Career – The KGP Chronicle

Industry 4.0 to create new job opportunities through digitization of industrial operations

By Prof. Surjya K Pal

Overview of Industry 4.0

The fourth industrial revolution, popularly referred to as Industry 4.0 constitutes a plethora of technological concepts aiming towards the adoption of cyber-physical systems. Essentially, it involves connecting the segments of a manufacturing system with digital technologies for gaining critical and real-time insights. The technologies include the use of intelligent robots, real-time monitoring and control of manufacturing systems, cloud, edge, and fog computing, all of which will lead to the development of the Industrial Internet of Things.

At present, Industry 4.0 is at a very nascent stage, and a large number of industries are aiming to adopt Industry 4.0 to digitalize their supply chains. These would enable automated and faster means of decision making, more efficient operational processes, and better resource utilization through customization, quality checks, thus, leading to cost reduction and market competitiveness. Industry 4.0 also addresses the health and safety of the workforce by means of reduction of human intervention on the shop floor.

Industry 4.0 career avenues for industry leaders and the workforce

Engineers who are currently enamored by software, financial and consulting jobs, would find the manufacturing field much more dynamic and pervasive.

Industry 4.0 would require digital knowledge and the ability to work with data including automated systems, knowledge of IoT, AR/VR, machine learning, big data and analytics, cybersecurity and data protection, data analytics. In addition to this, there exists cross-disciplinary expertise arising out of the integrated system requirements.

Leadership and communication too will be a challenging task for Industry 4.0, as the transition would significantly demand flexibility to accommodate customer needs as well as leveraging the EQ of the workforce.

The workforce will now require trained personnel in computer numerical control, instrumentation, data mining, robotics, design, extended reality, cloud deployment, AI and ML, cybersecurity, and much more.

Industry 4.0 is the bedrock of “Atma Nirbhar Bharat”; it is the way forward for India Inc. Having said that, it is also true that automation will replace repetitive jobs requiring lower skills. But on the other hand, it will create jobs requiring higher skills. Upskilling is no longer an alternative but a mandate of Industry 4.0 to sustain in the technologically enhanced industrial environment towards which India’s industrial sector is already progressing. With the Govt. of India targeting substantial growth of the manufacturing sector under Atma Nirbhar Bharat, the job market is expected to swell. However, in to order adopt Industry 4.0, a highly skilled workforce is the need of the hour. We would not be able to make the transition without such upskilling.

The role which the Centre of Excellence in Advanced Manufacturing can play in creating this new avenue

The upskilling of the workforce would require a robust learning and development platform equipped with cross-disciplinary technological facilities. The “Centre of Excellence in Advanced Manufacturing” at IIT Kharagpur has been providing this platform to various industrial houses including the capital goods sector and MSMEs. Further, Industry 4.0 infrastructure would be capital intensive in some cases and fast-changing as far as the technological innovations are concerned. This may create a hindrance for the MSMEs to upgrade while keeping pace with the market. The Centre’s deliverables for the MSMEs are not only an R&D testbed but also providing them with a host of upgrades in the existing infrastructure and also very low-cost solutions. Further, the Centre promises to offer innovative and market-ready technologies in the respective domains which the firms can further commercialize.

Some MSME oriented innovations at the Centre of Excellence in Advanced Manufacturing

“Real-time weld-quality monitoring and control” is one of the recent success stories of this Centre that has been jointly developed with TCS. The system employs cloud infrastructure for managing the multiple sensory data to derive real-time insights about a welding process and accordingly controls the welding machine by sending real-time feedback.

Another such endeavor developed is a “Low-cost machine vision-based solution for real-time quality inspection”. This system is an accurate, robust, and real-time solution for job quality inspection based on the features extracted through image processing. A major attraction is the use of a low-cost camera for the machine vision application which significantly reduces the cost. An AI algorithm is devised and incorporated into the system that enhances the image quality in real-time to compensate for the capability of the low-cost camera.

Training Programs at the Centre of Excellence in Advanced Manufacturing

Training programs have been conducted in the past which include CNC and Composites 4.0. Further, the CoE is also coming up with interactive training programs on Virtual CNC classes, Robotics, AR/VR in manufacturing, and advanced welding methods.

Read the article on ABP Education

Counting 1000+ on 8th Day of Placement

Despite Pandemic, IIT Kharagpur secured more than 1000 jobs – the highest number of Placement offers in 2020.

