Manufacturing and Demand Dynamics-Driven Blended Automation Framework for Indian MSMEs

MSME plays a very vital role in Indian economy and has a substantial share in the GDP of the country and its exports. However, on one side it provides employment to a good number of unskilled and semiskilled workers, and on the other side, to sustain the business in the modern technology era and compete in the global market blended automation becomes mandatory for small and micro industries. Starting from the first industrial revolution 1.0 to 4.0, the MSME sector in developed countries has adopted technological advancement for improving their quality and reducing the cost of production; for example, making use of the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) which connects man and machines through cloud-based technologies. However, in this paper, a generalized framework for blended automation for Indian MSMEs is presented. This framework is influenced by joint interrelationship between Productivity-Quality-Demand-Dynamics and Profitability. Some novel definitions are presented for conceptual foundation of the framework.