Tuesday, December 16, 2008

Chennai: The Indian Institute of Technology-Madras will soon have two sponsored additions to its advanced manufacturing facility. They are a sheet metal research centre, supported by Japanese firm Amada, and a micro machining centre, supported by the Department of Science and Technology, M.S. Shunmugam, head of the department of mechanical engineering, IIT, said on Monday.


He was speaking at the inauguration of the second international and 23rd All-India Manufacturing Technology, Design and Research Conference here.

Delivering the inaugural address, V. Sumantran, executive vice-chairman, Hinduja Automotive, said that at a time when the global auto industry was passing through a crisis, innovation not only in technology but also in business models was required.

The state of the environment and infrastructure and energy security were the major concerns in every industry. The auto industry dealt with customers demanding more variety, product life coming down in global markets and a declining performance worldwide. Given this, the focus was on emerging areas, he said.

Given the situation in India, where the demands of a growing economy had to be met in a competitive environment, there was a need to “innovate to a cost advantage,” he said. This meant that product and process efficiencies had to be combined with efficiency in investment. This, he reckoned, could be achieved through design and material innovation, manufacturing innovation and business process innovation in the automobile sector.

Low cost did not mean low technology, Dr. Sumantran said. It required “frugal, intelligent and high value-oriented engineering.” Roland Friedrich Herrmann, Consul-General of the Federal Republic of Germany in Chennai, and M. S. Ananth, Director, IIT-M, were present.