IIT Kharagpur bagged more than 1000 offers in Phase-I placements for the year 2020-21 till the 8th Day of the ongoing hiring session. The students also bagged 30 international job offers so far from countries such as Japan and Taiwan and companies including Accenture, TSMC, Sony, Rakuten, and Valuance, etc.

Companies like Google, Microsoft, Apple, Qualcomm, Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, American Express, Sony Japan, EXL Service, Oracle, Honeywell, TSMC, Rakuten, Cohesity, Amazon, Airbus, PwC, L&T, Wipro, Tata Steel, and many more have offered jobs across sectors such as software, hardware, analytics, consulting, core engineering, education, healthcare, banking, finance, etc.

Till now, the institute achieved good placement numbers and put up with the current economic conditions as top companies have shown faith in us. More than 200 companies are participating in the first phase of the recruitment drive, mainly 25%-27% core companies, 65% software, and 10% consulting. The company mix in the first phase is fairly distributed, and the students got their placements as per their domain choice, though software, data, and analytics took the major share of it. The performance is even reflected in the average salary which stands at ₹ 19 LPA despite the odds.

“On the closing of day-1, we had received 400 plus offers which accumulate to 900 on day 5th and crossed 1000 by Day 8th; though pandemic restricted some of the companies to offer more hiring numbers/profiles. Despite that KGP achieved significant performance and reassured its legacy,” remarked Prof. A. Rajakumar, Chairman, Career Development Centre, IIT Kharagpur.

The performance is owing to the high academic quality & technical skills of our students, which were reflected through the fully flexible online internship program 2020 including in-house internship by faculty mentors in addition to industrial internships arranged through CDC.

Prof. Rajakumar and his team expressed gratitude to all hiring partners of IITKGP for their excellent cooperation through “unique online recruitment” at this trying time.

The first phase of the placements at IIT Kharagpur will continue till December 11, with the next phase will resume from the second week of January 2021.

2020 Day 1 Placement Report

Despite Pandemic, IIT Kharagpur secured a significant number of placement offers for the 2020 season

At this ongoing pandemic situation, IIT Kharagpur bagged 276 Pre-Placement Offers (PPOs) out of 425 eight-week internship opportunities through online mode. Companies like Barclay, Goldman Sachs, Honeywell, Microsoft, MasterCard, Dr. Reddy, Tata Steel have offered more than 10 PPOs each. Around thirty companies participated in Day 1 and more than 130 placement offers were received for the final year students. TSMC, Sony-Japan and Cohesity US made international hiring offers.

“Key components of this success are excellent technical skills of the students, the flexible online internship plan and long-lasting relation with the company partners. This is the highest number among all other top academic institutes in India at the top MNCs in spite of the current economic condition” said Prof. A Rajakumar, Chairperson – Career Development Centre, IIT Kharagpur.

Other factors that contribute to the high demand of the students are wide choices in course curriculum available through flexible and strong academic programs, dedicated and experienced faculty strength of IIT Kharagpur.

“The above facts and figures indicate and convey that we can expect a decent placement session for KGP students in the face of this pandemic situation, remarked Prof. Rajakumar.

For the 2020-21 placement drive, 2100 plus students have registered out of which 1300 are UG/dual degree students. In spite of the economic constraints, companies are showing tremendous faith in us. More than 200 companies are registered to participate in the first phase of the recruitment drive starting from today. For initial days, 25%-27% core companies, 65% software and 10% consulting firms opened up prospects for the IIT Kharagpur students. This is a unique admixture of opportunities for the students to explore their dream careers.

Excellent performance in an internship by the students and subsequent high turnover of PPOs might have generated overwhelming interest of the companies to participate in full-time hiring.

“It is an encouraging sign for us that companies recognize our student’s hard work, academics stuff, talent and motivation during the internship and we are delighted that once again the top companies of the country have reposed their belief in our students,” added Prof. Rajakumar.

Placed!!

Photo Credit: Suman Sutradhar

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The six month’s long preparation of the Career Development Centre (CDC), Placecom Team, Faculty members and students which was started in the month of July 2019 came to an end on December 11, 2019. The first phase of placement started on 1st December 2019 and continued till 11th December 2019. This year CDC has created a new benchmark by placing 1310 plus students in the first phase only. This created an all time highest digits in the history of IITKGP!

To start with the session, CDC has received 280 pre placement offers along with 19 offers from Public Sector Units. Placing 1000 students in just five days (December 05th) of placement and the overall figure of the placement at the end of phase I have comfortably passed all the previous year’s record.

