ARC’s 22nd India Forum: acceleration of digital transformation across industries

The interest and excitement were discernible as the suppliers and end users networked, shared best practices, and got an overall view of market trends and requirements. In recent years, the resonating theme across all ARC global forums has been the digital transformation of industries. This transformation has gained momentum in the age of artificial intelligence (AI), open automation, and sustainability. In sync with the Forum’s theme, the inaugural was done by ‘eco-friendly watering of plants’ by the five sponsors.

This two-day Forum featured about 25 executive speakers and panellists from several industries to share their experiences in digital transformation and sustainability initiatives; industrial AI, energy transition, software-defined architecture (SDA), and analytics; digital twin initiatives; and Open Process Automation (OPA).  

The welcome address by G. Ganapathiraman, Vice President and General Manager, ARC Advisory Group, India and the keynote addresses set the tenor for the presentations on both days.

Core theme of the presentations

The presentations revolved around the three aspects accelerating the digital transformation of industries: AI, Open Automation, and sustainability. Organisations are aligning their digital transformation goals and priorities to more effectively address the challenges they face. This alignment is crucial for maintaining focus and ensuring that transformation and initiatives are strategically targeted. Companies that can leverage digital technologies such as AI, open automation, digital twin, Cloud, Edge computing, IoT, etc. can achieve business agility, competitive excellence, resilience, and sustainability. The growing demand for sustainable products and services coupled with regulatory mandates have made sustainability a vital component of organisational strategy.

AI stands on the brink of revolutionising industry as it offers huge opportunities for optimisation, automation and innovation. Industrial AI, a subset of the broader field of artificial intelligence, applies AI technologies in industrial settings to augment the workforce, enhance customer service, and drive growth, profitability, and sustainability.

Open process automation that is standards based, collaborative, and interoperable is an important part of the digital transformation journey. Failure to transform is likely to undermine the future viability of the organisation.

End user executives shared their plans for increased investment in sustainability related initiatives, all of which will require new technologies as well as new thinking around legacy investments. Energy transition and sustainability are now being woven into the core business strategies of most of the world’s largest industrial companies, who now have the mandate and opportunity not only to tackle environmental and social challenges, but to take advantage of the many commercial opportunities and competitive advantages that sustainability initiatives can offer.

The attendees garnered information and best practices from the early adopters and understood the challenges along the path. The interactive panel discussions that followed each session, cleared doubts about how new technologies can be deployed in a responsible and sustainable manner.

Forum sponsors

The success of the Forum was largely due to the support of the sponsors, and they in turn were happy to meet and interact with a global audience.

Platinum Sponsor: OPC Foundation; Global Sponsors: Siemens, SMAR, Universal Automation; Silver Sponsor: ABB

Media Sponsors – Chemical Industry Digest, Chemical Today, electronicspecifier.com, Highways Today, Industrial Automation, IED Communications, Industrial Products Finder, Technology Record, and World of Chemicals.