Over the past decades, India has transformed itself from an agrarian economy to one where manufacturing and production systems are positioned as the key pillars for growth. The state of Andhra Pradesh is one of the fastest growing economies in the country and is well-positioned to benefit from innovation emerging from the Fourth Industrial Revolution.
This White Paper assesses the opportunities that Fourth Industrial Revolution technologies could bring to Andhra Pradesh and its resident companies to enhance competitiveness in the automotive and electronics industries while creating positive social and environmental impact, resulting in a $5 billion annual opportunity by 2022.
While Andhra Pradesh has already embarked on its Fourth Industrial Revolution journey with effective policy and industry initiatives, significant opportunity still exists to speed the execution. Some potential areas for action include:
- Greater access to technology – The availability of and access to Fourth Industrial Revolution technologies is the first step towards promoting their adoption by industry incumbents. While progress has been made (a 3D-printing hub, a pilot to test blockchain for administration), the trend and thrust need to continue for other solutions with potential.
- Smart skilling and upskilling programme – Providing the skills for the new talent pool of the state’s future manufacturing sector is urgent. Smart solutions, such as augmented reality/virtual reality-enabled training modules for shopfloor workers, can help bridge the skills gap and create greater access to skilling. A strategy needs to be crafted to upskill the existing talent pool with skills of the future and to mitigate the risk of skills becoming obsolete.
- Cohesive collaboration between industry, government and academia – A multistakeholder partnership is required to develop and test these proofs of concept and to test some of the solutions recommended in this paper for their effect in creating production systems of the future.