MSME – The KGP Chronicle

IIT Kharagpur developed ‘Matri Seva’ Software for Ramakrishna Mission Home of Services

IIT Kharagpur has developed ‘Matri Seva’ – a database software, free of cost that works on patient’s particulars and database for Vivek Sanjivani, an initiative for Healthcare and Education of Ramakrishna Mission Home of Service, Luxa, Varanasi. The software has been hosted in the Microsoft Cloud-based server to provide easy access to all the centres. It is used for primary healthcare, mental healthcare, follow-up visits, management of chronic-disease conditions, medications management, health education and other clinical services.

Vivek Sanjivani Telemedicine Service is a real-time telemedicine solution which offers a virtual alternative to the in-person doctor’s visit. It expands access to quality patient care, especially to regions with underserved populations. It provides a way to cut down on healthcare spending and keep connected patients throughout the year. iMediX, the telemedicine system that was launched by the Computer and Science Department of IIT Kharagpur on 02 October, 2020 provided emergency healthcare services for the IIT KGP students, campus residents and employees which was further expanded to MSMEs for commercialization. Its open-source version is named iMediXcare. The telemedicine system iMedix offers special telemedicine services through Vivek Sanjivani includes psychiatrist, ENT, Medicine, Oncologist and Community Medicine at the door step of the rural people.

Speaking on Matri Seva, Prof. Jayanta Mukhopadhyay, the Lead Researcher of the open source telemedicine software iMediXcare, IIT Kharagpur remarked, “Matri Seva is an extension of services of the existing Telemedicine system iMedixcare dedicated to the service of the community that Vivek Sanjivani initiated for the underprivileged. We are still living in the pandemic which showed us where we stand as a nation when it comes to a proper Healthcare System. iMedix has served the IIT Kharagpur community providing emergency consultancy services through remote consultation by physicians. I am hopeful that this technology will be further incorporated and adopted in other community health services as well.”

Vivek Sanjivani, an initiative for Healthcare and Education of Ramakrishna Mission Home of Service, Luxa, Varanasi offers Telemedicine services through Twelve Centres in which six Stationary Telemedicine Units (STUs) are fixed at a place and six Mobile Telemedicine Units (MTUs) are roaming. It provides Mother-Child, Primary Healthcare, Adolescence Healthcare, Community Mental Healthcare, Eye Check-up, General Movement Assessment in neonates and infants and distribution of Nutritional Food Supplements in three districts including one aspirational district of Eastern Uttar Pradesh and one aspirational district of Uttarakhand. During 2022-23, Vivek Sanjivani served 27,875 patients through Stationary Telemedicine Units and Mobile Telemedicine Units and conducted Non-Communicable Disease Screening for 18,878 patients. The telemedicine programs of Vivek Sanjivani are backed with a 195 bedded referral hospital of the Ashrama in Varanasi.

According to Swami Divyasukhananda, Coordinator, Vivek Sanjivani, this Telemedicine Service directly provides improved access, cost efficiency and quality healthcare services to patients from marginalised group within the reach of their homes in three Districts of Eastern Uttar Pradesh including one Aspirational District and One Aspirational district of Uttarakhand. Mobile Telemedicine Units of Vivek Sanjivani offer flexible and viable options to offer healthcare facilities to the vulnerable groups in the rural areas of Uttar Pradesh.

Media Coverage :

Times of India	UNI	Deccan Herald	Indian Express
India Blooms	Amader Bharat	Colfield Mirror

Times of India Colfield Mirror

By : Poulami Mondal, Digital & Creative Media Executive (Creative Writer)
Email: poulami.mondal@iitkgp.ac.in, media@iitkgp.ac.in, Ph. No.: +91-3222-282007

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IIT Kharagpur handed over Industry 4.0 solution to GRSE

