With 'Make in India' initiative now becoming a global agenda, there is an incredible opportunity for the Indian manufacturing companies and small and medium enterprises (SMEs) across key verticals to take a giant digital leap, a top executive from Dassault Systèmes has said.

With a renewed focus on smart cities and industrial corridors, manufacturing in India too is at the threshold of major reforms.

According to reports, India's manufacturing activities in product design, R&D and assembling has the potential to reach $1 trillion by 2025. 

"Indian manufacturing companies are now catching up with digitisation. But the rate of digitisation is still not very fast. Adopting the solutions provided by Dassault Systemes can help Indian companies scale up digitisation," said Samson Khaou, Dassault Systèmes' India Managing Director. 

Global 3D design software major Dassault Systemes organised its first "Manufacturing in the Age of Experience" event here, offering detailed perspective on steps that businesses can take to digitally transform manufacturing operations and outsmart competitors.

"‘Manufacturing in the Age of Experience' offers a unique opportunity to explore how industries can digitally transform with the '3DEXPERIENCE platform'," Guillaume Vendroux, CEO, DELMIA, Dassault Systemes, told reporters here.

DELMIA, powered by the 3DEXPERIENCE platform, helps businesses design and test in a simulated production environment so that they can efficiently plan, produce and manage resources.

Known as the 3DEXPERIENCE company, Dassault Systemes provides business and people with virtual universes to imagine sustainable innovations and helps manufacturers provide differentiating consumer experience with the help of 3D design and analysis at every level of product lifecycle.

"Complete synchronisation and integration of operations, modularity and predictive analytics have enabled manufacturers to provide consumers with a personalised experience," added Vendroux at the event attended by over 100 executives and business leaders from across verticals.

A third of Dassault Systemes' R&D capacity is supported by its facilities in India. The company earned revenue of 3 billion euros in last year.

"The first step that Indian manufacturing companies need to take to compete with their global counterparts in an 'experience' economy is to disrupt their traditional manufacturing operations with more agile, flexible, scalable manufacturing processes," said Khaou.

"In this context, they need to address four areas of the manufacturing equation: digital manufacturing, manufacturing operations management, supply chain planning and operations, and additive manufacturing," he added.

With "3DEXPERIENCE Playground", a technology showcase featuring interactive stations, the event also provided a preview of the future of smart manufacturing.

Among the products showcased at the event was "The 3DEXPERIENCE Factory", a smart factory solution to design and simulate the behaviour of the full production line combining the HTC Vive virtual reality system and Dassault Systèmes' 3DEXPERIENCE platform. 

"With ‘Manufacturing in the Age of Experience', we touch upon how technology is breaking down barriers between the virtual world and reality. It is inspiring new generations of makers, engineers, scientists, brand evangelists and CEOs to develop the disruptive experiences that are creating industries of the future," Khaou said.