As manufacturers accelerate their adoption of AI, robotics and intelligent automation, OMRON Europe President and CEO Virendra Shelar is urging industry to keep its focus on a fundamental question: what real problem is the technology solving?

Automation has long promised to make work safer, improve productivity and help industry address wider societal challenges. According to Virendra Shelar, President and CEO of OMRON Europe, maintaining that sense of purpose will become increasingly important as AI and other technologies transform manufacturing.

“At OMRON, we strongly believe in automation that contributes to a better society,” says Shelar. “As technology becomes more powerful, we need to remain clear about what we are using it for and what benefit it actually brings.”

For OMRON, that principle can be traced back through innovations ranging from automated traffic control to technologies used in modern factories to improve safety, quality and productivity. Today, the applications may be different, but Shelar believes the test should remain the same.

Look beyond the AI label

AI is one area where this distinction is particularly important. “When somebody talks about implementing AI, I want to ask deeper questions,” says Shelar. “What are you using it for, and what benefits does it bring? Will it reduce costs or improve productivity or safety?”

On the factory floor, those answers can be highly practical. AI-supported predictive analytics, for example, can identify deteriorating equipment and help maintenance teams intervene before a failure results in costly unplanned downtime. The important point, Shelar argues, is whether a technology addresses a genuine manufacturing challenge.

Safety, quality, cost and skills

Automation can relieve people from heavy or repetitive work, reduce rejects and improve the use of time and resources. At the same time, increasingly automated factories require people with new engineering, software, data and robotics skills.

This reflects OMRON founder Kazuma Tateishi’s philosophy: “To the machine, the work of the machine; to man, the thrill of further creation.” For Shelar, that relationship between people and technology becomes more important, rather than less, as manufacturing changes.

“Manufacturing is going through a tremendous transformation, and the speed of that transformation is becoming faster than most people expect,” he says. AI, robotics and automation are increasingly converging, creating new possibilities for manufacturers.

“Are we still building automation to serve society? For OMRON, the answer has to be absolutely, every time,” concludes Shelar. “That is what we were founded to do. Start with a real problem and find the technology to solve it.”