India, Nov. 8 -- C Balaji, PSG Head, TVS Electronics draws a rough, but realistic, picture of factories that embrace robots for new business models as well as faster (and smarter) assembly lines and packaging. It's an age of managed automation, performance-based services, flexible manufacturing, mass customisation, vision-intelligence, serialisation and traceability across all areas. But would this world be with or without taxes, accidents and retrofitting? Let's take a walk with Balaji around what's changing and what's staying.

The role of robotics and automation in manufacturing is expanding from doing discrete, high-value tasks to orchestrating entire value chains. We are moving towards factories where automation doesn't just mean fas...