industrial solutions – 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

What’s Next for MSME

Adopting Industry 4.0 in MSMEs – The Way Forward in Post Pandemic World

On May 12, the Prime Minister of India, Shri Narendra Modi, in his COVID lockdown address asked the nation to be self-reliant. PM Modi was heard saying ‘be vocal for the local’ to emphasise the need for using indigenous products which would not only reduce our massive import bill but sustain our industrial sector especially Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs). He announced a ₹20 lakh crore economic package which included a major stimulus to the post pandemic industrial world. Soon after, the Ministry of Finance announced details of the economic package in which out of the 15 relief measures, six were aimed to rejuvenate the lockdown-hit India’s enormous MSME sector.

MSME has stayed far from being the focal point of Indian industries, except for the textile brands and cottage industry, but it is the backbone of Indian economy. Going by statistics MSME units across the country employ more than 100 million people in the country and contribute close to 30% of India’s GDP and 50% of export revenue. It is not very difficult to forecast that India’s goal of a multi-trillion dollar economy cannot be achieved without further strengthening this sector. But amid the current COVID lockdown, MSMEs have been the worst hit. Even with the end of lockdown, staggered attendance policy to ensure social distancing would restrict MSME to start production in full strength. Availability of capital is another challenge. While the economic package announced by the Finance Minister would be addressing the capital issue but a technical perspective needs to be explored to address production issues.

Sustaining MSMEs in Post Pandemic World

Prof. Surjya K Pal who is heading the Centre of Excellence in Advanced Manufacturing Technology at IIT Kharagpur points out at Industry 4.0 as a pertinent solution for MSMEs under the current situation and the way ahead.

“We can observe a clear change in demand and supply dynamics due to the pandemic situation. It has driven people towards panic buying of pharma and personal care products while demand for most other industrial products have witnessed a dramatic drop. This has been coupled with migration of the workforce to their respective home locations which would have a long-term effect. There are speculations regarding their return due to the uncertainty of their employment, travel and stay at the cities of work. Even when they return, deployment of the full workforce on the shop floor would not be a possibility because of social distancing as being suggested by experts,” he remarked.

To overcome the situation, new concepts befitting the post COVID world would be necessary. But despite the economic package, MSMEs would face constraints to avail skilled manpower, undertake R&D to develop new technologies to adopt new product lines and business models.

“This continued dependence on legacy machines would fall short in meeting the new market demands. They would need upgrades through Industry 4.0 solutions along with a skilled manpower,” opined Prof. Pal.

What is Industry 4.0?

Industry 4.0 is an umbrella of several digital tools such as cloud computing, big data, augmented reality, virtual reality, artificial intelligence, deep learning, robotics, additive manufacturing etc. These have high potential for use in different industrial sectors and various phases of manufacturing to make headway into the process of automation, reduce production time and accelerate the return to normal business operations. Further this process transformation would also create more resilient business operations.

Prof. Pal terms Industry 4.0 as the new mandate for the entire industrial world and not only MSMEs.

“With social distancing and limited workforce, automation is the obvious avenue to meet production targets. Industries need to come up with strategies for such advanced manufacturing and how to apply them across various product lines to avoid facing COVID-like challenges in future. Such strategies are a global reality and in India we need to move ahead of concept mode and adopt them in practicality. However, we need to also consider the economic viability of the strategies for our industries, particularly the MSME sector,” he added.

But who is going to help the MSMEs to take this giant leap especially under the current socio-economic situation?

The Ministry of Finance has announced a ₹50,000 crore as equity funding into MSME sector aimed towards capacity expansion and for the purpose of market-listing. However, while MSMEs can bid on this opportunity, there would still remain the need for upskilling the workforce and developing technical solutions. To achieve the goals of self-reliance and import substitution as set by the Prime Minister of India, strategic infrastructure and policy development is required for enhancing human capability and R&D.