The Centre of Excellence in Advanced Manufacturing Technology (CoEAMT) of IIT Kharagpur has handed over its Industry 4.0 solution to Garden Reach Shipbuilders and Engineers Limited (GRSE), under Ministry of Defence. The Centre has developed a software for GRSE, named iWeld wherein AI will detect the defective portion from weld radiography images and classify the type of defect. Tested over large number of samples at GRSE, it gives a very high accuracy of 93.18%. The software has been developed by Mr. Avishek Mukherjee, Doctoral Scholar of IIT Kharagpur under the supervision of Prof. Surjya K Pal, Chairperson of the CoEAMT and Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering of IIT Kharagpur.

iWeld is likely to replace the need of skilled weld supervisors in near future to evaluate the X-ray films. Additionally, CoEAMT has also taken up another project for Research & Development Centre for Iron & Steel (RDCIS) Ranchi, Steel Authority of India Limited (SAIL) to do the vibration data analytics of exhauster fan in steel industries. The Centre of Excellence in Advanced Manufacturing Technology has also bagged Rs 30.18 Cr project fund in phase-2, from the Ministry of Heavy Industries (MHI) and Public Enterprises, Government of India to develop various solutions on futuristic manufacturing domains such as cobots in manufacturing, Augmented and Virtual Reality in training and process quality monitoring, affordable healthcare equipment manufacturing, Industry 4.0 solutions for composite wind turbine blade manufacturing etc. with the help of various industries such as Tata Steel, Tata Motors, Tata Metaliks, TCS, Tata Medical and Diagnostics, and LM Windpower.

On the lines of Industry-Academia Collaboration, Prof. Surjya K Pal remarked, “I am sure with such affiliations from Industry and Government funded projects, and regular short term courses on modern manufacturing concepts, and hands-on training programmes throughout the year, the prominence of the Centre will steer ahead. Understanding the country’s need of reskilling and upskilling the manpower on modern manufacturing concepts, CoEAMT provides hands-on training on CNC to working professionals, technical staffs and students. The CNC training that took place from 5^th December to 9^th December 2022 for the sixth time, had total filled-in participation comprising of working professionals from MSMEs and technical staff members from academic institutes like IIT Kanpur, IIT Goa, students from IIT KGP and many more.”

The Centre of Excellence in Advanced Manufacturing Technology has been established at IIT Kharagpur through the support from the Ministry of Heavy Industries and Public Enterprises, Government of India, along with a consortium of top six industry members in the country in 2018. The centre aims to stimulate the innovation in low-cost manufacturing solutions for various industries while working in a synergistic way towards the common goals of infusing cutting edge technologies, and to come up with research and development for sustainable products.

Media Coverage :

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By : Poulami Mondal, Digital & Creative Media Executive (Creative Writer)
Email: poulami.mondal@iitkgp.ac.in, media@iitkgp.ac.in, Ph. No.: +91-3222-282007

Follow us on: Facebook – IIT Kharagpur; Twitter – @IITKgp; Instagram – @iit.kgp; LinkedIn – Indian Institute of Technology
For news visit: https://kgpchronicle.iitkgp.ac.in/

Low-cost Solution for Advanced Manufacturing

IIT Kharagpur researchers develop a low-cost AI-based Industry 4.0 solution for real-time metrological inspection

In an initiative undertaken by the Centre of Excellence in Advanced Manufacturing Technology at IIT Kharagpur, researchers are on a mission to make AI & ML applications affordable for India’s industrial sector including MSMEs. They have developed an innovative system consisting of a low-cost imaging device and an AI-enabled software for real-time metrological inspection. The developed system can be utilized in the production line to check the quality of the jobs and get instant results.

Explaining the benefit that MSMEs will draw from such an innovation, Prof. Surjya K Pal said, “The MSMEs mostly rely on manual inspection of the jobs produced in a batch where a few samples are randomly selected and checked manually. Accordingly, the entire batch is either rejected or accepted, which lacks effectiveness and increases the cost of production. The potential of the developed solution can be leveraged to inspection of each job in a batch, in real-time, and at a very minimum cost.”