This year the Institute achieved a remarkable growth in the International offers. Students have been able to bag 51 overseas placements. As compared to last year CDC has achieved an increment of 96% in this area, which is really commendable.

The participation of more than 215 companies during this period has contributed to this achievement. This year the Institute has witnessed the participation of all types of organizations across sectors. Software, analytics, consulting, core engineering companies, banking and finance are the major takers of this year. The company mix of the first phase is fairly distributed, and the students got their placements as per their sector choice, though software, data and analytics took the lion’s share. The software and analytics sector dominates with the total sectoral company presence of 58% whereas core and banking have contributed nearly 30% and 9% respectively.

The median salary calculated on the available data stands at Rs.15 lakh per annum which is quite encouraging. In the first phase of placement session Honeywell, Excel, Microsoft, Barclays are the highest contributors where as in the International front Japanese companies top the list. On behalf of the Institute, CDC, IIT KGP thank all the recruiters who had taken the trouble to visit IIT KGP and took part in achieving these feet.

Out strategy was to take the pain and enlist more companies on a day than usual. The entire team worked hard to keep up the process smooth with the cooperation of the Institute authorities. This gave wonderful results – said Chairman, CDC, Prof. G P Raja Sekh

Fastest 1000

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Honeywell Hiring: Live Mint ANI Manufacturing Today India

IIT Kharagpur has set a new record by completing 1000+ placements in 5 days. With 144 companies visiting the Institute for recruitment the students have bagged these offers including 282 preplacement offers and 19 offers from Public Sector Units.

The areas which witnessed maximum hiring included software and analytics (60%), core (30%) and banking, finance (10%). Some of the top recruiters are Honeywell with 36 offers followed by EXL with 25 offers and software giant Microsoft with 24 offers. AI MNC Fractal Analytics and major contender of financial sector Barclays making 20 offers each followed by Samsung Research with 19 offers and Master Card with 18 offers. Among the top recruiting Indian companies were Reliance Jio, Udaan, TCG Digital, Axis Bank, ANI Technologies (OLA).

All the major companies across all the sectors are its software, hardware, consulting, core engineering, banking and finance visited the campus and completed their hiring with an average presence of 28 companies per day.

“This has been the fastest 1000 till date and typically one day ahead of the last year. We have a 20-member strong students’ team managing placement right from interacting and inviting companies for placement, to conduct the placement activities led by a group of faculty members, students and officials from the Career Development Centre. All the team members along with the staff of the Career Development Center have been working relentlessly since last month ensuring the best experience for recruiters and students,” said Prof. G P Rajasekhar, Chairman, CDC.

This year the students bagged 43 international offers. While Japan led in international offers with Japanese companies making 28 offers with Accenture Japan as a major recruiter making 19 offers and 9 by Sony Japan, Taiwan’s industry leader Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company Ltd. has offered 9 international positions to the students. This was followed by 6 offers made by major US MNCs including 3 by Microsoft Redmond, 1 each by Uber, PayPal and Honeywell.

“This year international offers have witnessed 69% growth in compared to last years. In the last two years 26 international offers were made and this year we have crossed that benchmark comfortably,” said an official.

Honeywell which has turned out to be the top recruiter with 35 offers in India (Bangalore, Hyderabad), and 1 offer in US (Atlanta) called IIT Kharagpur its natural partner in a press statement issued by the company earlier this week.

“IIT Kharagpur is a natural partner for Honeywell with its diverse and world-class technology talent. The enthusiasm that we are seeing from the Kharagpur student body is invigorating!” said Akshay Bellare, President Honeywell India as per the statement.

Honeywell has earlier hired 40 interns from Summer 2020.

“We are excited to have world-class organizations like Honeywell recruit from our campus. Honeywell, with its legacy of core engineering innovation and connecting hardware and software, is a classic example of the type of companies that are attractive to our students,” reciprocated Prof. Rajasekhar.

Five students till now have been made crore-plus offers. Additionally, more than 13 companies have made offers above ₹30 Lakhs. The true media salary can be estimated at the end of the phase I placement.

The phase I of the placement will tentatively go till December 11 and will resume again from January 1st week which will continue till mid-April, 2019.

Placement Begins

It is the time of the year when all eyes are towards the IITs – as December hits, so does the placement season at IITs. At IIT Kharagpur with 282 PPOs the Institute is aiming to secure 1000+ placements in less than a week’s time. Already three PSUs have recruited and more are expected in the coming months.

