By Papri Sri Raman, IANS
Chennai : An international conference here explored how India’s young engineers and scientists can team up to use latest technology advances and futuristic trends in manufacturing and set up what are seen as ‘factories of the future’.
Green factories, non-destructive evaluation in smokeless premises, intelligent processing of man and material, use of modelling and simulation in manufacturing, new materials, polymers and ceramics, artificial intelligence and virtual enterprise are the focus of the three-day meet that ended Friday at the IIT, Madras.
Academics from 10 countries are talking on diverse subjects like what manufacturing should be like in 2050 and nano-machining, layered component making using powders instead of sheets, material science for GenNext, magnetic cameras and remote controls.
Among the many conclusions reached at the meet was the crucial acknowledgment that worldwide, “the medical and legal professions are the worst users of IT tools”, automation and new materials.
“We need to analyse our strengths and our weaknesses and manufacturing is one such area,” said P.S Goel, secretary in the ministry of earth sciences.
“The first step is to accept that we have a weakness and then focus on addressing the issue. Young entrepreneurs in the industry should look for roles in making this happen,” he added.
Speaking on new technologies, Baldev Raj, chief of the Indira Gandhi Centre for Atomic Research (IGCAR) and an eminent metallurgist, said that “the fast breeder reactor technology” that India has developed indigenously “coupled with thorium technology will bring down by at least 40 percent the cost of nuclear power in India. This technology has the ability to meet the country’s energy needs of the future”.
Noted aviation expert Donald O. Thompson from Iowa State University talked of how the university partnered the American military to develop what is known as “non-destructive testing and a quantitative NDT for the US Air Force”, which is now applied to “detect and size defects” in aircraft worldwide.
David W. Russell from the Pennsylvania State University focused specifically on “the factory of the future in the knowledge economy”.
In his scintillating talk, he said, it was not the Porsche or Bentleys that would change the world but the ubiquitous mobile phones, wifi and the “50 billion foam cups that can come out of a single company every year or every month (in Canada)” which will lead the manufacturing world to a “service oriented paradigm” in the coming years.
Minimize impact on environment, look at systems that can be disassembled, get in automatic checks, scanners that can check 300 items per second, optimise IT use and bring in door-less offices were some of the guru’s advise to India’s young technocrats and scientists gathered at the IIT Madras.
Supporting the convention are the Department of Atomic Energy and the Indian National Academy of Engineering (INAE), a body of India’s most distinguished engineers.
The meet is “a forum for futuristic planning for the country’s development requiring technological inputs and brings together specialists from diverse fields as may be necessary for comprehensive solutions” for the nation’s many problems, B.P.C Rao of IGCAR, Kalpakkam, who convened the gathering of 300 experts, told IANS.
“We hope we can also initiate an ‘Olympics of Manufacturing’ in the near future which will showcase Indian’s innovators,” he said, emphasising that the discussions on convergence will be eventually taken to all universities across the country.