Tag Archives: Aerospace skilling in India

He is at ease designing musical instruments and missile launchers

A musician credited with inventing the electronic tambura and electronic tabla, G. Raj Narayan may seem to be an odd man out at a seminar on military hardware and electronic warfare.

But Raj, as he is popularly called, is not only at ease with both the fields but is among the lead panellist, given his foray into defence and aerospace, involving manufacture of military-grade weapons for the Indian defence establishment.

A former design engineer at Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd. in Bengaluru, Mr. Raj Narayan, who has a master’s degree in electronics from IIT Madras, has a passion for Carnatic music and was a regular on AIR and Doordarshan till 10 years ago before he decided to strike it out as an entrepreneur in aerospace and defence equipment manufacturing.

Given his background in HAL and experience of working on platforms ranging from Gnat to MIG and Jaguar, Mr. Raj Narayan floated Radel Group, a precision engineering group in Bengaluru, which now develops components for the fighter aircraft of the Indian Air Force (IAF).

May seem hi-tech for the uninitiated but not for Mr. Raj Narayan who said the design and circuitry involved in making a digital musical instrument or military equipment were the same. Speaking to The Hindu on the sidelines of the Indian Science Congress, Mr. Raj Narayan said, “My exposure to electronics and miniaturisation as a designer in HAL enabled me to design circuits for musical instruments”.

Mr. Raj Narayan, who was part of the team that built India’s first indigenous cockpit simulator, also invented the electronic tabla and electronic veena, and mass produced them for the music industry. The music unit grew and supported his venture back into aerospace in 2005; the two companies are located in the same building in Bengaluru, and what is more, they have the same employees.

Today a design engineer may be working on a musical instrument, tomorrow he may work on ammunition firing equipment of an aircraft. “That is the beauty of the whole exercise as the process of electronic design and packaging is the same but the only difference is that defence products have to be conceived and designed at a higher level than for a consumer product,” said Mr. Raj Narayan.

The musician, who received the Karnataka Kalashree award in 2001, recently innovated a missile launcher for the Jaguar based on the latest micro-controller technology to replace obsolete circuits and it has been cleared for induction by the IAF.

The original article appeared on The Hindu.

Making in India since 1979, Raj Narayan of Radel Group

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Will ‘Make in India’ remain a vision or transform Indian manufacturing? What does the government need to do to enable the manufacturing and hardware industry to turn the PM’s vision of Make in India a reality? We caught up with Raj Narayan, Managing Director of the Radel Group, who has been making in India for 35 years to understand what it takes.

Raj, who grew up in a musically inclined family, was introduced to Indian classical music quite early in his life. He not just learnt but also gave numerous performances. Passion for music led him to create electronics musical instruments after he finished his electronics engineering.

Another passion that Raj was consumed by was aircraft designing. At a very young age he started designing model aircraft. Later, he went to join the designing division of Hindustan Aeronautics Limited or HAL.

A few years later, he turned both his passion into a successful venture and formed the Radel Group in 1979. The Radel Group is into making indigenous design and manufacturing for aerospace and defense sectors and digital music instruments.

Raj Narayan, in this chat, talks about the importance of Make in India and also emphasizes the role of the government, and how things like labour laws need to change in order to not just encourage Indian manufacturers but also encourage investments from other countries.

Raj is also the Chief Mentor of Drona Centre for Excellence, an initiative that focuses on creating skilled manpower especially for the defense and aerospace sector. Drona was conceived out of Raj’s interest in teaching and realizing that fresh engineering graduates lack practical skills to fit into the industry. Drona has a comprehensive training programme which engineers can go through to not just add to their skills but fit in directly into the industry.

The original article appeared on yourstory.

Focus on design, else we may create screwdriver technicians in name of skilling

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Prime Minister Narendra Modi will today launch the Pradhan Mantri Kaushal Vikas Yojana to mark the World Youth Skills Day. The government has set a target of skilling 40.2 crore people by 2022, under the new National Policy for Skill Development, which will also be formally launched today.According to Union Skills Development & Entrepreneurship Minister Rajiv Pratap Rudy of the targeted population, 54 percent is in the agriculture sector.

The vision of the skill development policy is to create an ecosystem of empowerment by skilling on a large scale at speed with high standards and to promote a culture of innovation-based entrepreneurship which can generate wealth and employment so as to ensure sustainable livelihoods for all citizens.

It has four thrust areas,and addresses key obstacles to skilling, including low aspirational value, lack of integration with formal education, lack of focus on outcomes, low quality of training infrastructure and trainers.

What really matters is how the government put this into action.

This should be a concern for all players in this area – the government, the industry, the vocational training institutions, training providers, assessment agencies, certification providers and student financiers.

What should the policy do to make the policy a success? Firstpost spoke to specialists and analysts, who while welcoming the new initiative of the government, suggested a few measures that the policy could look at and help plug loopholes at the ground level: The government is talking about manufacturing in India. Time it focused on design in India, says G Raj Narayan, Chief Mentor of DRONA and Founder & MD of Radel Group, that delivers indigenous solutions in Aerospace, Defence and Electronics.

“Design has a large and longer impact on what we are manufacturing. When you do that, you are adding in a huge way to manufacturing and using Indian talent. Manufacturing under licence get us nowhere. Then it would mean skilling 1,000 employees in screwdriver technology,” he said.

