industrial operations – 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

New Algorithm to Augment Industrial Profitability

IIT Kharagpur – Tata Metaliks Jointly Develop Industry 4.0 Algorithm to Change Profitability Scenario of India’s Manufacturing Sector

Researchers at the Centre of Excellence for Advanced Manufacturing Technologies, IIT Kharagpur have developed a predictive maintenance algorithm to improve the profitability of production jobs through substantial savings in Productivity, Downtime, Cost and Manpower. The data-driven predictive maintenance module has been successfully tested by Tata Metaliks for user-level acceptance.

The algorithm has been developed at the Centre of Excellence for Advanced Manufacturing Technologies, by a team led by Prof Akhilesh Kumar, Associate Professor, Dept. of Industrial Systems Engineering. Deployed on a gearbox of Annealing Furnace, the algorithm was tested for its ability to cluster various operating modes of the gearbox and outliers, adaptability to recognize new operating modes and predict impending failures, threshold flags for anomaly detection as well as tracking health state of the industrial assets.

Prof. Kumar said, “My goal was to develop generic diagnostic and prognostic algorithms that are rapidly configurable, and adaptive to facilitate effective and efficient large-scale deployment of Predictive Maintenance 4.0 (PdM4.0) technology for a wide variety of equipment/assets”.

Tata Metaliks has projected that the algorithm would have the potential for great savings from a predictive maintenance perspective. Based on various performance measures, an indirect increase in productivity was estimated to be ₹1 crore annually along with a direct decrease in (i) annual downtime by 40-hours, (ii) annual manpower requirement by 400 hours and (iii) cost by ₹8 Lakh. Tata Metaliks has developed a graphic user interface to display and retrieve the algorithmic data computation.

Dr. Purnendu Sinha, Technology leader-IoT & Analytics, Group Technology & Innovation Office, Tata Group, one of the collaborators on this project, strongly believes that such an initiative will enable the widespread acceptance of Industry 4.0 as a data-driven paradigm.

Mr. Mohit Kale, General Manager (Engineering Services), Tata Metaliks said “In the era of the fourth industrial revolution, it is undeniable that the industrial community is looking for better Proof-of-Concept to embrace IoT based applications, and this project builds such confidence”.

Tata Sons along with IIT Kharagpur hold the licensing rights for this algorithm.

“As India is determined to achieve the goal of Aatma Nirbhar Bharat, we must bridge the gap from lab to land by means of translational research. Academic research which can be directly tested by industries will not only improve the commercialization prospect but it will transform our centres of excellence as hotbeds of industrial innovations. This is the vision with which the Centre of Excellence for Advanced Manufacturing Technologies was set up by the Dept. of Heavy Industries, Govt. of India and a consortium of six industries and I am glad it is living upto the expectations,” opined Prof. Virendra K Tewari, Director, IIT Kharagpur.

Prof. Surjya K Pal who is heading the Centre called the development a great success of the industry-academia collaborative platform.

“This is another significant milestone in our goal to deliver Industrial IoT innovations to India’s manufacturing sector thus graduating it to Industry 4.0. The industrial collaborations make it possible to progress through the technology readiness levels and design systems which can be adopted by the industries,” he said.

About Center of Excellence in Advanced Manufacturing Technology, IIT Kharagpur

The Centre of Excellence in Advanced Manufacturing Technology was set up at IIT Kharagpur under the patronage of the Department of Heavy Industry of Ministry of Heavy Industries and Public Enterprises, Government of India and a consortium of six industry members. The Centre aims to stimulate innovation to manufacture smart machines in the capital goods sector. This centre offers a unique platform for innovative and top-quality research focused on the industries on Specialty materials, Design and automation, Additive manufacturing, and Digital Manufacturing and Industrial Internet of Things. The centre will boost innovative interventions and collaborative research in the advanced manufacturing domain by enabling an ecosystem among Institutes of higher repute, heavy industries, and also the MSMEs and start-ups.

Contact:

Project: Prof. Surjya K Pal, skpal@mech.iitkgp.ac.in;

Media: Shreyoshi Ghosh, shreyoshi@adm.iitkgp.ac.in

Media Coverage:

India Today

DataQuest

India Blooms

Stepping up Industry 4.0 Manufacturing

Novel Industry 4.0 Technology Jointly Developed by IIT Kharagpur and TCS to Set New Trends in India’s Advanced Manufacturing Sector

In an industrial collaboration with Tata Consultancy Services, IIT Kharagpur has developed novel Industry 4.0 technology for remotely controlled factory operations and real-time quality correction during industrial production.

