TCS is also looking as we advance our next-generation industrial technology with new industrial autonomy & engineering lab at Sahyadri Park in Pune, it is the first centre based on AI, robotics and advanced digital technologies in manufacturing.
The IT services company described the facility as India’s first “lights-out factory lab” in which production and production operations can largely operate autonomously with minimal human intervention. Lights-out factories rely on connected systems, robotics, artificial intelligence and real-time data to manage production processes.
At TCS's new Pune facility there is a fully robotic battery pack assembly line at the centre of TCS’s new plant. The live, multi-stage production setup was designed to replicate the complexity of a modern industrial environment that we have to deal with today’s complex manufacturing environment, and give manufacturers an opportunity to try and develop new technologies for its applications while working with new technologies before they are applied on a large scale.
The lab will allow industrial companies to prototype, validate and scale AI-first production systems and will also help industrial organisations test and scale AI-first production systems and reduce the risk of new technologies in existing factories by reducing the risk of putting AI-first production systems in existing production facilities and reduce the risk of introducing them. But this test lab can help companies to evaluate automation strategies and identify issues of automation and how they should be tested and evaluate them before taking them to the next stage for large-scale production operations.
The facility integrates several technologies that are increasingly important in smart manufacturing. These include digital twins, robotics, industrial AI, factory control systems and real-time operational intelligence. TCS will be able to demonstrate that manufacturing facilities can go from digitally connected operations to self-optimising and autonomous production processes by combining this collection of technologies.
Sreenivasa Chakravarti, Global Head and Vice President of Industrial Autonomy and Engineering at TCS, said TCS is also looking beyond traditional factory models that rely on intensive manual labor at work and the company is looking beyond traditional factory models that require manual effort-intensive manual labor. It is for TCS’s vision of AI-first production systems for AI-first production systems and how to convert the concept of lights-out manufacturing into practical industrial applications for the company's vision of turning lights-out manufacturing into a business model that has been pioneered by TCS, he said.
This facility, the company believes, lays a good foundation for a “Human + AI” model for manufacturing. It doesn’t simply remove human interaction; it combines human skills with intelligent machines and automated systems. As factories get more autonomous, workers could be expected to concentrate on decision-making, innovation, supervision and complex problem solving while machines do repetitive and data-intensive work.
The Pune lab will be used to support a wide range of industrial applications. Automated quality inspection, real-time process optimisation, human-machine interaction and autonomous factory operations are examples of the potential applications. These capabilities would help manufacturers to better have consistency, identify problems quickly and make the right decision to produce as soon as possible based on real-time data.
SKF is among the industrial companies taking part in the initiative. Joakim Landholm, SVP Commercial & Operations Development at SKF, said the next phase of manufacturing would depend on operations becoming smarter, more energy-efficient and more reliable. He also reinforced the necessity of reducing friction in industrial processes and turning automation and industrial AI into measurable business value.
The launch comes as manufacturers across industries are finding ways to integrate AI into production and supply chain operations. Industrial demand for automation, robotics’ advancement and real-time data availability of manufacturing data are creating new opportunities for companies to create factories that are capable of responding quickly to changing factory dynamics.
Battery manufacturing is ideally suited to advanced automation because production is highly structured, repetitive and precision-related. A robotic battery pack assembly line can therefore provide an effective environment for testing autonomous manufacturing technologies, quality-control systems and AI-based process optimisation.
For TCS, the Pune facility also strengthens its position at the intersection of engineering services, artificial intelligence and industrial transformation. Rather than treating AI as a standalone software technology, TCS is now demonstrating how AI is being leveraged by the company in the software as a stand-alone software technology, the company is demonstrating it as a software technology and how it can be integrated directly into a physical production environment.
And the new lab may ultimately be a test ground for manufacturers to modernise their facilities without jumping into full-scale transformation. TCS hopes to bridge the gap between smart factory concepts and real-world applications by letting companies test technologies in the real industrial environment.
As AI adoption has moved beyond office and software applications, manufacturing is one of the places where autonomous technologies can have a significant impact. TCS’s Pune “lights-out” facility is the manifestation of this change, integrating robotics, AI, digital twins and industrial intelligence in a working production environment.
As manufacturers are always looking for efficiency, reliability and flexibility, facilities like the new TCS lab could prove important as an initial step toward what the factories of the future would look like. The Pune initiative indicates that the production systems in which humans and intelligent machines are integrated into production systems and how automation is key to the new industrial configuration will be more automated as well.
