DHI unveils 8 centres of excellence for development of manufacturing technology

The Department of Heavy Industry (DHI) has inaugurated 8 centres of excellence at various academic institutes to promote technology innovations and advanced manufacturing processes.

Secretary, Department of Heavy Industry (DHI), Dr A.R. Sihag inaugurated three Technology Development Projects at IIScBangalore and Central Manufacturing Technology Institute (CMTI) Bengaluru recently. He also inaugurated two Technology Development Projects at PSG College of Technology and Scientific and Industrial Testing and Research Centre (SiTARC), Coimbatore respectively.

IISc Bangalore has developed a technology for metal additive printing machine with DHI support. This is niche technology and the development is being done for the first time in India.

An Industry 4.0 ‘Samarth Udyog’ Centre is also coming up at IISc Bangalore in order to support Indian manufacturing to adopt and assimilate Industry 4.0 technology such as Data Analytics, 3 D Printing, Artificial Intelligence, Virtual Reality, robotics machine to Machine Communication, Smarting of the Legacy machine.

A sensor technology manufacturing/fabrication facility is also coming up at CMTI, Bengaluru with the help of the DHI. Sensor Technology will help in making products and machines smart through the deployment of function-specific sensor specially designed for data extraction. Another facility for Nanotechnology is also coming up in CMTI that will provide a better alternative route for precision manufacturing in strategic sectors.

PSG College Coimbatore along with Industry partners developed Welding Robots, special alloy electrodes, power supply with the support of DHI. Indigenous technology has been developed at SiTARC by a triad of Academia, Industry and Government for development of Smart Submersible Pumping Solutions for Industrial and Water Supply Applications.

Department of Heavy Industry in the Ministry of Heavy Industries and Public Enterprises had launched a pilot scheme in November 2014 for enhancement of competitiveness in the Indian capital goods sector. The scheme is focused on making the Indian capital goods sector globally competitive and give a boost to the Indian economy. The scheme addresses the issue of technological depth creation in the capital goods sector besides creating common industrial facility centres.

The scheme consists of five components which are Advanced Centres of Excellence, Integrated Industrial Infrastructure Facilities (IIFC), Common Engineering Facility Centre (CEFC), Testing & Certification Centre (T&CC) and Technology Acquisition Fund Programme (TAFP).

A Screening Committee of DHI has selected 25 projects which include:

- Development of Shuttle fewer rapiers looms of 450 RPM at CMTI, Bengaluru

- Additive Manufacturing technology for High-Performance Metallic Alloys at IISc, Bengaluru

- Development of Smart Submersible (6 inch) Pumping Solutions for Industrial and Water Supply Applications at SiTARC, Coimbatore

- Development of 5 Cubic Meter Hydraulic Excavator - HEX 400 at HEC, Ranchi

IIT Madras:

- Development of Orbital Motion Abrasive Cutting

- Development of Multi-station Grinding and Polishing Machine

- Development of 5-axis Multi-tasking Machine

- Development of Direct Drive Machine

- Development of Ultra Precision Micromachining Center

- Development of Low Cost Machine Tending Robot

- Automation of Grinding Process Intelligence

- Thermal Compensation System for CNC Lathes

- Development of 5kW feed drives and 25kW spindle drives for machine tool

Advanced Centres of Excellence (CoEs):

Eight Centres of Excellence (CoEs) for Technology Development have been established at IIT Madras, IIT Delhi, IIT Kharagpur, IISc, CMTI, HEC/PSG College of Technology etc. Technologies have been developed with industry partners in sectors like machine tools, textile machinery, earth moving machinery, metallurgical machinery and welding, submersible pumps.

CoEs at IIT Madras, IISc, Bengaluru, PSG College of Technology, Coimbatore, Sitarc, Coimbatore and HEC Ranchi have already been completed. Shuttleless rapier looms of 450 RPM developed by CMTI are under testing at the facility of the industry partner at Surat. Development of the rest of the Centres of Excellence at IIT Kharagpur and IIT Delhi is at an advanced stage.

 The list of 8 CoEs is as under:

1. CoE at CMTI, Bengaluru by TMMA for development of shuttle less rapiers looms of 450 RPM

2. CoE at IIT, Madras for development of 11 advanced technologies for Machine Tools & Production Technology

3. CoE at PSG College of Technology for development of three Welding Technologies

4. COE at Coimbatore by Sitarc on Smart Submersible (6 inches) Pumping Solutions for Industrial and Water Supply Applications

5. CoE at IIT Delhi for Textile Machinery

6. CoE at IIT Kharagpur for Advanced Manufacturing

7. CoE at HEC, Ranchi for manufacturing Hydraulic Excavator by HEC with the institutional support of ISM Dhanbad

8. CoE at IISc-Bengaluru with Wipro 3D for design and development of 3 D Printing technologies

 A 500-acre world-class machine tool park has been established in Tumkuru, Karnataka in partnership with Government of Karnataka. The Park is in the centre of the machine tools cluster and will strengthen the output of the machine tools sector. 108 acres of land has already been allotted to 12 companies.

R&D capabilities in Institutions of Eminence are being leveraged to develop cutting edge industrial technologies so that challenges of manufacturing sector emerging from huge imports of high tech products can be dealt with. India also lags behind in manufacturing technologies. These challenges are being addressed through this scheme of DHI that will soon be scaled up and is specifically designed to tackle these challenges.

The manufacturing sector is crucial for the development of the country’s economy as the Capital Goods industry contributes about 12 percent to the total manufacturing activity in India that is about 2 percent of the GDP. The Government of India has set a target of USD one trillion (7,139,350 crore) manufacturing economy in the next five years and to achieve this is the sector has to grow at double digits.