At this time of pandemic when staffing has restrictions due to hygiene and social distancing norms, cloud infrastructure, remote and real-time operations systems hold the key to maintain effective industrial operations. But the benefits of controlled operations have a bigger impact especially in the context of Atma Nirbhar Bharat in delivering quality output at low costs. The present innovation upgraded the industrial process of friction stir welding to a multi-sensory system of Industry 4.0. It has not only set the course for remotely controlled operations in the Indian industrial sector but has enabled real-time quality check and correction during the production process. This will make it possible for industrial houses to achieve standardized quality goals throughout the production process and reduce rejection hence lowering the cost of production.

Emphasizing on the need for such technologies to achieve the ‘Make in India’ goal, Director Prof. Virendra K Tewari remarked, “While we are aiming to boost indigenous production and exports, our primary goal should be quality output with minimum disruptions. Be it, consumers, in India or abroad, these are two basic needs our industrial sector must address for procuring orders in large volumes. At IIT Kharagpur’s Centre of Excellence in Advanced Manufacturing Technology, we have set our target to bring to the forefront indigenously developed industry 4.0 technologies to support our industrial sector to achieve this goal.”

The innovative technology developed by Prof. Surjya K Pal, professor in-charge at the Centre of Excellence in Advanced Manufacturing Technology in association with TCS will acquire real-time information about the welding process through multiple sensors and enable online control of weld quality by means of cloud-based communication with the friction stir welding machine.

“Welding is at the heart of any industrial operations. If we can improve the weld quality in real-time during batch production we can reduce rejections in post-production sample checks,” opined Prof. Pal.

Explaining the new technology, he said, “Our multiple sensor process involves various signal processing and machine learning techniques to predict the ultimate tensile strength of the weld joint is fabricated. This technology is connected with a vast experimental knowledge base to conform to a standard system and prediction of the weld joint strength. Any defect identified during the monitoring procedure is corrected in real-time by sending modified parameters to the machine thus ensuring the standardized quality of the process.”

The concept of this technology can further be evolved for real-time control of other industrial processes and such work will be carried at the Centre with other industrial partners soon, Prof. Pal confirmed. The data from multiple sensors further improves the accuracy of the industrial production process, he affirmed. The technology has been jointly patented by IIT Kharagpur and TCS. The innovation has also been reported in the CIRP Journal of Manufacturing Science and Technology [https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cirpj.2020.03.004]. This project was funded by the Department of Heavy Industry, Govt. of India and TCS.

Industry partner TCS views such innovation as an enabler of technology-based transformations in the country, especially in overcoming challenges called out by the pandemic.

“The remote friction stir welding machine quality control via multi-sensor fusion developed by Centre of Excellence (CoE) in Advanced Manufacturing Technology at IIT Kharagpur is a case in point,” said K Ananth Krishnan, Executive Vice President and Chief Technology Officer.

“The Embedded Systems & Robotics, IoT and ICME platform teams from TCS Research and Innovation are working closely with IIT Kharagpur’s CoE towards AI-driven prediction/control of weld strength using a scalable and robust platform. Academic partnerships are an important part of TCS Research and TCS CoInnovation Network (TCS CoIN) in creating real-world solutions with scientific rigour,” he added.

The Centre of Excellence in Advanced Manufacturing Technology was set up through the support of the Department of Heavy Industry of the Ministry of Heavy Industries and Public Enterprises, Government of India, along with a consortium of top six industry members with the aim to stimulate the innovation in advanced manufacturing for boosting the capital goods sector. Tata Consultancy Services is a key industry partner at the Centre.

Talking about Centre of Excellence, Director, IIT Kharagpur, Prof. V K Tewari said, “This is the way forward, not only in the new normal situation due to the pandemic but with the increasing adoption of automation, digitization, IoT and Cyber-physical Systems applications in the industrial sector as part of Industry 4.0. Our Centre of Excellence in Advanced Manufacturing Technology with its industry collaborations has immense scope in facilitating this transition not only through innovations but also upskilling the workforce for using such technologies and innovative processes. You will witness the germination of a new industrial culture from centres such as ours towards Atmanirbhar Bharat.”

