Visakhapatnam: RINL-VSP (Visakhapatnam Steel Plant) on Monday announced it has entered into a MoU with STPI, STPINEXT to setup of Industry 4.0 COE ( Centre of Excellence named as ‘Kalpataru’) for promotion of Innovation and Startup activities for RINL and other industries in and around Visakhapatnam.
The MoU was exchanged between RINL Chairman and Managing Director Atul Bhatt and STPI Director Dr .CVD Ram Prasad at a function held steel plant here, the Steel plant said in a release here.
Speaking on the occasion, Bhatt, who is the chief Mentor behind the CoE, said that the setting up of the Centre of Excellence (CoE) is the need of the hour and it will become an example of industry and academia interface where everyone will come out with a solution which will benefit the country and will usher in a Nationwide movement in digitalization in steel industry.
“India is now becoming the epicenter of steel making in the World and India stands as the second largest steel producer in the world and I hope that Vizag will become the hub of providing solutions in steel making to the country”, Bhatt added.
The center for Excellence will go a long way in supporting the “Atma Nirbhar Bharat” and in incubating start-ups from ideation to product development in Industry 4.0.
The CoE is coming up over a built up space of approximately 6000 square feet at Ukkunagaram and the centre has been named ‘Kalpataru’.
It will house an Industrial Robotics lab, an Industrial Drones lab and an Industrial IOT (Internet of Things) lab. The Centre will also be provided with high speed internet and server setup using cloud computing to have capabilities for working with Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML).
The primary objective of the MOU is to forge strong and meaningful alliance between STPI, STPINEXT & RINL to support the Startup-Ecosystem in Visakhapatnam. This is being established with funding support from Ministry of Electronics & IT(MeitY), RINL and Government of Andhra Pradesh.
The COE on Industry 4.0 will benefit RINL by the way of improvement in Production, Productivity and safety.
The solutions offered by the CoE will also aid in Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE) of plant and machinery, help in monitoring the health of structures and aid to detect and reduce industrial pollution. The MoU envisages a strong co-operation in mentoring, access to infrastructure and facilities, networking and funding.
STPI & STPINEXT and RINL will enable budding start-up companies to make world class products in the area of Industry 4.0. It is planned to incubate around 50 start-ups in physical mode and 125 start-ups in Virtual mode over a period of 5 years.
The present MOU is being signed for a period of 3 years.
The start-ups will be aptly supported by the premier institutes like IIM Visakhapatnam and Andhra University in the form of research inputs in Management and Technology.
The Start-ups will also receive mentoring support from renowned industries in the automation space like SMS group, Schneider Electric, ABB, EOS, and Siemens. The premier associations like CII (Confederation of Indian Industry) and ITAAP (IT Association of Andhra Pradesh) are also part of the CoE. They will provide necessary support for nurturing the start-ups.
Sobodh Sachin, Chief Innovation officer (CIO), STPI Next, Dr.B.Suresh, Additional director, STPI, Sridhar Kosaraju, State President, Information Technology Association of Andhra Pradesh (ITAAP), RINL Directors, senior officials from RINL, STPI, IIM-Vizag, Andhra University were also present at the function.
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