Japanese firms to set up Joint Research Centre at IIT Madras

NEW DELHI, NOVEMBER 15: The Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Madras is going to establish a Joint Research Cell with leading Japanese Manufacturing Firms. A Memorandum of Understanding has been signed with alfaTKG Co. Ltd., Japan and OKABE Manufacturing Co., Ltd, Japan, for collaborating in core areas of manufacturing sector including Research and Development (R&D).

The MoU will pave way for the cooperation between alfaTKG, IIT Madras and Okabe Co., Ltd on areas related to joint research, sponsorship programs, usages of facilities of alfaTKG, OKABE and IIT Madras by each other, exchange of employees between them.

Speaking about the importance of this collaboration, Prof Bhaskar Ramamurthi, Director, IIT Madras, said, “There is a lot of potential for this kind of collaboration with IIT Madras. This collaboration can also pave way for our students to intern in the partner firms in Japan. IIT Madras has incubated startups that are doing amazing work based in IoT and AI that surpass even the big corporates in their technological innovation.”

Prof Ramamurthi, Toshio Takagi, President and CEO, alfaTKG, Japan, and Hiroaki Okabe, President and CEO, OKABE Manufacturing Co., Ltd, Japan, signed the MoU.

This agreement will help India to foray into the paperless manufacturing, which is revolutionizing the manufacturing sector across the globe. As part of the initiative alfaTKG Co., Ltd, a pioneer in providing IoT-based solutions for knowledge driven paperless manufacturing technology in small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in Japan and other Asian Countries, will be introducing ‘Genius Artificial Intelligence Assistance’ (GAIA) for efficient manufacturing, machinery utility and health monitoring.

The MoU will help the stakeholders to work on paperless manufacturing technology as the paper is inefficient, creates errors and problems, and doesn’t allow for the advanced analytics and real-time visibility and control a modern shop floor needs. Paperless manufacturing removes paper, and the errors and problems it causes, off the shop floor. Information is automatically converted to electronic data to be transmitted digitally. The required documents and drawings are hyper linked and are locked with revision-control, ensuring everyone is using the latest, most accurate information. All processes are automatically tracked in the system.