Can India Replace China to Become the Manufacturing Hub for the World?

The coronavirus has caused economic disasters all around the world resulting in unemployment, inflation, and massive losses to several companies.

India too has suffered heavy losses due to the pandemic but we may have gained something too. 

China has been the undisputed manufacturing king for several years due to state-of-the-art infrastructure, cheap and skillful workforce, and an impeccably well-connected supply chain among various things. With the onset of Covid-19 and complete lockdowns taking place in China, companies suffered from production and supply shortages. Companies have realized that they cannot be dependent on a single country for all their manufacturing operations and hence, are looking to set up manufacturing units in other countries. 

This is an opportunity for India to attract foreign direct investments (FDI) and bring companies to manufacture here. India must grasp this opportunity with both hands and take lessons from China’s past on how they achieved this level of success. In 2018, China manufactured 28% of the global manufacturing output, while India was way behind only manufacturing about 3% (Richter, 2020). While there are a few benefits that India already possesses such as a large young workforce and low wages, there are many challenges India will have to endure in order to become the manufacturing hub.

These challenges include but are not limited to: 

1. Competition from other countries
Other developing countries such as Vietnam, Cambodia, Bangladesh, South Korea, Indonesia, Thailand, and Singapore are strong competitors against India that may have a chance to be the next manufacturing hub. Countries like Vietnam and Cambodia have laws that support international investors by providing tax cuts and exemptions. Singapore and South Korea have advanced manufacturing technology making them attractive spots as well. 

2. Training the Indian workforce 
India’s biggest asset is its young workforce, and in order to utilize this asset, the workforce needs to be trained in various skills. International companies often want workforces that can further innovation, be highly skilled in multiple areas, and are easy to do business with. India has been successful in acquiring the international service market but there needs to be an investment to train and educate this large workforce.
 
3. Infrastructure 
China’s biggest point of attraction is its well-integrated infrastructure that not only produces high-quality products but makes the supply chain process cheaper and more efficient. The Indian infrastructure is nowhere close to its neighbor, but the government needs to invest in the research and development of building these infrastructures. Transportation and supply chain is the key area of focus.

4. Better reforms and ease of doing business
Initiatives such as Make in India, Atmanirbhar Bharat, and several incentives for emerging technologies such as Drones, Additive Manufacturing or 3D Printing, and Electric Vehicles, Space Programmes are promoting manufacturing and Make in India activities. 

India has the opportunity to be a success, the trade war between USA and China and the current pandemic situation are definitely going to motivate companies to look for alternatives for manufacturing. There is also an equal need in improving the skill set of our large young workforce. Training them in areas such as Product Design, Engineering Fundamentals, and Manufacturing Technologies is required for our success. India has the potential, they just need to act fast and smartly in order to maximize this chance. 

Citations 
Richter, F. (2020, February 25). These are the top 10 manufacturing countries in the world. Retrieved July 27, 2020, from https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/02/countries-manufacturing-trade-exports-economics/

Rapid Prototyping: A boon during a pandemic lockdown

With the situation, we face today of COVID-19, the time for the development of the new product is scarce as the product has to be tested and launched quickly in the market to counter the health situation today. The traditional method of manufacturing and testing the iterations seems to be against what is required today as those methods are costlier, time-consuming and difficult due to lockdown situations which makes it difficult for manufacturing moulds, products etc. The traditional method of manufacturing like moulding requires moulds to be produced for the different iterations to be tested which is costlier and may take several days for the product to be manufactured and tested to check on product feature and make changes for desirable results and this long cycle goes on. The lockdown situation makes this process even worse with the unavailability of workers & stringent time factor we are fighting against.

An effective prototype is one that can give product developers an accurate idea of how the final product will perform. Whether that is reviewing the texture and colour or putting the part up to rigorous testing, engineers need a prototype that is up to the task. When it comes to product development, time is of the essence: especially if you had to put design iterations on hold during the lockdown. Rapid prototyping is a blessing in disguise to counter the situation. Rapid Prototyping is a group of techniques used to quickly fabricate a scale model of a physical part or assembly using 3D CAD data. Construction of the part or assembly is usually done using 3D printing or additive layer manufacturing technique. Your product development timeframe need not be affected by rapid prototyping at your service. Improving parts with 3D printing is quick, simple and cheaper with many iterations that can be produced and tested as compared to traditional methods. In few hours or a day, the original design can be updated on 3D CAD tools and the file can be shared with the manufacturer digitally and the prototype would be in your hands within a few hours or days as per the complexity and size of the design. The manufacturing errors can easily be eliminated with rapid prototyping as compared to traditional methods of production. The models can easily be scaled as per the need with limitations arriving only at the maximum size of product a given model of machine can produce. Cutting down on costs is a necessity for industries battling these tough times but this in sense doesn’t mean killing innovations necessary for progress.

Rapid prototyping enables innovation with its freedom of design to engineers for manufacturing parts with intrinsic and small detailed designs and geometries with interlocking features which is not possible to manufacture with traditional methods. This helps in creating product assemblies with many components into a single component product which in turn saves cost. Additive manufacturing offers huge varied combinations of technologies from laser sintering to fused deposition modelling and materials from metals to plastics such as aluminium Nylon, carbon fibre that engineers can choose from to optimize their designs. It provides a variety of textures and colours to choose from. The input files can easily be changed to fulfil the design requirements.