This AI-enabled software will enhance the image quality captured by the low-cost camera at par with a high-quality camera output and process the image in real-time. Further, it automates the acceptance or rejection of production jobs and delivers the outcome for real-time managerial insights.

With an accuracy close to 98%, the solution can measure the dimensional features of the job, and also it can inspect the presence of scratches, dents, etc., in a job. It takes only approximately 12 seconds for the analyses to be complete. The accuracy check and timeliness of the solution have been guaranteed by testing it on different types of jobs. Researchers are working further to reduce the time.

The research group included Prof. Surjya K Pal, Prof. Debashish Chakravarty, research scholar Debasish Mishra, technical staff Pravanjan Nayak, and intern Ayan Banerjee from Jalpaiguri Government Engineering College, who has filed a patent for the system and made it available for MSMEs to license the technology.

“Automation is one of the key aspects of digitalization and is also the need of the hour. The vision of manufacturers revolves around three things that are how fast can manufacturing be performed, how better, and how cheaper? The first highlights a higher rate of production, the second implies the use of innovation in manufacturing and the third aims at reducing the cost,” remarked Prof. Pal, the lead of Centre of Excellence in Advanced Manufacturing Technology.

While India has been making fast inroads in the domain of Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning, it is the capital intensive and service industries which are able to put the applications to their vantage. The MSME sector, which employs more than 100 million people in the country contributing close to 30% of India’s GDP and 50% of export revenue, is still outside the ambit of industry-scale adoption of AI & ML.

“This is the gap which IIT Kharagpur aims to bridge while making low-cost Industry 4.0 solutions across all industrial sectors and accelerate the pace towards Atma Nirbhar Bharat,” he added.

Media Coverage:

Economic Times	Hindustan Times	Business Standard
ABP Education	DataQuest	Analytics India Magazine
NDTV	The Week	Outlook
CNBC TV18	Danik Jagran

Contact:

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

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

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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.

Mentoring Startup for Industry 4.0

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The Center of Excellence in Advanced Manufacturing Technology at IIT Kharagpur is roping in MSMEs for collaborative R&D projects and consultancy to develop resources for Industry 4.0. In a recent initiative, the Centre, which is funded by the Department of Heavy Industry of Ministry of Heavy Industries and Public Enterprises, Government of India, has signed an MoU with a Kolkata-based startup Hemraj Infocom to promote industrial consultancy and industrial research internship for students.

Hemraj Infocom will be the first affiliate member in the industry consortium of the Centre which is currently led by top industries as Tata Motor, Tata Consultancy Services, Tata Steel, Tata Sons, BHEL, and HEC.

Prof. Surjya K Pal who is heading Centre said, “We are looking forward to more such startups joining the consortium whom we will offer mentorship in the area of Industry 4.0 applications. With Hemraj we will be mentoring them in the manufacturing applications in which our Centre has got a strong foothold. They will also have access to the facilities at our Centre both to the experts and infrastructure. We will also provide them with free training on cutting-edge industrial applications, research solutions for their typical industrial challenges such as cloud computing, real-time data processing, analysis and storage, networking and automation, real-time process monitoring.”

Students from various backgrounds including electronics and electrical communication, or mechanical or electrical engineering etc. would be able to work on problem statements shared by the startup.

Hemraj Infocom is working in combined areas of IoT, AIML, Robotics, Automation and which will prove to be revolutionary with a new industrial boom in India in the near future.

Soham Dasgupta, CEO of Hemraj Infocom confirmed the submission of projects for mentorship in voice-enabled survey devices, predictive maintenance for motors. He is hopeful such research internships will further boost MSME culture in the region. “We are also looking for upgrading the research skills of our human resources,” said Dasgupta.

Abhishek Saha, Head, Business Development of Hemraj Infocom said, “we are enthusiastic about seeking guidance on mission-critical projects from an academic institution of repute like IIT Kharagpur which will enable us to deliver proof of concept and projects thereby by implementing niche areas of R&D in our business operations.”