Role of Technical Institutions:

In a recent interview, Prof. Virendra Tewari, Director, IIT Kharagpur emphasised on the role of technical institutions in rejuvenating MSMEs through capitalizing on the R&D infrastructure and expertise and provision of training. [Read Full Interview]

Explaining this further Prof. Pal said, “academic institutes like IITs have to provide specific low-cost solutions for automation to the MSME sector to sustain their business as we pass through various phases of COVID pandemic. This could be retrofitting existing machineries to meet requirements of upgraded production and precision of process, quality of products and potential of the manufacturing setup to be used for dynamic production facilities. In addition, training of the workforce would help MSMEs adapt to digital tools of Industry 4.0.”

He further pointed out the spillover effect of such upgradation towards reduction in cost of production and making products more affordable for end users, impact demand supply dynamics and also creating avenues for new product development.

Centre of Excellence for Advanced Manufacturing Technologies – taking the lead

IIT Kharagpur took a lead in achieving the aforesaid goals by setting up the Centre of Excellence for Advanced Manufacturing Technologies supported by Dept. of Heavy Industries, Ministry of Heavy Industries and Public Enterprises, Govt. of India and an industrial consortium comprising six large scale capital goods manufacturers and a startup. The Centre has been designed to provide technological solutions, R&D facility in digital tools, new materials, additive manufacturing, automation, training of human resources engaged in production. The interdisciplinary Centre has been conducting training programmes on Computer Numerical Control and has also developed a training module for industrial robotics and other short-term courses and training programmes.

Talking about the activities at the Centre, Prof. Pal said, “The reliance on robotic industrial solutions in the post pandemic world will only increase. So will increase the need for new products and processes. For example, there would be the need for real-time and cost-effective assessment of product quality. We have developed an affordable solution to carry out this function by amalgamating basic products with deep learning and creating industry 4.0 solutions. We will also work towards ensuring accuracy of such products and processes.”

Automation induced directional change in employment

Reassuring the smooth continuation of industrial manufacturing through automation, Prof. Pal also dispelled the speculations of a distressed employment situation. MSMEs employ more than 75% of the workforce in the manufacturing sector. While automation would lead to downsizing the manpower requirement, through upskilling and re-skilling the workforce can be deployed in the new industrial environment.

His optimism echoed in his statement, “automation would lead to human resource requirements for maintenance of machineries with knowledge of digital functions of the machines. Further ancillary industries would evolve which would need skilled workforce.”

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 . . .

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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.

Smart Solutions for Smarter India

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Students from IIT Kharagpur have devised unique solutions for smarter & safer industrial operations ranging from detecting counterfeit currency through a mobile app, to nuclear radiation tracking through wearable sensors, to VR based human resources training at a thermal power plant.

Fake Currency Indian Notes (FCIN) have plagued the country for decades leading to not only economic losses for the country but also as the source of funds of various illegal activities even leading to breach of national security. The country has witnessed a mega initiative like demonetization in 2016. The government has also been promoting digital financial transaction which would minimize the circulation of FCIN. The banks and retail traders who manage institutional high-volume cash transactions have adopted various measures to detect FCIN. But how would an end consumer detect such a currency note? Though there are set guidelines by the Reserve Bank of India, an untrained eye can easily falter.

A group of six students from the Dept. of Computer Science and Engineering IIT Kharagpur have developed the code for a smartphone application to address this issue. T.Y.S.S.Santosh, Satish Kumar Reddy, Vipul Tomar, Sai Krishna, Drishti Tulsi and D V Sai Surya have developed an image processing application which can detect counterfeit currency. The application which can be installed on smartphones can be used by people at various touch points thus reducing the chances of fraud. Explaining the mechanism, T.Y.S.S.Santosh, the group leader said,

a user can upload a currency note image and the mobile app would verify its authenticity using 25 features extracted from the front and rear side of the currency note. In case of detection of a fake note, the user will also be notified of the failure checkpoints.

In another innovative project, the Department of Atomic Energy gave the challenge of resolving the occupational hazard of people working in the domain of nuclear-powered device. The students were asked to develop a solution for visualising and localising a 3D radiation source along with its size, shape and orientation, given the data on spatial dosage. The 6-member student team from IIT Kharagpur, comprising of Lakshay Bansal, Ch V Sai Praveen, Aditi Kambli, Rajshekhar Singhania, Ayush Mohanty, Kaustubh Agrawal, proposed a solution based on Boltzmann Transport Equations dealing with the flow of heat in fluids from hotter regions to colder ones. The students solved the reverse Boltzmann Transport Equations using the dataset for a given area to estimate the source location.

