Bosch gives red-carpet welcome to Modi, Merkel

PM gets inside view of tech prowess of German co

Bosch India on Tuesday gave a red-carpet welcome to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and German Chancellor Angela Merkel-led delegation as part of their visit to its two facilities in Bengaluru.

Merkel, along with Bosch board of management member for Asia-Pacific Peter Tyroller and Bosch India Managing Director Steffen Berns gave an inside view of what Modi experienced during the Hannover Messe, which shaped his vision and strategy of Make in India and Skill India.

Modi and Merkel interacted with the trainees at the Bosch Vocational Center (BVC) and employees at the Bosch Engineering Centre and had a first-hand experience of the research, engineering, and vocational education activities of Bosch in India.

At BVC, Mamtha, who is undergoing her three-year apprenticeship, displayed a mechatronic robotic system which is used in the assembly line for increasing production capacity. Merkel asked how BVC helping her with vocational training. “I do hope you will get more exposure to the technology prowess of Bosch through your training,” said Merkel after wishing her to complete her apprenticeship.

Bosch brought the dual education approach to India and opened the Bosch Vocational Center (BVC) in Bengaluru. Since it was founded in 1961, the BVC has trained over 2,500 apprentices in nine trades.

Skill improvement
Bosch has developed and deployed two-month training programmes to provide basic skills to school dropouts, and a three-year vocational training programme.

Besides other approaches, so far Bosch has signed MoUs with the governments of Karnataka and Maharashtra to start this programme in 50 technical institutes (ITIs). It also reached an in-principle nod from the state of Rajasthan to start the BRIDGE programme as part of vocational training. “Our commitment to developing talent and the competence of our local engineers are part of our success story in India,” said Tyroller. He emphasised the significant contribution that Indian engineers have made to Bosch’s success story in India, as well as to their current importance for the company’s worldwide activities in many strategic areas such as data mining and smart manufacturing.

“India is a key location in our global innovation network. To further strengthen our presence in the country, we plan to invest Rs 650 crore (over €100 million) in 2015,” Tyroller added, reiterating a statement made at Bosch’s Annual Financial Press Conference.

Bosch’s largest development centres outside Germany is located in Bengaluru. It has also another facility in Coimbatore. The company has over 12,000 research and development associates across both centres.

Besides developing solutions for connected industry, the development centre in Bengaluru has also been focusing on big data analytics — an important enabler for connected manufacturing.

Analytics business
Modi and Merkel had a first-hand experience of data analytics application called ‘e-call modeling’. This estimates the probability of injury severity based on real-time vehicle, accident, and environment information. This information can be used by emergency service providers to prioritise the type of ambulance service needed to reach an accident location.

Another innovation developed by the Bengaluru-based development centre is a compact retina camera. Its special software can detect medical conditions such as cataracts at an early stage.

Other high-level delegates who accompanied the two dignitaries included Chief Minister Siddaramaiah and Union Minister for Chemicals and Fertilisers Ananth Kumar.