Chennai, 29th August 2019: Indian Institute of Technology Madras Robert Bosch Centre for Data Science and Artificial Intelligence (RBC DSAI), one of the premier AI Research Groups in the country, is looking to help Manufacturing and Automotive Sectors to increase AI adoption in the industry.
Towards this, the Second RBCDSAI AI/ML Conclave on Manufacturing and Automotive Applications was organized at IIT Madras today (29th Aug 2019) jointly by RBCDSAI and LatentView Analytics.
AI and Data Science have been a key driver in enabling growth across industries with the automotive industry being no exception. When it comes to this sector, the proliferation of AI and data science spans across the entire automotive business spectrum ranging from manufacturing to the aftermarket.
Setting the context for the Conclave, Prof Raghunathan Rengaswamy, Institute Chair Professor, Department of Chemical Engineering, and Core member RBC DSAI, IIT Madras, said, “This Conclave will revolve around themes such as AI in Manufacturing, AI in Automotive Product Design and AI-driven Automotive services in manufacturing and operations. The event has been designed to help industry know what AI can bring to the table.”
This conclave explored how AI can be a key enabler across business practices in the automotive and manufacturing industry – such as product development, automotive services and manufacturing, to name a few. The event included deep-dive sessions on the challenges in ensuring a strong skill pipeline is built in collaboration with academia and industry.
Delivering the Welcome address, Prof. B. Ravindran, Head of RBC DSAI, IIT Madras, and Professor, Department of Computer Science and Engineering, IIT Madras, said, “Reliability is one of the issues in Manufacturing that AI can look into. The kind of demands on AI in manufacturing are very different compared to other fields. We need people in the AI field to understand the requirements of the industry and the industry needs to know what the AI people can bring to the table. This is what this Conclave sets out to achieve.”
Further, Prof Ravindran added, “One of the key mandates of RBC DSAI is to encourage wider adoption of AI and AI enabled services. In this conclave we are reaching out the manufacturing and automotive sectors to enable a better understanding of application of AI in these sectors. The RBC DSAI organizes an event every month to reach out to people and enrich the AI ecosystem. We urge researchers, faculty and industry in the event to connect with each other and explore potential collaborations.”
Highlighting the importance and outcomes of this Conclave, Prof. Ravindran said, “Events like this conclave that bring together people from a cross-section of stakeholders are crucial to the evolution of AI in a direction that benefits the society at large. Institutions like IIT Madras have to take a lead role in organizing such conclave.”
Around 20 speakers delivered lectures during the conclave, which attracted more than 250 participants, with 80 per cent from industry and the rest from the academic and student community.
Addressing the inauguration session, Mr. Venkat Viswanathan, Founder and Chairman, LatentView Analytics, said, “Manufacturing has been the bedrock around which a lot of new technologies have been invented since 1950. Multiple inventions have come from manufacturing sector. It is only now that the opportunity has arisen to store a lot of data generated by manufacturing sector. We can store the data even if we do not have immediate use for it and this could be a key differentiator in the future.”
The RBC DSAI was founded in August 2017 in IIT Madras with a vision to expand and further the research, education and outreach activities in the areas of Data Science and Artificial Intelligence. It comprises faculty from several departments across the Institute, who carry out research in various areas of data science and artificial intelligence.
The long-term vision of RBC-DSAI is to become a world leader in data science research, where long-standing fundamental research problems, cutting across disciplines, are targeted and solved.
The following sessions were conducted during the Second RBCDSAI AI/ML Conclave on Manufacturing and Automotive Applications:
Session 1: AI in Manufacturing by Prof. Raghunathan Rengaswamy, Dept. of Chemical Engineering, IIT Madras
Mr. Karthik – Head – MBP, Ashok Leyland
Mr. Shankar Subramanian – Co-Founder and CTO, PhotoGAUGE
Followed by the panel discussion on AI in manufacturing by the speakers, Moderated by Mr. Ganesh Sankaralingam – Director, LatentView Analytics
Session 2: Panel Discussion on Skilling and Re-Skilling
Prof. R. Nadarajan, Head – Department of Applied Mathematics and Computational Sciences, PSG College of Technology, Coimbatore,
Prof. Andrew Thangaraj – Dept. of Electrical Engineering, IIT Madras
Dr. Sandhya Chintala – Executive Director, IT-ITeS Sectors Skill Council NASSCOM
Dr. Shankar Venugopal – Vice President, Mahindra & Mahindra
Mr. Kunal Jain – Founder & CEO, Analytics Vidhya
Panel discussion moderated by Prof. Ravindran, Head, RBCDSAI, IIT Madras
Session 3: AI in Automotive Product Development
Speakers at the Event:
Dr. Vijendran Venkoparao – Senior General Manager, Robert Bosch Engineering India
Mr. Santhoji Katare – Technical Leader, Global Data Insight and Analytics, Ford Motor Company
Mr. Murali Balasubramanian, APAC Innovation Head, Fiat Chrysler Automotives
Followed by the panel discussion on AI in Product Development by the speakers and moderated by Mr. Rajan Sethuraman, CEO, LatentView Analytics
Session 4: AI driven Automotive Services
Speakers:
Mr. Srinivas Aravapalli – CEO, Blue Binaries
Mr. Shivalik Prasad – Director, Spinclabs
Mr. Senthil Murugan – Senior Manager, LatentView Analytics
Followed by the panel discussion on AI in Automotive Services by the speakers and moderated by Prof. Nandan Sudarsanam, IIT Madras
