Bengaluru, July 29 (KNN)  The dream of smart factory may become true as the India's first smart factory is making progress at the Centre for Product Design and Manufacturing (CPDM) of the Indian Institute of Science, with seed funding from Boeing.

KNN caught up the Chairman of the institute, Amaresh Chakrabarti who said that the factory is self-aware, in a sense.

"It knows when a worker needs rest, when a machine needs repair or replacement, the humidity, temperature, everything. The data collected is analysed before course correction is initiated," he said.

Elaborating about the project, the Chairman said that the factory basically has three functions. It will have fabrication that means you have to make parts. It has to have assembly which means you put parts together to make a product and you have to inspect. These are the three basic functions in the factory.

“In a smart factory, all these functions will be smart. They become self-aware; they know what they are supposed to do. They can collect the data from the surroundings themselves. They can connect to data around them and they can take decisions. They can course correct, and that is what makes it a smart factory,” Chakrabarti explained.

Calling it industry 4.0, Institute director said “Once the tests would be done, then it will be scalable. Then it can go to MSMEs and large companies.”

Speaking on the MSMEs, he said that this is going to be very important value addition for the MSMEs because they will be able to modernize very quickly to compete at the global level.

Reports peg that the smart factory market to touch 215 billion USD by 2025, and there is no major economy in the world that is not embracing it.

“We started this project a year ago and three Ph.D.  Students are working on this project. The project is funded by the Boeing and we have not asked government for funding. We started the smart factory because there was a strong industrial need of it and it is relevant across the globe.” he told

Speaking on the completion of the project, Chairman said, "This project will finish but we will start the new project."

“The learning will not only be for the manufacturing but for the smart city project also.” he added. (KNN/AR)