21-23 November 2022, Gujarat: Under the UNIDO-DPIIT Facility for International Cooperation for Inclusive and Sustainable Industrial Development (FIC-ISID), a three-day training programme was organized for policy makers from the Government of Gujarat, on an evidence-based approach to formulating policies to support uptake of Industry 4.0, between 21-23 November 2022. The programme was organized through UNIDO’s Global Industrial Policy Advisory Facility, generously supported by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) via the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH.
The three-day training programme focused on providing the participants with an overview of the key concepts and technologies falling under the concept of Industry 4.0; benefits of I4.0 to manufacturing sector, particularly SMEs; policy initiatives and experiences of other countries; and policy design and development tools – approaches for evidence-based policy making to support adoption of Industry 4.0.
International experts Sanghoon Kim (Senior Fellow of Research, Korea Institute for Industrial Economics & Trade (KIET)) and Fernando Santiago Rodriguez (Industrial Development Officer, UNIDO) delivered the technical sessions of the programme. 35 participants from the Department of Science and Technology (DST), Department of Industries, Gujarat Informatics Ltd, Gujarat State Electronics Mission (GSEM), Directorate of ICT and E-Governance, MSME Department, and iNDEXTb (Investment Promotion Bureau) underwent the training.
The sessions were designed to provide the participants with insights on how countries such as South Korea, Japan, U.S.A, Germany, inter alia, have adopted measures to support the adoption of digitalization across sectors, with reference to their respective contexts. Further, UNIDO trained the participants on using its tool, ‘Digital Readiness Diagnostics: Stairway to Industry 4.0’, which has been designed with a view to provide policymakers with guidance on how to appraise a country’s (or region’s) readiness to tackle the opportunities and challenges stemming from digitalization of manufacturing. The tool provides intelligence on practical approaches to policymaking, methodologies and empirically tested role models to inform digitalization agendas and industrialization efforts articulated with long-term national development strategies. The training focused on familiarizing participants with four key aspects of readiness and indicators thereof: enabling infrastructure, production capabilities, innovation capabilities and digital capabilities. Based on these indicators, the sessions focused on how a digital readiness heatmap could be developed and analyzed to identify and prioritize important action areas and potential policy responses.
The thrust of the training was to establish the importance of basing policy decisions on evidence from the ground, and focusing on key capabilities to be nurtured, in addition to enabling conditions/infrastructure, in order to further advanced digital production, especially among manufacturing SMEs.