Umesh Pai, Managing Director, EPLAN Software & Services Pvt Ltd
The stated focus of Eplan is on ‘efficient engineering'. What is the significance of efficient engineering in the current scenario?
Efficient Engineering is always significant, but more so now. Even if we ignore the current status of the world due to virus infection and assume world returns to normal slowly, for Indian companies who want to increase their business both domestically and internationally, improvement in efficiency in all spheres of their activities is critical. Since product usually forms the heart of any company's offering, engineering assumes a very critical paradigm. Various studies have shown that engineering or design stage can control the cost of a product upto 80 percent. So, any improvement in this stage greatly assists companies in reducing cost and being competitive without compromising on quality and time to market.
How are you helping your customers to accomplish efficient engineering?
We have a globally proven methodology to help customers in efficient engineering. We have a well-honed practise called "Eplan Experience" which has eight fields of action which help customers in all aspects of their product development right from conceptualization, product structuring, working with different domains, software, international codes and standards, design method, etc. So, our offering really starts from process consulting leading to engineering software followed by a thorough implementation supported by a team of global experts.
What role can automation play for realising the goal of making India a preferred manufacturing destination for the global companies?
It's rather a necessary condition to survive. Our customers compete with Chinese suppliers globally on pricing. So reducing cost without compromising on quality is imperative. We are talking of automation not only in the sense of manufacturing automation. We need to look at engineering or design automation as well so that our customers do very less error while engineering and respond to customers' requirements quickly, all this without adding more resources. It's their requirement to optimise their resources. Hence, automation is a one of the cornerstones in making India a preferred manufacturing hub. The demand is always to "do more", act quickly, delivery speedily and reduce cost or, at least, deliver at the same cost.
What exactly is the Eplan Data Portal? How useful is it for design engineers?
Eplan Dataportal is a repository of components with all the details that an electrical and automation engineer would need while he or she designs the product. Today our engineers spend a great deal of time looking for this kind of information either at their supplier websites or catalogues. The process also is prone with possibilities of human error other than lots of time getting wasted. Eplan works together along with these component manufacturers to provide our customers this data on our portal. This data is very significant for both the operators and suppliers, and has a great value in terms of manufacturing automation, simulation, maintenance, and asset management. In fact, this is one of our strategic initiatives to provide our customers with data along with our partners where we are doing significant investments worldwide. We have the goal of being a single and most authentic platform where in our customers can look up to get up-to-date electrical automation component data.
Interoperability and data synchronisation are extremely critical aspects in today's competitive manufacturing environment. Tell us what Eplan is doing on this front?
Absolutely correct. Interoperability and data synchronisation will rather be a multiplying factor for global team collaborate in real time and work in tandem. We are very happy to be associates of world leading software and system providers, be in the field of mechanical engineering, PDM/PLM, resource planning partners, automation software providers or in system houses. This in fact is one of our major strengths. We continuously strive to be up to date in this filed, be it Automation ML or any other evolving platforms/associations.
How important is it to create a digital twin for every product while implementing Industry 4.0 on the shopfloor?
Digital twin is indeed very important. It's the single source of truth when it comes to the shopfloor and Industry 4.0 However it's a rather complex topic and needs multilevel coordination between factory owner/operator, system suppliers and their Industry 4.0 technology provider. But the intrinsic value of this twin in enormous and will scale up as one starts to explore the possibilities. For all the talk today, we still are at very early stage of exploiting this concept with very few technology providers who can do justice.
Similarly, end-to-end connectivity and digitally integrated enterprise initiatives are indispensable issues for manufacturing industries today. How can Eplan enable its customers on this aspect?
We do play a significant role in the overall scheme of things. As explained earlier, we have large broad based alliances with global system and technology providers we would be an important cog in the full system. When it comes to electrical and automation domain we indeed are a global standard when topics like digital twin, virtual commissioning are considered. I would say our strong alliances position us very strongly in the scheme of things.
Shopfloors need to continuously improve while optimizing their resources to stay competitive. Can Eplan help its customers on this front? How?
Of course, we can help. We in fact do this at two planes. One with system supplier by providing them tools to efficiently engineer their systems to the satisfaction of their customers. And with over all operator level, with digital twin concept fully implemented, the customer can actually do lot of simulation, what if analysis etc. to stay ahead of his enormous challenges and be competitive.
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