A Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) was signed by the Punjab Engineering College (Deemed to Be University) with M/S Siemens Industry Software (India) Pvt Limited (SISW) to establish a Center of Excellence in the area of Manufacturing Engineering, Control and Automation. The MOA was signed today in the presence of the Governor of Punjab and Administrator, U.T Chandigarh Sh. V.P. Singh Badnore, Sh. J.M.Balamurugan, IAS, Secretary to Governor Punjab, Sh. Arun Kumar Gupta, IAS, Home Secretary, U.T, Chandigarh, Sh. Rajinder Gupta, Chairman, BOG, PEC, Sh. Manoj. K.Arora, director PEC, Sh. Satheesh Kurup, Sr. Director, ESP & Special Projects, SIEMENS, Sh. Rahul Sehgal, Director SIEMENS and Smt. Sashi Sairaman, Director, MTAB Technology Center at Punjab Raj Bhawan, Chandigarh.According to the Director PEC, the idea of setting up of Industry Linked Centre of Excellence in Manufacturing and Automation (CoE) originated from the need to align the engineering education with the latest industry trends and practices, better vocational training / interaction with industry, up gradation of tools, laboratories and faculty skills as well as the inclusion of latest engineering concepts into the academic curriculum structure.
Several laboratories would be set-up under this project. These would include Design and Validation, Advanced Manufacturing, Automation, Electrical and Energy Saving, Mechatronics, Process Instrumentation, Test and Optimization, CNC Controller, CNC Machine, Robotics, Rapid Prototyping, Metrology, Renewable Energy and Internet of Things (IOT). Thus, it caters for almost all the engineering disciplines. The BOG of the PEC has stated that once the facility is created in the institute, it will be game changer.M/S Siemens have created a similar facility in engineering institutes in the State of Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu, including NIT, Trichy.The MOU includes three years of hand holding where full responsibility of running the operations of Centre of Excellence for 2 years, followed by 1 year of hand holding for smooth transition will be done by Siemens and their partners. The package comes with complete online learning material. The curricula would be aligned according to the new laboratory facilities.The MOU would also enable PEC to improve the quality of technical education & training in the region. Besides providing state-of-the-art tools to match industry standards, Student Training on live projects from the Industry, Reduce investment of time, effort and money by the industry in the training of the students, Improve student employability, Improve industry competitiveness globally, Bridge the gap between Industry needs and the available set of skills through Industry oriented learning.The other benefits of the COE to the region are, Vocational training for skill enhancement of the youth of the region, training to the faculty and students of Chandigarh Region Innovation & Knowledge Cluster (CRIKC) institutes, training to the faculty and students of other engineering institutes/ ITI’s and Polytechnics in Chandigarh region. It would also lead to cluster development in collaboration MSME industries in the region.