Industrial 5G to drive Industry 4.0 revolution in India

5G technologies promise to bring along immense opportunities to revolutionize our lives, it also holds special importance for Industries as 5G can play a key role in achieving goals of Industrial Automation.

In view of the potential ahead, COAI in partnership with the 5G Alliance for Connected Industries and Automation (5G-ACIA) and 5G India Forum (5GIF) today organized a joint webinar on “Making Industry 4.0 Happen With 5G” to discuss the Industrial Automation landscape and opportunities.

The event witnessed presentations from Dr. Andreas Mueller (Bosch), General Chair of 5G–ACIA and Dr. Afif Osseiran (Ericsson), General Vice-Chair of 5G-ACIA on “5G for Industrial IoT – An overview and Industrial use cases and requirements”. The webinar also witnessed a panel discussion on making Industry 4.0 happen with 5G, the panel included Dr. Nagahanumaiah, Director, CMIT; Ms. Monika Gupta, Vice President, Global 5G Engineering Lead, Capgemini; Mr. Jayant Moghe, Senior VP - Network Solutions, Mavenir; Mr. Ankit Bhargava, Principal Consultant-Industry 4.0, Tech Mahindra and Dr. Sunil Jha, Automation Lab, Dept. Mech Engg., IIT. The session was moderated by Dr. Sendil Devar, Ericsson.

Automation with industrial IoT is the ability to connect sensors, devices, equipment, software applications, manufacturing production processes, workers, and end consumers and 5G technologies will be even more significant for enterprises to support the rigorous requirements of critical communications.

The event brainstormed to identify the requirement of industry verticals and readiness of Indian ecosystem partners to provide the reliable connectivity, infrastructure and services. The event witnessed participation from TSPs, Telecom OEMs, Manufacturing industry players, System Integrations who will play critical role in furthering Industry 4.0 in India to stimulate and accelerate the digitization road map of the industries.

Speaking at the event, Lt. Gen Dr. SP Kochhar, Director General, COAI said, “We at COAI are delighted to have this partnership with 5G-ACIA. To make Industry 4.0 Happen with 5G, there is a need to collaborate across verticals with telecom operators and manufacturers to see how 5G gets commercially deployed in the country and to ensure that all possible industry verticals and Government work in sync for developing the ecosystem.”

During the event Dr. Andreas Mueller (BOSCH), General Chair, 5G-ACIA, shared his opinion stating, “5G may lift Industry 4.0 to the next level and enable unprecedented degrees of flexibility, productivity and efficiency in industrial manufacturing. 5G-ACIA is happy to collaborate with COAI to jointly pave the way for the success of Industrial 5G in India and around the globe.”

Sharing his thoughts during the event, Dr. Afif Osseiran (Ericsson), General Vice Chair, 5G-ACIA, stated “India is one of the top 10 manufacturing globally. Efforts have recently been made to accelerate the progress in Industry 4.0 both by the government and industries in cities like Pune, Chennai. 5G-ACIA alliance hopes by having a closer collaboration with COAI and 5GIF, this will further raise awareness about industrial 5G and how manufacturing use cases can leverage from 5G. Further, in order to deliver a vital 5G ecosystem for automation industries major stakeholders including vertical industries, MNOs and regulators have an important role to play."

5G-ACIA is the central global forum for shaping 5G in the industrial domain. On one platform, various industries from all over the world jointly create a new ICT and OT ecosystem and set the frameworks for a highly attractive emerging market.