Tech Mahindra opens ‘factory-of-the-future’ centre

BENGALURU: Tech Mahindra said it opened its first ‘factory-of-the-future’ centre, as the IT company aims at gaining a bigger share of the move to smart manufacturing.

Smart manufacturing involves the use of robotics, sensors, data analytics and artificial intelligence to improve productivity. The move widens the potential market for IT service providers who would have to build solutions to tie together the different technologies.

“Industries world-over are going through a massive transformation, a transformation that is driven by the advances in newer technologies, especially things like IoT and Robotics,” L Ravichandran, President and Chief Operating Officer at Tech Mahindra said.

Research firm IDC estimated that by 2020, nearly two-thirds of all work in factories will be completed by collaborative robots, while robotics will have five times the capability at one-fifth the cost of what was available in 2015.

Tech Mahindra said it was one of the few companies that are working with IBM at its newly-opened Watson IoT centre in Munich. The company said a team of six developers and engineers were working within the Watson IoT headquarters, co-creating solutions around manufacturing, farming, healthcare and banking.