industrial training – The KGP Chronicle

MoU with NCDC to Promote Developments in Cooperatives, Agriculture and Allied Sectors

Highlights:

This MoU will promote greater collaboration towards sustainable development in cooperatives, agriculture and allied sectors

It will involve advancement of training, action research, studies, policy analysis, policy advice, consultancy, monitoring, evaluation, system development and technology development.

It will provide support towards Formation and Promotion of Farmer Producer Organisation

It shall have opportunities for trainee/student exchange program including providing internships

IIT Kharagpur and the National Cooperative Development Corporation (NCDC) have signed an MoU towards greater collaboration in issues and areas related to the development of cooperatives, agriculture and allied sectors and to the holistic approach towards sustainable development.

The scope of the MoU will involve the advancement of training, action research, studies, policy analysis, policy advice, consultancy, monitoring, evaluation, system development and technology development. Both organizations will collaborate and supplement the utilization of resources and facilities on matters pertaining to ‘Formation and Promotion of Farmer Producer Organisation‘, with a focus on sustainable business, capacity building, training and skill development of stakeholders.

Furthermore, skilling of youth through trainee/student exchange program including providing internship opportunities to students or alumni will be pursued under the SAHAKAR MITRA -NCDC Scheme on Internship Program (SIP).

A Joint Working Group will also be set up to monitor various activities under the MoU and suggest necessary measures for its development.

“IIT Kharagpur has been working in various skill development and sustainable development projects through various programs and outreach initiatives at the Dept. of Agricultural and Food Engineering and Center for Rural Development and Innovative Sustainable Technology. Strengthening the rural workforce and building sustainable solutions for them, would require more exposure of the students and researchers as well as the target groups and end-users. We believe this collaboration with NCDC will augment a holistic growth towards Atmanirbhar Bharat,” said Director Prof. V K Tewari.

Earlier in March this year, Mr. Sundeep Kumar Nayak, IAS – Managing Director of the NCDC, visited the Agricultural and Food Engineering (AgFE) Department and interacted with the faculty members. It was decided to take the discussion to next level of formal engagement between the Department and the NCDC. The Managing Director and Prof. R. Banerjee (Head of AgFE Department) agreed to join forces so that the relevant innovations could potentially be appropriated and eventually disseminated to empower rural India through cooperatives and FPOs.

Agricultural and Food Engineering Department of IIT Kharagpur, is the only department of its kind in the country’s IIT System. Since its inception in 1952, the AgFE Department has been serving the nation through high-standard research and development, teaching, and outreach. The Department is adequately experienced in the creation and dissemination of appropriate rural technologies through its recent flagship initiatives. Rural Technology Action Group, Design and Innovation Centre (DIC), NABARD-Agri Business Incubation Centre, and Rashtriya Krishi Vikas Yojana-Agri Business Incubator are such existing platforms at the AgFE that have successfully translated research ideas into meaningful prototypes that address agricultural and rural issues. For more information visit http://www.iitkgp.ac.in/department/AG.

Media Contact: Professor R. Banerjee, Head, Agricultural and Food Engineering Department, rb@agfe.iitkgp.ernet.in

For more queries write to media@iitkgp.ac.in

About IIT Kharagpur: Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur is a higher educational institute known globally for its graduate output and affordable technology innovations. Set up in 1951 in a detention camp as an Institute of National Importance, the Institute is ranked among the top five in India and has been awarded Institute of Eminence by the Govt. of India in 2019. The key areas of research of IIT Kharagpur are Affordable Healthcare Technologies, Advanced Manufacturing, Advanced Transportation, Precision Agriculture and Food Technology, Cyberphysical Systems, Ecology & Environment, Mining, Water Resources and Architecture. The Institute is engaged in several international and national mission projects and ranks significantly in research output including 50-100 IPR filed annually and about 2000 research publications in top journals and conferences. At present, the Institute has about 750 full-time equivalent faculty members, more than 14000 students and over 70000 Alumni. For more information visit: www.iitkgp.ac.in

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.

Advancing Industrial Workforce

IIT Kharagpur’s Advanced Manufacturing Technology Centre Creating Nexgen Workforce for India’s Manufacturing Industry

The Centre of Excellence in Advanced Manufacturing Technology at IIT Kharagpur organized a five-day training programme on Computer Numerical Control (CNC) for industry professionals and technicians. The Centre, which was set up with support from the Department of Heavy Industry (Ministry of HI&PE), Govt. of India and a consortium of six industrial houses and a startup, has a mandate of creating awareness regarding advanced technologies, reskilling and upskilling of the Indian MSMEs and youth. CNC, being the core of any manufacturing equipment, is an essential pack of knowledge, one must have.

The training program targeted a diverse group of participants including students undergoing diploma courses and from ITI colleges, laboratory technicians, graduate degree students, teachers, and industry personnel. The training programme equipped the participants with knowledge of programming and detailed machine operations essential for CNC jobs in the manufacturing industry.

A unique trend was the presence of female participants which is indicative of opportunities of women’s employment on the machining shop floor as programmers and operators.

“In today’s era of Industry 4.0, the manufacturing platform is being transformed and integrated with digitization. But if you look at the connection between our capital goods sector and the MSMEs this transition is not without disruptions. Our Centre of Excellence will help the industries including MSMEs to upskill their work-force through training on the automation concepts like CNC, Robotics, etc.” remarked Prof. Surjya K Pal, Professor in-Charge of the Centre.

The teachers and students participating in the training programme expressed practicality of such training on a shopfloor-like platform with industry scale CNC machines. Witnessing the overwhelming response, the Centre is now geared up to offer a similar training programme in the next 2-3 months.

Various large, medium and small enterprises have shown interest to join the consortium of this CoE. Four Tata companies are associated with this consortium where our faculty colleagues are closely working with them on Industry 4.0, automation and Additive Manufacturing areas. The Centre has created an Innovation Lab where anybody can access the state of the art facility by paying nominal charges.

“We are also planning to float training opportunities on Machine Centre by using the state-of-the-art 5-axis Machining Centre, Industrial Robotics, and Robotic Welding by using the upcoming state-of-the-art robotic welding facility at this Centre of Excellence,” Pal added.

This Centre of Excellence in Advanced Manufacturing Technology also offers a unique platform for collaborative research in manufacturing keeping harmony with the ‘Make-in-India’ initiative of the Govt. of India. The Centre initiates innovative and top-quality research focused towards the industries on Specialty materials, Design and automation, Additive manufacturing, and Industry 4.0 (Industrial Internet of Things). The Centre boosts innovative interventions in the advanced manufacturing domain by enabling an ecosystem among Institutes of higher repute, top industries, and also the MSMEs & start-ups. The Centre also energizes the MSMEs through training, short-term courses on the adoption of modern concepts in manufacturing.