panasonic is integrating its various business divisions in India that provide solutions for the manufacturing sector, including industrial robots, as part of efforts to achieve Rs. 1000 crore revenue from the segment in the next three years, a top company official said.

“Globally, companies are increasingly focused on automating processes in their manufacturing plants and bringing in solutions, which are more digitally-enabled. India is also adopting new age technologies such as 5G, IoT and, AI…to cater to this demand, having the right and smart capabilities in manufacturing will be key, and this is what we are addressing today,” Hiroyuki Aota, president and CEO, Global Panasonic Smart Factory Solutions, told The Hindu.

Under the ‘Smart Factory Solutions,’ the company would offer three products — basic wielding equipment used mainly in the infrastructure sector for example for building ships, bridges, rail coaches; industrial robots used mainly by automotive sector and surface mount technology (SMT) equipment used by mobile manufactures to assemble and populate their PCBs (printed circuit boards).

One-stop solution

Mr. Aota added with ‘Smart Factory Solutions,’ Panasonic aims to be the one-stop solution for all SMT, welding and digital manufacturing needs. While the wielding equipment – for which the organized market is pegged at about ₹300 crore — is made by Panasonic at their factory in Jhajjar, Haryana, the other two are imported. “Our intention is, in the next three years, we should start manufacturing the peripherals of these machines [industrial robots and SMT] in India,” said Manish Sharma, president and CEO, Panasonic India.

He explained that while the core machine would still be imported, assembling of peripheral components would help the firm reach customers faster.

The SMT market in India is estimated to be Rs. 1,250 crore in FY 19, a four-fold growth from the previous year on the back of government’s phased manufacturing programme (PMP) for mobiles, Mr. Sharma said. “We expect that inclusion of more products under PMP will increase the demand for these machines”.

“The intent is to connect various equipment through the Internet of Things (IoT), to synchronise them and collect and control data from the equipment in real time for entire production processes are extremely focused on building solutions that cater to the real needs of our customers and will aggressively ramp up our portfolio of smart factory solutions,” Mr. Sharma said.―The Hindu