Centre of Excellence on advanced manufacturing technology launched at IIT Kgp

Kolkata, Nov 8 : The Union Heavy Industries and Public Enterprises Ministry's Department of Heavy Industries on Wednesday launched the Centre of Excellence on Advanced Manufacturing Technologies at IIT Kharagpur, with a PPP funding of Rs 65.19 crore.

The centre has received PPP funding of Rs. 65.19 crore, and is expected to be fully functional by the end of this financial year. Out of the Rs 65.19 crore, Rs 47.62 crore has been contributed by the department, which signed a MoU with IIT Kharagpur in the presence of the Union Minister of State for Heavy Industries and Public Enterprises Babul Supriyo on Wednesday.

Its key focus will be to make the Indian capital goods sector globally competitive and support the imminent need to increase the depth in manufacturing through innovation and technology up-gradation in four important areas - speciality materials, process automation, additive manufacturing, and digital interventions as envisaged in industry 4.0.

"The Centre will aim to bridge the divide between the requirements of the leading manufacturing firms of India and the ability of SMEs to meet those requirements in globally competitive terms," said P.P. Chakrabarti, Director, IIT Kharagpur.

It is being jointly supported by a consortium of leading industrial houses.

"It is unique for the leading industrial houses in India to come together to form a consortium and jointly support an academic Centre on Advanced Manufacturing Technologies. We chose the consortium model for industrial partnership because the need for infusion of next-gen technology in the manufacturing sector transcends domestic competition and needs concerted cooperation of all industrial houses in this sector. 

"The consortium will also enable self-sustainability of the Centre beyond the period of DHI support," said Pallab Dasgupta, Dean, Sponsored Research, IIT Kharagpur.

The consortium features industrial houses, including Tata Sons, Tata Motors, Tata Steel, TCS, Ramkrishna Forgings, Heavy Engineering Corporation, Bharat Heavy Electricals Limited and Ampere Vehicles.

The facility will have state of the art physical infrastructure for additive manufacturing like 3D printing, advanced joining facility e.g. robotic and micro friction stir welding, diagnostic and metrological inspection systems such as CT scan, Industrial IoT with lab facilities for sensors, backend analytics and research. 

All of these are targeted towards Industry 4.0, the next gen industrial evolution with intelligent machines, health monitoring and connected manufacturing through digital interventions, robotics and automation, according to Surjya K Pal of IIT Kharagpur, the technical lead of the Centre.