MUMBAI: Siemens on Wednesday opened its first digital factory in India, also the third globally after one each in Germany and China, as the industrial conglomerate pitches smart facilities to small and medium scale enterprises in the country.The German company hopes to use Mumbai 's digital factory as a showcase to sell a range of plant automation equipment and software to Indian manufacturing units."We want to reduce cycle time and time-to-market, which is becoming more and more critical. This kind of data flow is possible because digitisation is speeding up the whole process and improving overall value chain," Karlheinz Kaul , the chief executive for Control Products at Siemens, told ET. "This (India digital factory) is a kind of a testimonial to show this is the kind of product we can generate here."The factory, situated on the outskirts of Mumbai, is capable of producing more than 180 variants of low-voltage switchgear at the rate of one product every nine seconds. The plant can manufacture over five million devices annually. The machines rely on the Internet of Things technology, where sensors are fitted on machines and the resulting data is used to improve and track their performance.Digital factory is one of the nine divisions at Siemens. It aims to provide a comprehensive portfolio of hard ware and software products which enable comprehensive integration of data from development, production and suppliers."India is a very price-sensitive market. There is no way you can manufacture at the right market prices without having this flexible manufacturing," said Ashish Bhat, executive vice-president of the company's digital factory in India. 'SMEs are feeding into industries like aerospace and automotive. They are inevitable part of the supply chain and we need to address them."Siemens had built its first digital factory at home in Germany and the second in China. "India is an attractive market and growing market. We need to drive it forward to achieve position in a competitive environment. That is why (we) started investing here," said Kaul.In 2015, Siemens promised to invest 1 billion in India to add 4,000 jobs to its existing workforce of 16,000, becoming the first major European conglomerate to commit to Prime Minister Narendra Modi's ' Make in India ' initiative.Siemens is training its employees to work in digitised factories. It has set up training centres in Gujarat, Jharkhand and Karnataka to skill people in association with state governments. Till date, it has trained more than 25,000 in the country."It is a given that we need to invest in education and training of people. If you go only for cheap labour, then in a global competitive world, it will go away because it is about quality," said Kaul.