Cite Paper: Mishra D., Pal S.K., et al. Real time monitoring and control of friction stir welding process using multiple sensors, CIRP Journal of Manufacturing Science and Technology, Volume 30, August 2020, Pages 1-11, doi.org/10.1016/j.cirpj.2020.03.004

Project Contact: Prof. Surjya K Pal, E: skpal@mech.iitkgp.ac.in

Media Contact: Shreyoshi Ghosh, E: shreyoshi@adm.iitkgp.ac.in

Follow IIT Kharagpur on Social Media: Facebook: @IIT.Kgp; Twitter: @IITKgp; Instagram: @iit.kgp

Director’s talk on rejuvenating MSME post-COVID

From the desk of Director, IIT KGP:

The post-COVID industrial world would wake up to a new dawn towards the involvement of MSMEs in re-energizing the industrial sector. This sector has a huge contribution in our manufacturing industry. However, as the pandemic situation leads to a new normal, availability of capital would become a challenge for MSMEs thus creating bottlenecks for jumpstarting industrial production and employment of labourers. Social distancing would also restrict employment of existing workforce in full strength. Further the low capital situation would delay new product development or sustenance of production at current costs thus disrupting the dynamic demands of industries and consumers.

This crucial situation can be addressed by the state funded technical institutions like IITs, NITs, central universities and research labs which can play a key role towards rejuvenating MSMEs. We have the expertise to start exploring the market demands and product requirements, based on the economic condition of industries, especially MSMEs. We can help them bridge the gap by innovating product designs for affordable items with large scale use. These could be PPEs, medical kits, sanitation items etc. which would obviously find a ready market. Also the capital goods sector is evolving. We have seen automobile sector is branching out into medical equipment. Hence the opportunity is enormous.

Other areas wherein technical institutions can intervene are capacity building and upgradation of shop floor technologies keeping in view limited budgets. We can develop applications for MSMEs to help them connect with demand and supply points, provide information updates regarding finances available, government and banking notices, market situation, latest technologies, thus creating an economic model.

Also we have to ensure that R&D of centrally funded institutes is channelised to the MSMEs or manufacturing companies engaging with the sector. This would require the focus of R&D to be outcome based, encompassing all technological domains, achieving significant levels of import substitution, benefiting the public at large and strengthening our economy.

Further, the MSMEs can be trained on high-end technologies to conduct experiments and design new products. Such units can also deliver trained personnel who can launch startups or help the manufacturing sector to upgrade their product and process design and production.

At IIT Kharagpur, we have set up one such training unit – the Centre of Excellence in Advanced Manufacturing Technology, with support from the Department of Heavy Industry of Ministry of Heavy Industries and Public Enterprises, Government of India, along with a consortium of top six industry members in the country.

However, all of these have a steep timescale and the initiatives need to be launched with a sense of urgency to help sustain the MSMEs in the coming months.

And the 1st Prize goes to . . .

Times of India India Today Careers360 Jagran Josh

A two-member student team from IIT KGP has adjudged winner of the APICS Supply Chain Case Competition for South and Western Asia.

The American Production and Inventory Control Society known as APICS is the world’s leading professional body for end-to-end supply chain excellence. The Case Competition has two segments in Asia, the Singapore edition for East Asian and South East Asian countries and the Hyderabad edition for West Asian and South Asian countries.

The winning team comprising Rohan Sewani and Rohit Sar from IIT Kharagpur was given a case for a toy manufacturing company which has recently shifted to manufacturing electronic toys and had its market spread out globally.

The case defined the specifics of the production amounts and capacities of each process of the manufacturing unit and also the layout of the factory, inventory distribution, inventory cycles, warehouse costs, operational expenditures, transportation etc. It was mentioned that the client was not performing very well in terms of demand fulfilment for the last two years and was not willing to invest any extra amounts for covering up the same.

The proposed solution from the IIT KGP team involved Material Flow Optimization, Inventory Optimization, Overall Equipment Effectiveness, and Material Yield.

We had given both, analytical and qualitative solutions based on layout restructuring, Work in Progress inventory cycle revision and elimination of external warehouses, decreasing the manpower and increasing
Overall Equipment Effectiveness and yield. We showed major savings and recommended the use of the Internet of Things and Artificial Intelligence based Predictive & Preventive Maintainance based solutions to increase the Overall Equipment Effectiveness.

Rohan Sewani, team member from the Dept. of Industrial and Systems Engineering, IIT Kharagpur.

Finally, the case had to be presented as a business case to the board of directors’ and the complete solution was to be presented as a complete package of analytical solutions and savings, future recommendations and client psychology-based marketing.

The Regional Finals for West and South Asia had overall eight teams from India with management students from IIMs, IIT Delhi, IIT Bombay, NMIMS and Delhi University. The team from IIT Kharagpur was the only Indian team represented by undergraduate engineering students.

The case was on a manufacturing facility layout restructuring problem. For undergraduate engineering students to achieve this feat in the Asian Regional Finals of APICS is significant in domains of operations management.

Prof. Manoj Kumar Tiwari, Faculty, Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering and Dean, Planning and Coordination, IIT Kharagpur.