“Industry 4.0 is an evolutionary process, a journey, not a single step or an “off-the shelf” product,” Sandip Samanta, Head of Technology and Innovation, Plate & Aluminium Rolling, Primetals Technologies

Primetals Technologies is a world leading metallurgical plant solution provider catering to both ferrous and non-ferrous sector and supplying across the entire value chain, from raw materials to the finished product. They are one of the technologycompanies who have been designing equipment and technology keeping in view the framework of digitalization, automation and data integration. Sandip Samanta, Head of Technology and Innovation, Plate & Aluminium Rolling for Primetals Technologies shared his inputs on Industry 4.0 and the metals industry with reference to the aluminium sector. Here is an excerpt from the interview.

AlCircle: What does Industry 4.0 mean to the metals industry? How can the implementationof its framework help the industry improve efficiency and productivity?

Mr Samanta: The opportunities presented by new IT technologies, Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) and horizontal plant-wide data integration, is generally called “Digitalization” or “Industry 4.0”. This is a big lever to improve the production in terms of quality, productivity, transparency and flexibility. This can be achieved by intelligent “big data” provision and analysis tools.