At The Future Factory Forum held on 27th June at Taj Yeshwantpur, Bengaluru, Zubin Jagtiani, Co-Founder and CEO of Think7, delivered one of the most transformative sessions of the day. His talk, titled “From Machines to Intelligence: Unlocking SME Growth with Industrial IoT,” was more than a presentation. It was a reality check and a wake-up call for SMEs navigating today’s competitive manufacturing landscape.
With over 25 years of experience, Zubin brought a rare combination of entrepreneurial empathy and technological foresight. A former SME owner himself, he understands the ground realities — tight budgets, manpower challenges, outdated processes, and skepticism toward digitisation. But rather than focusing on buzzwords or overwhelming concepts, Zubin’s session was simple, relatable, and filled with moments that struck a chord with every SME leader in the room.
Watch Zubin Jagtiani’s full session Video and discover how your factory can move from machines to intelligence
The Turning Point: A Painful Audit That Sparked a Powerful Vision
Zubin’s journey into Industrial IoT wasn’t born in a boardroom. It started with a tough audit. Faced with questions about mismatched production records, paperwork inefficiencies, and process inconsistencies, he was forced to confront the hard truth: he lacked visibility into his own factory’s performance.
That moment, though painful, planted the seed for Think 7 — an Industry 4.0, plug-and-play IoT solution tailored for Indian SMEs. His mission? To help manufacturers like himself move from chaos to clarity, from manual guesswork to intelligent decision-making.
A Banana, a Factory, and the Reality of Waste
In one of the session’s most memorable moments, Zubin asked the audience to imagine this: “You eat a banana every day after lunch. But imagine chopping it in half and throwing one half into the bin. Would that make sense?” He continued, “But that’s exactly what happens in most factories. We have the machines, manpower, materials, and energy — yet, due to poor planning, missing tools, late shifts, or small breakdowns, we throw half of it away. That’s waste — of time, money, and opportunity.” This simple analogy made the invisible visible. Factories are leaking value daily, and most don’t even realise it.
The Hidden Time Traps in Your Factory
Zubin turned attention to the most ignored cost in manufacturing — lost time. “Let’s say you have 20 machines. If your staff clocks in 5 minutes late twice a day, that’s 200 minutes, over 3 hours of production lost daily.” And this isn’t an exception — it’s a pattern repeated in hundreds of SME factories across India. Unnoticed, unmonitored, and unaddressed, these micro losses eat away at productivity, output, and profitability.
Paper-Based Systems: A Barrier to Quality and Traceability
Another pressing concern Zubin highlighted was quality management. In many factories, quality control still relies on paperwork and spreadsheets, which are prone to errors and inconsistencies.
“How confident are we of the quality we are turning out?” Zubin asked. “Drawings get updated but don’t reach the shop floor in time. Inspections are skipped. You might be manufacturing parts with critical tolerances — but are you sure they are being checked as per the latest standards?”
The consequence? Quality by chance, not by design. He made a compelling argument for digitisation, not just for efficiency, but for accountability and traceability. When quality checks, production logs, supplier certifications, and tool settings are all on paper, retrieving them during a product failure can be nearly impossible. But with a digital system, all this information becomes instantly accessible, traceable to the last machine, operator, and process setting.
Case Studies That Speak Volumes
What made Zubin’s session even more powerful were the real-world stories he shared — case studies that showed what happens when you finally start listening to your machines.
Case Study 1: Engine Parts Manufacturer: One client, a manufacturer of engine parts, began by reviewing their machine reports. Initially, Think 7 reported cycle times in seconds. But the client asked if it could be shown in 0.1 seconds or milliseconds. Zubin’s team responded: “We’ve been monitoring in milliseconds all along — just no one thought it mattered.” What followed was transformational. The client analysed and realised that by moving a robot pick-point slightly, they could reduce the loading/unloading time from 9.25 to 9.1 seconds. A mere 0.15-second gain per cycle resulted in massive time savings across thousands of parts — a classic example of small data delivering big impact.
Case Study 2: The Power Outage Mystery: Another SME digitised their processes without any clear expectations, simply to “see what would come up.” Within weeks, they discovered frequent machine stoppages. 3-4 minutes, 3-4 times a day. The culprit? Power failures. Their generator auto-connect system wasn’t working, requiring manual switching. This single issue impacted 30 machines, resulting in over 120 machine-minutes lost per incident.
Before digitisation, this downtime was invisible. After digitisation, it was glaring — and fixable. No new machines were bought. No extra manpower was hired. Just insight, action, and results.
Digital Doesn’t Mean Difficult
Zubin was clear — digitisation doesn’t have to be complex or costly. Think 7 offers a plug-and-play model, designed for speed, simplicity, and affordability. SMEs can begin their transformation journey without massive capital investment or months of disruption. He also shattered the myth that Industrial IoT is only for large companies.
“If you’re a small unit, every minute matters, every unit counts. Even a 5% improvement can change your growth trajectory.”
Quality by Choice. Productivity by Design.
Zubin concluded by addressing a deeper question — why digitise at all? Because it lets SMEs shift from reactive to proactive. From firefighting to forecasting. From guessing to knowing.
By digitising your operations, you move from quality by accident to quality by choice. You gain visibility, control, accountability — and most importantly — peace of mind.
His final message was loud and clear: “If you don’t measure it, you can’t improve it. Digitisation helps you see the unseen, act on the unknown, and unlock growth that was always waiting — hidden in plain sight.”
A Moment of Mindset Shift
The session ended with an engaged Q&A where SMEs asked questions not out of doubt — but curiosity and intent. Zubin had done what few tech speakers achieve: he changed mindsets.
He didn’t pitch a product. He presented a pathway to transformation.
Final Word
In a world where India is poised to become the “Factory of the World,” Indian SMEs must embrace digitisation not as a luxury, but as a necessity. Zubin Jagtiani’s message at The Future Factory Forum was clear, practical, and transformative: “Don’t wait for change. Be the change. Start small. Think smart. Go digital.”
Watch Zubin Jagtiani’s full session Video and discover how your factory can move from machines to intelligence