Debashish Roy, Chief Digital Transformation Officer, CEAT, on how AI is rewriting the rules of manufacturing.
“Recalling the famous words of Stephen Elop, then Nokia’s CEO during its acquisition by Microsoft, the speaker reminded the audience: ‘We didn’t do anything wrong, but somehow we still lost.” recalled Debashish Roy, Chief Digital Transformation Officer at CEAT, during the keynote, setting the tone for a candid discussion on why industry.
Technology at the Core, Not the Periphery
The speaker opened with a stark observation: the world’s valuable companies like NVIDIA, Microsoft, and AWS are not just leaders in their sectors; they are companies with technology at the very core of their strategy. Once, businesses revolved around products. Today, customer-centricity and digital innovation are driving growth. For manufacturing and IT leaders, this shift underscores a hard truth: technology is no longer a support system; it is a matter of survival.
Industry 5.0: Human-Centric, Sustainable, Intelligent
The evolution from Industry 4.0 to 5.0 marks a more profound transformation. Automation and IoT have matured, but the next wave is defined by human-centric design, collaborative robots (cobots), and sustainability. Smart factories aren’t just efficient, they’re safer, greener, and designed to work with, not replace, people. For C-suites, this translates into opportunities to link operational excellence with ESG priorities and workforce satisfaction.
The New Playbook: Foresight and Purpose
Two emerging concepts stand out. Foresight factories extend the digital twin idea by predicting supply chain and production outcomes before changes occur, giving executives unprecedented control over volatility. Meanwhile, purposeful production utilizes data to precisely align output with demand, thereby reducing waste and minimizing environmental impact. These tools allow leaders to move from reactive firefighting to proactive, predictive decision-making.
Redefining ROI in the AI Era
AI challenges traditional metrics. As the speaker noted, today’s ROI is not just value divided by cost; it must factor in recurring cloud expenses, one-time investments, and most critically, the probability of success. For IT and business leaders, this means adopting a portfolio approach to AI investments: experiment, fail fast, scale what works, and measure impact holistically.
Real Use Cases, Real Impact
AI is not a theory; it’s already reshaping operations. At CEAT, AI-driven models cut tire development lead time by 30% and reduced scrap by 22%. Another initiative optimized raw material mixing, cutting process variation by 58% and increasing monthly capacity by 17 metric tons. These examples demonstrate how AI directly enhances competitiveness by compressing cycle times, reducing costs, and improving efficiency.
The Foundation: Data and Talent
From 2015 onward, CEAT invested in digital foundations, MES systems, and, critically, in talent — specifically, data engineers, scientists, and translators — who bridge the gap between AI and shop floor realities. The message to executives: Without clean, consumable data and skilled personnel, AI initiatives fail, regardless of ambition.
The Leadership Imperative
The keynote closed with a sobering reminder. Nokia didn’t perish for lack of effort; it failed because the world changed faster than it did. For today’s leaders, the lesson is urgent: embrace AI as a strategic necessity, not an experiment. The shop floor of the future isn’t just bright, it’s adaptive, sustainable, and intelligent. And those who fail to evolve may find themselves repeating Nokia’s fate.