Day 46 – Q. 3 How can India’s manufacturing and industrial sector be modernized and automated through the incorporation of robotics and what are the key challenges that need to be addressed to achieve this? Analyse.

How can India’s manufacturing and industrial sector be modernized and automated through the incorporation of robotics and what are the key challenges that need to be addressed to achieve this? Analyse.

रोबोटिक्स के समावेश के माध्यम से भारत के विनिर्माण और औद्योगिक क्षेत्र को कैसे आधुनिक और स्वचालित बनाया जा सकता है और इसे प्राप्त करने के लिए किन प्रमुख चुनौतियों का समाधान करने की आवश्यकता है? विश्लेषण करें।

Approach

Candidates can start the answer by basic definition of robotics and its application, in later part try to explain how it can transform Indian manufacturing and Industrial space. In the end highlight few challenges.

Introduction

Nowadays Robots are now widely used in manufacturing, assembly, packaging, mining, mass production of consumer and industrial goods etc. Basically, Robotics is the branch of technology that deals with the design, construction, operation, structural depositions, manufacture, and application of robots.

Body

Modernizing and automating Indian manufacturing and Industrial sector:

• Automobile: Industrial Robots due to their speed accuracy, reliability & endurance are readily used in the manufacturing of cars. Tasks such as welding, spray painting welding, material handling & assembling can be performed better by an industrial robot than a human.
• Electronics: Pick & place robots are used in the mass production of the printed circuits boards (PCB’s). They help in removing tiny electronics components from strips & trays & place them onto PCBs with great accuracy.
• Such robots can place several components per second far outperforming a human in terms of speed, accuracy & reliability.
• Packaging Industry: Extensively used for palletizing & packaging of manufactured goods. For example, taking drink cartoons from the end of the conveyer belt & placing them rapidly into boxes.
• Mining: Due to the hazardous nature of mining, in particular underground mining, the prevalence of autonomous, semi-autonomous, and teleoperated robots has greatly increased in recent times.

Challenges of Robotics in India:

• The cost of adopting Robotic technology is very high due to the cost of procuring imported hardware components as well as training personnel. As Robotics is a multidisciplinary field, acquiring and retaining quality talent is a big issue.
• There is a scarcity of good faculty to teach the subject: Barring a few regions in  India,  Robotics as a subject is not taught well to engineering students.
• Creating jobs is important for socio-economic reasons in India. The government’s strategy to address the jobs issue has been to absorb a large labour force by promoting the manufacturing sector.
• However, with increasing automation and concerns of companies shifting their manufacturing base as economic consideration of cheap labour is done away, the government’s strategy is at stake.

Conclusion

Robots are soon going to be a part and parcel of human life. In reality, the advancement in the field of robotics has both a good side and a bad side. Hence it is up to us humans to understand the safe limits of inventions and utilise robotic services in specific and judicious ways.