This year several first-time recruiters will visit the IIT Kharagpur campus including top corporate brands like Sony Japan, PayPal, P&G India, Nestle India, Nomura. The Institute will also be welcoming back international recruiters like Apple, Microsoft Redmond, Uber, Amex, Qualcomm, Mercari Japan among others.

“We have taken almost all the last year’s companies on board and some prominent Japanese companies along with two US companies. We are expecting double the offer in international profiles,” said an official at the Career Development Centre of IIT Kharagpur.

Apart from the prominent players which recruited last year, seven more companies are on board for the phase one recruitment at the Institute. Most of the profiles are in the areas of software development and consulting. Though there were apprehensions regarding market conditions, the internship and preplacement offers were highly promising touching all time high figures. Read More

Talking about the current market scenario and its potential impact on the recruitment, Prof. G P Rajasekhar, Chairman at IIT Kharagpur’s Career Development Centre remarked, “The PPO rate is very encouraging. We took proactive measures to attract companies by reviewing our Company Relation Index (CRI) and then upgraded a few companies. We are stretching our wings to accommodate more companies on a given day so that companies do have enough pool of students each day.”

A supposed challenge of 2.30 hours distance from Kolkata airport is also being addressed.

On day 1, thirty companies will be recruiting for fifty different profiles. The students are hoping for a high number of shortlisted candidates during the first week which will indicate the final number of offers made. The phase 1 will continue for 3 weeks in December.

An increasing trend in salary also was observed.

“This was expected especially with software and quant companies offering higher packages,” said an official.

A total of 220 companies have registered for recruitment in the phase one who will be interviewing more than 2000 students who have registered for placement opportunities in 2019-2020. By the end of the second phase about 500 students from Undergraduate, Postgraduate and Dual Degrees are expected to opt out from the placement process.

Summer Internship Records All-time High

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Internship offers for Summer 2020 have crossed the 500-mark at IIT Kharagpur. The internship process which started in August 2019 has been soaring high compared to last year’s figure which was comparatively lower with the closing figure at 461.

IIT Kharagpur’s Career Development Centre has further witnessed an increasing trend in the internship season. More than seventy-five companies have already visited the campus. The most encouraging fact is that the campus has witnessed the participation and presence of all the sectors like IT/Software, Analytics/ Consulting, e-Commerce, Banking and Healthcare though IT/ software.

Career Development Centre (CDC) is optimistic that in the second phase of the Internship process which starts from the second week of January 2020, the Institute can register the highest number of Internships of recent times. Now, the Institute is gearing up for placements which starts from 1st December 2019 onwards.

Also, the pre-placement offers received till now for the placement session of 2019-20 is already close to last year’s final PPO figure of 261.

Talking about the current market scenario and its potential impact on the recruitment, Prof. G P Rajasekhar, Chairman at IIT Kharagpur’s Career Development Centre remarked, “The internship season outperformed the digits that we achieved during the last few years. Also, the PPOs rate is very encouraging. We took proactive measures to attract companies by reviewing our Company Relation Index (CRI) and then upgraded a few companies.”

A supposed challenge of 2.30 hours distance from Kolkata airport is also being addressed.

“We are stretching our wings to accommodate more companies on a given day so that companies do have enough pool of students each day,” he added.

VGSOM’s Placement Century

VGSOM Silver Jubilee Celebrations Concluded with 100% Phase I Placement

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The Vinod Gupta School of Management, IIT Kharagpur concluded its first phase of Final Placements season for the 26th batch of its flagship MBA program with 100% placements. With more than 65 companies participating in the process, 139 job offers, including 31 Pre-Placement Offers were made to 123 students of the Class of 2019.

Leading corporates like Accenture Digital, Amazon, eBay, Deloitte, ZS Associates, Pricewaterhouse Coopers, Titan, Schlumberger, Trident Group, Vedanta, ICICI Bank, HSBC, Virtusa, Maybank, Wipro, IBM, Novartis and many more reiterated their faith in the mettle of the students. New associations were established with reputed brands like AkzoNobel, Ernst & Young, Ford, Tata Power, Genpact, Bloomberg, Diageo, Emami Agrotech, Edelweiss Tokio Life Insurance, Capital First, Bridge i2i, Oxane Partners, MAQ Software, and Tresvista. After the first phase of placements, the average compensation of the top 25% of the batch stands at INR 18.5 LPA and that for the top 50% is INR 17.21 LPA. The median for the same is INR 18.94 LPA and INR 16.76 LPA respectively. The highest domestic offer made was of INR 21 LPA.