The Centre has been conducting several industry-aligned workshops, short-term courses, talks by industry experts for MSMEs and capital goods sector in areas such as computer numerical controls, composite manufacturing, metallography. The programmes are also open to students from other educational institutions. For affiliate members, such training workshops will be conducted free of cost and also a huge pool of student researchers in diverse areas of Industry 4.0 would be made available to work on problem statements.

Prof. Pal has been approaching FOSME, CII, EEPC to reach out to startups and MSMEs and connect them to the Centre’s consortium.

“It will diversify the Centre’s research goals through a different set of application-oriented industrial challenges with more tight timeline and product delivery schedule as against giant corporations which focus on broader R&D,” he remarked. More such MSMEs are in touch with the Centre for affiliated memberships, he confirmed.

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.

IIT KGP to Drive MSME Innovations

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IIT Kharagpur is all set to build Eastern India’s first Industrial Research and Innovation Unit for MSMEs and Start-ups. The Groundbreaking Ceremony of the Industrial Research and Innovation Unit of the DHI Centre of Excellence in Advanced Manufacturing Technology at IIT Kharagpur was held in the august presence of Shri Babul Supriyo, Hon’ble Minister of State for Heavy Industries and Public Enterprises on February 3, 2019.

Setting up a state-of-the-art centre for manufacturing in Eastern India was a vision of Shri Babul Supriyo which will enable our top industries to compete with the best, rejuvenate the industries which are shutting down, motivate IITians to lead hi-tech manufacturing. The Centre, which was launched in November 2017 aims to stimulate the innovation to manufacture smart machines in the capital goods sector for sustainable products having higher productivity with reduced cost.

“The challenge is to deliver quality products with high-end technologies at an affordable and competitive price. To ensure that the MSMEs and the industrial partners can do that, R&D needs to be done in a state-of-the-art way,” he remarked.

The 40000 sq.ft Industrial Research and Innovation Unit will house high-end industrial equipment such as Industry 4.0 enabled robotic welding facility, Industry scale CT scan machine, Hybrid additive manufacturing facility for industrial jobs, Robotic 3D laser scanner for structural vibration testing and many more. It will support activities such as Design, fabrication and automation of manufacturing, Digital manufacturing and Industrial IoT, Specialty materials, and Additive manufacturing.

“We have brought in people from various domains such as materials, processes, designers, AI and data sciences and also formed a consortium including industries, DHI and our board of governors to ensure sustainability of this initiative. IIT Kharagpur has decided to set up a state-of-the-art industrial manufacturing shed which will house advanced machinery for further technological development and also sample industry 4.0 factory which will become a training and production point for all manufacturers in the country. One of our goals is to invent Make in India products for India and abroad for which we will have to unleash innovations through this Innovation Centre,” said Prof. P P Chakrabarti, Director, IIT Kharagpur.

Further to these, an Innovation Lab has been built to promote the culture of innovation and open engineering facilitating MSMEs and Start-ups to avail end-to-end support from the experts including access to various state-of-the-art facilities for early prototyping of their product. Prof. Surjya K Pal, Professor-in-Charge of DHI Centre of Excellence in Advanced Manufacturing Technology emphasized the activity of training the MSMEs to enable capacity building and technology infusion and catalyze start-ups towards innovation-based modern manufacturing. “The industry partners will table their niche problems which would be addressed through bringing innovation in manufacturing,” he said.

While it is seed funded by the Department of Heavy Industry of Ministry of Heavy Industries and Public Enterprises, Government of India, a consortium of top industry members in the country have partnered in various activities at the Centre including Tata Sons, Tata Steel, Tata Motors, TCS, HEC Ranchi, and BHEL. Few more industrial houses have expressed interest in joining the consortium, confirmed Prof. Chakrabarti.

