Editorial – January 2023
Though the pandemic changed the face and the thought process of the industry world over, it can hardly change the basics of a manufacturing industry. Though the basics of metal manufacturing and processing remains the same, there are many changes happened post covid. Apart from countless negatives of covid, one positive thing is that it taught us the importance of digitalization. Many plants are now implementing Industry 4.0 (or smart manufacturing as they call it) modules in the manufacturing and processing of metals. The fabrication industry has also followed this way and now almost all the equipment / machinery is studded with smart electronic gadgets facilitating smart processing. A lot of robotics has entered the industry and many of the processes would now be entirely carried out and monitored by robots.
Another subject which has gained prominence in recent years is ‘Green Manufacturing’. We all know that the resources on our mother earth are depleting very fast and one has to use them carefully in the production processes. Also it is a fact that global metallurgical industry is the biggest contributor to the carbon footprint in the environment. Experiments are being conducted, research is being carried out to replace carbon by the other reducing agent (say hydrogen) in the metal production process. Metallurgists and scientific community is hopeful of the commercial viability of this new process and it may be established in the years to come.
The world economy has suffered a lot in the year 2020 and 2021 due to the global pandemic of covid-19. The metallurgical industry is no exception. Though the metal production went down in first few months, it increased rapidly afterwards and manifested almost a V shaped recovery for the steel & metals industry. In 2022, the metallurgical industry got a big jolt due to Russia Ukraine war. The raw material availability and prices soured, increasing the price of finished metal. Many transport routes were non operative due to war situation bringing the international trade down.
Now after many months, it seems that the world and the metallurgical industry has learnt to live with such challenging situations. We strongly feel that the situation will further improve and the normalcy will be restored in the metallurgical industry as well as the global economy. This is especially true in case of India where the projected GDP growth rate is around 6.5 %. This is the highest one in the large economies and certainly a heartening news for the metal technology and equipment companies and the investor community all over the globe.
Indian government’s emphasis on infrastructure projects and the development of railway network (including metro) is certainly going to translate into a huge demand for metals and will certainly give a big boost to the metals manufacturing as well as processing industry in the country.