In this interview with The Packman, Pratip Samanta, regional managing director – Southern & Eastern Asia, ABB Machine Automation Division (B&R Industrial Automation) explains how open and software-defined automation, AI, robotics and advanced mechatronics can help packaging machine builders and manufacturers cut changeover times, improve productivity, reduce waste and build machines that are ready for rapidly changing market demands.
Mahan Hazarika: Congratulations on your appointment as regional managing director for Southern and Eastern Asia. What excites you the most about returning to ABB (Machine Automation Division), and what are your immediate priorities for the region?
Pratip Samanta: Returning to ABB Machine Automation Division (B&R) at such a transformative time is incredibly exciting. Manufacturers are looking beyond automation to intelligent, connected production. My priority is to help customers accelerate this transition by combining B&R’s open automation, mechatronics expertise and AI-driven innovative engineering.
We will also focus on strengthening our partner ecosystem, deepen customer collaboration and enable machine builders to deliver faster, more flexible, adaptive and sustainable machines across entire Southern and Eastern Asia region.
Mahan Hazarika: Manufacturers across Asia are accelerating their digital transformation journeys. What are the biggest automation trends you expect to define the packaging and converting industries over the next five years?
Pratip Samanta: The packaging and converting industry are changing very fast with a solid growth outlook driven by shifting consumer behaviors, sustainability practices, shortage of skilled workers, cyber threats and so on so forth. To stay relevant in this ever-changing landscape, adaptive manufacturing is the future. We see rapid adoption of software-defined automation, modular machine architectures, digital twins, AI-assisted engineering, integrated robotics and so on and so forth. From B&R we embrace the change boldly. Our flexible transport systems such as ACOPOStrak and SuperTrak, together with intelligent machine vision and data-driven optimization, help enable manufacturers to produce multiple SKUs with minimal changeover time while responding quickly to evolving consumer demands.
Mahan Hazarika: Packaging manufacturers today are under pressure to improve productivity while reducing waste and energy consumption. How can advanced machine automation help them achieve both sustainability and profitability?
Pratip Samanta: Sustainability has become one of the key business imperatives for all the manufacturing companies. B&R’s integrated mechatronics approach combines motion, control, software and safety into a single architecture, reducing engineering complexity while improving machine performance. Intelligent motion control, energy-efficient servo technology and adaptive production help minimize material waste, reduce energy consumption and maximize OEE. Flexible transport systems also reduce mechanical complexity, enabling faster format changes and more efficient resource utilization.
Mahan Hazarika: India is emerging as a global manufacturing hub. How do you see the role of machine automation evolving as Indian packaging companies compete in international markets?
Pratip Samanta: India has evolved far beyond traditional labor and cost arbitrage. We’re emerging as a global manufacturing hub, increasingly competing on quality, speed and innovation, backed by Machine Automation being one of the key productivity enabler and strategic differentiator. Automation enables consistent product quality, flexibility, traceability, compliance with the regulatory needs and higher productivity. With initiatives like ‛Make in India’ and growing exports, investment in intelligent automation will continue to accelerate. Open, scalable automation platforms will help Indian machine builders develop globally competitive machines while shortening development cycles and reducing lifecycle costs.
Mahan Hazarika: B&R is known for its open automation solutions. How important are interoperability and software-defined automation in enabling the factories of the future?
Pratip Samanta: Interoperability is essential, as no manufacturer wants to be constrained by proprietary technologies. At B&R, openness has always been a core principle. B&R’s open automation philosophy powered by all-in-one software engineering environment (Automation Studio), open communication standards (e.g., OPC UA, OPC UA FX, POWERLINK), ready to use software blocks (mapp technology) enables seamless integration across software, control systems, robotics and machine vision across all levels of manufacturing, enabling a unified and agile production environment.
Especially on the open communication standards, B&R is an early adopter and active contributor to the OPC Foundation’s initiatives like OPC UA and OPC UA FX, fundamentally shifting industrial connectivity. By enabling open interoperability from the field to the cloud, it gives manufacturers the flexibility to choose the best solutions without being locked into proprietary ecosystems. By simplifying machine architecture, it lowers costs and streamlines compliance with evolving regulatory requirements. UAFX comes with built-in security.
Software-defined automation (SDA) further enhances this flexibility. SDA enables customers to adapt machine functionality thru’ software irrespective of fixed, vendor-specific hardware. It significantly reduces engineering effort while increasing flexibility, scalability and long-term investment protection.