“Setting up of DHI Centre of Excellence in Advanced Manufacturing Technology with the state-of-the-art facilities is a great step in advancing the research and technology development in manufacturing when the whole world is focusing on Industry 4.0. The centre has been set up at the most appropriate time and I believe that the expertise that is available at IIT Kharagpur will certainly lead to a new direction with a clear paradigm shift,” said Deputy Director of IIT Kharagpur, Prof. S K Bhattacharyya.

The Centre currently involves faculty experts from the departments of Mechanical Engineering, Industrial and Systems Engineering, Electronics and Electrical Communication Engineering, Computer Science and Engineering and Metallurgy and Materials Engineering. Expertise will also be sought from various other specialized units at IIT Kharagpur at a later stage to facilitate the start-ups and MSMEs confirmed Prof. Pal.

The total cost of the project is Rs. 65.19 crore. The Ministry has granted initial funding of Rs. 47.62 crore. Additional funding of Rs. 17.57 crore is being raised from the industrial partners through projects. IIT Kharagpur has already provided land, technological and infrastructural support to the extent of Rs. 25 crore.

The Centre will also launch short-term courses on Advanced welding methods, Additive manufacturing, and Industry 4.0. The Centre is providing high-value fellowship to the doctoral scholars working on those topics.

Photo Credit: Arnab Moitra

Health-Tech MSME Hub @IITKgp

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In a new development aligned with the upcoming 400-bed superspecialty hospital at IIT Kharagpur, the Institute is going to set up a Common Research & Technology Development Hub (CRTDH) on Technologies for Affordable Healthcare.

The initiative which is being supported by the Dept. of Scientific and Industrial Research (DSIR), Government of India, will address the issues of accessibility and affordability challenging the modern healthcare system through technological innovations. Another key area of focus of the Hub will be supporting growth & development of precision manufacturing of innovative technologies through MSMEs so that India can reduce its massive burden of imported healthcare technologies and spread technology available in the last mile.

“Access to quality primary healthcare remains a major challenge in rural parts in India with over 80% of healthcare technology being imported and escalating the cost of delivering healthcare services. Also, the concentration of leading healthcare units being in urban areas lead to accessibility issue,” remarked Dr. Satadal Saha, Visiting Professor at the School of Medical Science and Technology at IIT Kharagpur.

“With more than 45% of rural jobs are created within MSME sector In India and the presence of 5.0 million MSMEs in West Bengal alone, this hub at IIT Kharagpur will unleash the potential of MSMEs in West Bengal and beyond in productizing and commercializing indigenously developed healthcare technologies – solving a major problem for the common people, fostering manufacturing growth, strengthening the MSMEs, creating rural jobs, introducing advanced technologies,” he added.

Various departments of IIT Kharagpur are working on multiple healthcare technologies which can be licensed to the MSMEs. Also, the MSME may also approach the Institute with their own ideas. On completion of successful laboratory tests, scientific validation studies and prototype creation, projects will be undertaken at CRTDH for further product-level development and ethnography. MSMEs will be selected and productization will be assigned to them. The MSMEs will be incubated and trained in the particular technologies till the stage of successful commercialization.

Over the years, IIT Kharagpur has developed niche healthcare technologies and medical devices, out of sustained endeavours in deep scientific and technological research. This Project is eventually aimed towards disseminating the outcome of such high-level research to eventually the population that needs the urgent intervention of quality healthcare services at affordable costs. This requires a sustainable model of transferring our technologies to commercialized products.

“We will endeavour to build capacity within the MSME to enable it to manufacture high-quality products that can compete in the global market and has the potential to scale. We expect to build an ecosystem which will enable the MSMEs to establish the infrastructure and start manufacturing once the product/solution is validated, market size understood and all regulatory barriers are overcome,” said Prof. Suman Chakraborty, Head of School of Medical Science and Technology as well as Associate Dean, Sponsored Research and Industrial Consultancy, IIT Kharagpur, and the Principal Investigator of this ambitious Project.