Russia, India studying digitalisation and robotisation projects to reduce Covid-19 impact on industry

Russia’s Ministry of Industry and Trade is organising a survey of Russian and Indian companies aimed at getting an understanding of the most pressing issues and consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic on the industries of both countries. The study will be carried out by the Russian autonomous nonprofit organization ANO Data Economy and the Finnish-Russian industrial digitalisation leader Zyfra.

The desired results of the research are an express evaluation of the current production situation and the creation of clear measures to digitally transform manufacturing companies looking at the consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“Under the current conditions, innovations are becoming a tool to provide industry with the opportunity to minimize risks and financial losses. The main goal of the research is to elaborate mechanisms to support the digitalisation of enterprises. The adaptation of industrial business processes to the new realities should be a development tool for companies, and should help to stimulate competitiveness,” said the Director of the Department of Digital Technologies of the Russian Ministry of Industry and Trade, Vladimir Dozhdev.

“The current economic situation and the epidemic must give a strong boost to the acceleration of the digitalization and robotic automation of production, as these will serve as an effective tool to come out of the crisis. At the same time, experts note the limited scale of the use of innovative solutions in the real sector of the economy at the moment. One of the goals of the survey will be to increase the awareness of Russian companies of what Indian companies are doing, and vice-versa. We believe that Russia and India need well-organized mechanisms to exchange experience in the IT industry, especially in crisis situations, to allow our countries’ experts and entrepreneurs to quickly connect and suggest solutions to various problems,” commented Pavel Anisimov, Director of the Department of Industry of ANO Data Economy.

The collection of data for the study will be carried out through a survey of members of the expert community, as well as representatives of different kinds of industrial enterprises in Russia and India, and will cover the following consequences of COVID-19 on industry: how digitalisation could solve problems caused by the pandemic; key digital technologies in the production processes, the main barriers to the digitalisation in industry; and the priorities of the state and of businesses.

“We are actively working in India and, unfortunately, witness a very low level of understanding between Russian and Indian companies. The two parties are not well informed about each other’s activities. I would like to mention the rich history of cooperation between Russia and India in the field of heavy industry and in the military-industrial complex. Perhaps joint IT projects in the fields in which we are already well acquainted with one another would develop more rapidly, which is why we must start with this,” explained Igor Bogachev, General Director of Zyfra.

The results of the study will be presented by the end of June this year. Based on the results of the survey, ANO Data Economy will draw up a list of projects in Russia and India, designed to reduce the negative impact of the coronavirus pandemic on the economies of the two countries, to help industrial enterprises to recover more quickly, and to define the prospects of IT cooperation for Russian and Indian companies.

India has become the key foreign market for Zyfra with more than 500 CNC machines connected to its MDCplus real-time machine monitoring and manufacturing data collection system in 2019. By 2021 the company is looking at more than 2,000 MDCplus installations in India. There are Indian Railways, Godrej Group and Murugappa Group among Zyfra’s clients in India.

MDCplus is designed to track machine operation, personal productivity and parts manufacturing progress. Its tailored reports and charts can be used to eliminate unreasonable downtime, evaluate overall equipment efficiency (OEE) and reduce production costs. On average, equipment monitoring increases production efficiency by 20 per cent.

Another major project is under way with Thriveni Earthmovers Private Limited (Thriveni), which has awarded Zyfra the contract to implement Intelligent Mine solution at NTPC’s flagship Pakri Barwadih Coal Mining Project (PBCMP) in Jharkhand.