This solution is well suited to occupational workers carrying wearable sensors detecting radiation dose data. The sensors can pinpoint the location of radiation leaks in nuclear plants and refineries. The solution can also find application in medical radiation therapy or radiotherapy as part of cancer treatment to control or kill malignant cancer cells

– Lakshay Bansal, the team leader.

Another team from the Institute has developed a virtual reality-based application for the training and skill development of the workers through interactive drill based training. The solution is an interactive virtual reality environment of a thermal powerplant with simulations and guides to help operations, maintenance and performance of complex procedures in an efficient and error-free manner.

Our solution offers an economical, intuitive and gamified version of worker training through level wise learning approach. It provides a full set of interactive drills to perform along with quality assessment metrics that could be used by the supervisors to assign different jobs to workers.

– said Rohit Jain who led the team comprising Suresh Gandhi, Sumeet Aher, Ishan Bangia, Sunil Patidar, Ayushi Shakya from IIT Kharagpur.

The students proposed these solutions in the recently concluded Smart India Hackathon 2019 winning some of the top prizes in the nationwide competition held by the Ministry of Human Resources Development, Govt. of India

IIT Kharagpur also hosted the software edition of the Grand Finale of SIH 2019. The prize winners developed codes targeted on smart education solutions. Team CodeLagom developed a wearable Android IoT device for facilitating the education of differently-abled people with vision and hearing impairment. Books in PDF can be uploaded on the web platform of the device which can thereafter be streamed on the wearable device in voice and visual modes. Team LeetCoders wrote the code for a LAN-enabled smart board for classrooms which can detect handwriting in both Hindi and English languages and broadcast the content to connected boards in other classrooms. It can also solve arithmetic equations and saves notes in PDF. The third team, The Creeping Spiders, developed a smart attendance system through facial recognition by means of random image clicks in a classroom or office environment.

Green Horns to offer Industrial Solutions at SIH2019

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IIT Kharagpur is hosting the Grand Finale of the Smart India Hackathon 2019, Software Edition on March 2-3, 2019. This year 186 students from various colleges including 6 from IIT Kharagpur will be participating in the event. Another 36 students from the Institute will be participating at other editions of SIH2019 hosted by ISRO, Adani group etc.

Shri Prakash Javadekar, Hon’ble Minister of Human Resources Development will announce the start of the Smart India Hackathon 2019 on March 2. A live interaction session with the Hon’ble Prime Minister of India, Shri Narendra Modi has been scheduled later in the day.

SIH is an initiative of the Ministry of Human Resources Development to provide students with a platform to solve some of pressing problems we face in our daily lives, and thus inculcate a culture of product innovation and a mindset of problem-solving. The last edition of the hackathon saw over 5 million+ students from various engineering colleges compete for the top prize at 35+ locations.

SIH 2019 includes themes such as Smart Communication, Smart Vehicles, Agriculture & Rural Development, Food Technology, Healthcare & Biomedical Devices, Clean Water, Waste Management, Renewable Energy, Robotics and Drones, Security & Surveillance, technology ideas in tertiary sectors like Hospitality, Financial Services, Entertainment, Tourism and Retail.

While the students will compete for a marathon coding event to develop unique solutions in the thematic areas, they will be mentored by professionals from the Ministry.

The participating students would have the opportunity to work on challenges faced within the private sector organisations and create world-class solutions for some of the top companies in the world, thus helping the industries hire the best minds from across the nation.

Student participants can further apply for research internship opportunities at IIT Kharagpur confirmed the program coordinator.

“Smart India Hackathon with its massive scale, reach, mentorship and follow up are building a new culture of innovation in our higher education system which will have far-reaching effects on the future generations. IIT Kharagpur is extremely happy and privileged to be involved in this new paradigm of at all levels from Coordinating the programme in the last two years and hosting the Grand Finale events,” said Prof. P P Chakrabarti, Director, IIT Kharagpur and Chairman of the event.

Incubation facility could be offered to form startups based on the technological and economic feasibility and market acceptance.