From IT / ITeS / BPO / Pharma / Healthcare and others, India, more particularly Bangalore is getting set to emerge as a global aerospace engineering hub. From the look of things, the next generation of flights for leading global aircraft makers could be designed in Bangalore.
Last week, Spirit AeroSystems, only the world’s largest independent supplier of commercial aircraft structures teamed up with Infosys Technologies for the setting up of an engineering centre at the latter’s Bangalore campus.
Except for Boeing 717, Spirit AeroSystems builds parts for every commercial Boeing aircraft, currently in production. Its finished range of products includes 737 fuselages, nacelles and pylons, as well as, nose sections for 747, 767 and 777 aircraft. Designing as well as producing, Spirit makes slats, flaps, forward leading edges and trailing edges for 737 wings, slats and floor beams for 777 airplanes, and wings and fuselage components for 747s.
The question remains, what is Infosys, an IT company doing by setting up an engineering centre for AeroSystems at its Bangalore campus?
Infosys officials explain, the centre will focus on high-end engineering services, including product design, development and analysis of air-frame structures, stress engineering support and engineering change management. In the course of time, the engineering centre is expected to grow into a global virtual real time operation for Spirit AeroSystems.
Spirit’s first Indian engineering partner, Infosys will provide access to global engineering talent, reduce time-to-market by enabling rapid design and deployment, and amongst other things offer efficient global client support, enhance the scalability and flexibility of Spirit to take up multiple aircraft programmes for global customers.
Kris Gopalakrishnan, COO and deputy managing director, Infosys Technologies Ltd, commenting on the partnership said: “Our partnership with Spirit AeroSystems is a validation of India, increasingly being looked at as a global engineering hub. We see the partnership as playing a key role in Infosys’ focus on the aerospace industry. The engineering centre will challenge Infoscions to apply their skills to cutting-edge global aerospace programs to provide world-class solutions.”
The hi-tech aerospace project for Infosys, combined with other global engineering projects in the airline industry, is turning Bangalore and India into an engineering hub, as well. And, it is not just Infosys alone that is taking up prestigious aerospace projects. Last year, the Indian Institute of Science, India's most prestigious science research institute, joined hands with Boeing, America’s leading manufacturer of satellites, commercial jetliners and military aircraft, to work on nine unique projects to build the next generation flights. Forty researchers at the IISc are involved in this massive project.
For the first time ever, an Indian institute has been picked to handle such an extraordinary project. The project is being managed by the Society for Innovation and Development (SID) founded by IISc. more than a decade ago to act as its commercial arm. SID undertakes research and development projects based on individual or joint proposals from the faculty and scientists of IISc in collaboration with industries, business establishments, and national and international organisations.
Boeing’s other global research partners include Carnegie Mellon, Stanford Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Caltech, University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign, and University of Cambridge.
The new IISc-Boeing tie-up means the aerospace major promises to invest $5 million in research every year, for the next few years in company aircraft projects with the institute. To build these new flights, the IISc team has proposed use of smart structures, application of lightweight materials such as nano materials, alloys and their composites.
For now, IISc is focusing on developing flaps for the aircraft that are fitted with smart sensors to enable them to direct wind currents better, use of aluminium alloys in high temperature areas, as well as, in landing gear boxes. The aircraft designs will be tested in a virtual environment being developed at the IISc. Nearly 40 faculty members from various IISc departments, such as aerospace, metallurgy, centre for product design and manufacturing, and civil engineering are involved in the Boeing project.
Sensing India is turning into a global engineering hub, for cutting-edge projects including aerospace, the National Association of Software and Services Companies (NASSCOM) has already initiated the Engineering Services Forum. The NASSCOM task is to build a brand for India as the outsourcing destination for engineering services.
A recent NASSCOM study predicts, the market potential for outsourced engineering services is in the range of $7-billion to $12-billion, while the value of work, currently, undertaken by India-based vendors in this space is estimated to be about $500-million.
From the look of things, the world will be dependent on India for everything. Mother India will no longer provide succour for its natives alone; it will succour the world.
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