Mahan Hazarika: Artificial Intelligence is becoming an integral part of manufacturing. How do you envision AI transforming machine automation, predictive maintenance and production optimization in the packaging sector?
Pratip Samanta: Artificial intelligence is fundamentally reshaping the landscape of industrial automation software development and manufacturing operations. B&R is advancing this transformation beyond traditional AI-assisted coding through the introduction of Automation Studio Agentic Bridge , a paradigm shift where-in artificial intelligence transitions from passive, support-oriented assistance to active, autonomous engineering participation.
B&R’s unified Automation Studio Agentic Bridge serves as a comprehensive integration point, enabling AI agents to autonomously expands AI beyond code generation, enabling intelligent agents to execute engineering workflows, validate results, and actively participate in real projects. Importantly, B&R’s commitment to openness and flexibility ensures that consumers retain the freedom to select and deploy AI agents aligned with their preferences (e.g., a very high-end Open Frontier Model for challenging jobs and simple models for day-to-day jobs).
We are also seeing integration of AI capabilities directly into products and automation systems, thereby extending machine intelligence across manufacturing ecosystems – from individual machine-level automation through enterprise-level operations management.
Combined with machine learning, predictive maintenance, quality analytics and digital twins, AI will enable self-optimizing machines that improve up-time, reduce waste and continuously enhance production efficiency.
Mahan Hazarika: What opportunities do you see in high-growth segments such as flexible packaging, labels, corrugated packaging, food & beverage, pharmaceuticals and FMCG manufacturing? Which sectors are likely to lead automation investments?
Pratip Samanta: These sectors are driven by mass personalization, sustainability and regulatory compliance. For example, food & beverage, pharmaceuticals and FMCG will continue leading automation investments due to stringent quality requirements and high production volumes. For flexible packaging, small print runs are becoming increasingly important, hence need efficient and flexible production with smaller batch sizes and the transition to sustainable printing processes by minimizing waste or increasing energy efficiency.
Clearly all these segments need adaptive manufacturing lines relying on modular automation, robotics and intelligent transport to enable shorter production runs and faster changeovers. The convergence of robotics, machine vision and mechatronics will unlock significant competitive advantages across these industries.
Mahan Hazarika: Looking ahead, what is your vision for B&R in this region, and what message would you like to share with packaging machine builders and manufacturers planning their next phase of automation investments?
Pratip Samanta: Our vision is to be the preferred ‛Innovation Partner’ for machine builders across Southern and Eastern Asia. Together with ABB Robotics, B&R offers a unique combination of machine automation, robotics and digital technologies under one ecosystem.
My message to manufacturers is – Automation investment today should be viewed as a strategic enabler of long-term growth, not just a productivity initiative. Choose technologies that are open, scalable and software-centric, which can evolve with changing market demands. Those who embrace this digitalization spree, flexible automation architectures will be best positioned to lead in the next generation of manufacturing and B&R stands ready to partner with them on that journey.
Mahan Hazarika: What skills will tomorrow’s automation engineers need as software, AI and industrial automation continue to converge?
Pratip Samanta: The future is already here. We are at the age of IT – OT convergence, where the automation engineers will require expertise beyond traditional PLC programming and HMI Development. They need technical skills and knowledge selectively in software engineering, AI, edge computing, cybersecurity, data analytics and industrial networking to contribute holistically towards the emerging industrial ecosystem of manufacturing. Besides the technical expertise, tomorrow’s automation engineers also need to be contextual masters with relevant domain knowledge in order to understand the need of the OEMs and accordingly integrate robotics, machine vision, motion control and AI into a unified automation solution that delivers measurable business value to the machine builders.
Mahan Hazarika: Are there any new technologies or strategic initiatives from B&R that you believe will significantly influence the packaging machinery market in the coming years?
Pratip Samanta: Absolutely. B&R is investing heavily in adaptive manufacturing through software-defined automation, AI-enabled engineering, intelligent mechatronics, conveying systems and autonomous production technologies. Innovations such as Automation Studio Agentic Bridge, ACOPOStrak, SuperTrak, ACOPOS 6D, integrated machine vision, Codian delta & SCARA robots and ABB Robotics create a highly flexible automation ecosystem. Together, these technologies enable packaging machine builders to reduce time-to-market, simplify machine design, increase productivity and build future-ready, sustainable production systems.