Consulting continues to remain the preferred domain of students on campus and recorded the maximum number of job offers. It was followed by Analytics, Operations, Sales & Marketing, and Finance.

The Dean of VGSOM, Professor Prabina Rajib, said, “The outstanding results were possible because of various factors like quality of academics, admission process, and focus on corporate cum academic competitions. I would also like to express my heartfelt gratitude to all the esteemed recruiters for their incessant support and faith in our students.”

VGSOM has recently been ranked among India’s top 5 business schools by QS in their 2019 Subject Ranking for Business and Management Studies. Read More . . .

IIT KGP Sets New Placement Benchmark

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IIT Kharagpur has completed the phase 1 of placement for 2018-19 with 1275+ offers from 192 companies. The campus has witnessed the presence of many IT-Software, e-commerce, Finance and Analytics companies including the core engineering one. About 40% of the profiles offered are in IT-Software followed by 20% in core engineering, 15% each in analytics and e-Commerce and 10% in finance.

Companies who have made a remarkable contribution in terms of number of hires are Google, Apple, Microsoft, EXL, Intel, Tata Steel, Flipkart, L&T Construction, Mahindra & Mahindra, TVS Motors, HSBC, Quantiphi, JP Morgan, Qualcomm, Oyo, Barclays, Goldman Sachs, Master Card, Capgemini etc. The number of international offers stands at 23 with Japan contributing the highest number of offers and Germany being a first-time recruiter.

It is also to note that this year, in particular, the participation of core companies have been increased substantially. They have also hired a good number of students which is a matter of utmost satisfaction. The recruitment drive has also witnessed the participation of public sector and government institutions. ISRO and ONGC have already visited the campus and more are planning to visit during phase II.

This year IIT Kharagpur achieved the fastest 1000 in just six days of placement. Also, the total number offers have crossed all the benchmarks set in the last four years. The second phase will commence from January 2019.

Prof. G.P. Raja Sekhar, Chairman, Career Development Center at IIT Kharagpur, expressed satisfaction with the performance of the students during the placement drive. He acknowledged that academic preparation of the students has benefitted them and appreciated by the companies. Companies have also expressed the desire to come in the next phase for recruiting the students. The efforts by CDC team by organizing open houses and briefing the students about strategies to be followed rendered such results.

6 Days, 1000+ Offers

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IIT KGP has received 1000 job offers in a record 6 days. A total of 112 companies visited till December 6, 2018 with the 6th day ending with 1000+ offers. This included more than 250 PPOs. This has been the fastest 1000 till date, typically it takes a little more than a week.

About 40% of the profiles offered are in IT-Software followed by 20% in core engineering, 15% each in analytics and e-Commerce and 10% in finance.

“The dynamic content of the curriculum equipping the students with the necessary technical skill which is fetching fruitful results,” said Prof. G P Raja Sekhar, Chairman, Career Development Center at IIT Kharagpur.

Some of the top recruiters are:

EXL	37	Intel	33	Quantiphi	31	Flipkart	30
J P Morgan	26	Qualcomm	25	Oyo	24	Barclays	22
Goldman Sachs	21	Microsoft	21	Master Card	21	Eaton	21
Jio-Data	12	Apple	9	Google	9

“Students have been presenting the right mix of academic performance and an attitude groomed through their extracurricular activities. Several companies have focused on the creative and managerial aspects of students which they get to learn during their association with various student societies and cells in socio-cultural techno-management activities, sports,” remarked Vishal Singh, Students’ Vice President.

“My interview for the profile of product development analytics was mostly based on my association with the branding function and how we conceptualized new initiatives to support outreach activities of the Institute,” said a former member of a student’s cell.

23 international offers have been received till now. Japan has been leading in international offers with 4 Japanese companies making 11 offers, 6 offers in the US by Microsoft, Uber and Cohesity, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company Ltd. has made 4 offers. Germany is the new entrant this year at IIT Kharagpur with 2 offers made by KPIT. For the last two years, 26 international offers were received. The phase I of the placement will go until December 12 and will resume again from January 1st week which will continue till mid-April, 2019.

“Few more international profiles are lined up. Also, we are expecting few PSUs to visit the campus during phase-II,” added CDC Chairman.”

The Career Development Centre at IIT Kharagpur has a 15-member strong students’ team managing placement right from interacting and inviting companies for placement, to conducting the placement activities led by a group of faculty members and the Students’ Vice President. “All the team members along with the staff of the Career Development Center have been working relentlessly since last month ensuring the best experience for recruiters and students,” he added.