Skilling has to be at a higher level than merely creating technicians. Lack of artistic skill in design and manufacturing is a big gap in India. One of the way to get the youth to be interested in skilling is to introduce hobby courses in school at the high school or mid-level.

“Right now, marks are important for students and parents to get to engineering and medical seats. If skilling hobbies are introduced at the school level, school and college dropouts will be empowered to get a job. Academicians are needed to look at integrating this policy at the school level. All stakeholders should be involved by the government to make the policy a success,” Narayan said.

The original article appeared on FirstPost

A&D Sector Needs 18,000 Trained Engineers

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The original article appeared on Mydigitalfc

With India aiming to be a self-reliant manufacturer and exporter of defence products, the number of required trained engineer in the aerospace and defence (A&D) sector is expected to grow at least four folds.

“Based on a very conservative figure of even three engineers per MSME (taking into account the micro as well as small units), there is an immediate need today for approximately 18,000 trained engineers in this sector. However, it is imperative that the A&D sector grows four-fold to make India not only self-reliant but an exporter of defence products. The projected requirement of trained (not just qualified) engineers would then jump to 72,000 or more over the next few years,” G Raj Narayan, founder managing director of the Bangalore-based Radel Group, told FC.

To meet this large requirement, the Bangalore-based group, whose Arm- Radel Advanced technology is a design and manufacturing company promoted by technocrats with four decades of experience in the aerospace, defence and electronics industry, has now come up with DRONA School of Engineering Practice, the first of its kind finishing school in the country focuses on creating skilled engineers, especially for the electronics, aerospace and defence sectors.

DRONA offers courses ranging from the flagship holistic six-month programme, Campus2Career Apprenticeship, to short three-day orientation programmes of aerospace, defence and electronics sectors.

“We are expecting a four-fold increase in the number of students over the next couple of years. We are also gearing up to team up with leading educational institutions across the country and provide customised training for industries for their new recruits,” said Narayan.

Significantly, a recent industry study suggested that even a 20 to 25 per cent reduction in imports could directly create an additional one lakh or more of highly skilled jobs in India. If the government strives to extend the indigenous content to 70 per cent in the next few years, then this figure can swell even further.

Narayan said that with the emphasis now on ‘make in India’ and with thrust on defence indigenisation, there is need for a quantum jump in the number of competent industries entering this sector. To meet the projected targets, large organisations such as the defence PSUs have no option but to create an efficient supply chain through the participation of MSMEs. MSMEs contribute significantly to employment generation. It is reported that more than 6,000 MSMEs are already integrated into the A&D sector as suppliers mainly to PSUs and this number is growing.

Corruption in education, skilling & placements

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The VTU deserves a pat on its back for coming out in the open to acknowledge the existence of a “Placement mafia”

In a country where every well intentioned plan or program breaks down due to large numbers of takers and seekers, corruption in the field of education, skilling and placements can be no exception. As the report specifically refers to the involvement of ‘private companies’, it is clear (if any such clarity was ever required) that the private sector is no stranger to corruption. Corruption is today so deeply entrenched in the psyche of every Indian that he/she strongly believes that it is a way of life to be reconciled with, whichever side one is on.

However, if this nation aspires to become a global economic power in the next decade, the first steps will have to be in self-belief and a ‘never-say-die’ attitude that addresses every problem in a holistic and positive frame of mind. This takes us right back to education and skilling, right at the school level, not just about arithmetic and languages, but about values in life. This is what will lead to a clean and ethical manner of learning. This is what constitutes the beginning of ‘Soft Skills’. As part of graduation in Arts/ Commerce/ Engineering/ Medicine, etc., the student should automatically upgrade in soft skills that ultimately establishes the self-belief.

If it was only corruption that was rampant all around us, we certainly couldn’t have fought three wars with our neighbours, put a satellite around the Mars, built our own fighter aircraft, aircraft carriers, missiles, etc. besides earning the tag of a nation of software professionals. We must therefore acknowledge that there still are a good number of clean, efficient and ethical engineering colleges as well as training and placement organisations that do not deserve to be shoved into the same basket as the rotten eggs. The VTU, as any other university, has a distinct role to play to address the situation arising out of this scandal.

One of the buzzwords heard in every seminar and workshop on education and skilling today is ‘Industry-academia’ partnerships. While everybody would want to boast of being a partner in this activity, there is hardly any perceptible change in the students being industry-ready when they graduate. The same complaint of ‘unemployability’ continues to be heard even today, and in a louder voice. How can this situation be changed?

Firstly, just as practising doctors are employed as faculty in a medical college, faculty in engineering colleges also need to possess at least a few years of industrial experience. This is rarely the case even in prestigious institutions. The next best alternative is to engage guest faculty from reputed industries with a proven track record in their domains. This is where the VTU can help by identifying specialists from industry in various disciplines who not only possess a minimum qualification in engineering, but also a rich practical experience that can help in orienting the students to practical applications. In addition, VTU can identify specific industries, irrespective of whether MSMEs or large companies, based on their domain expertise, infrastructure, proven track record and resource persons, as a database of training and skill providers. VTU can act as coordinators to link, monitor and certify the whole process of training and skilling through a process of evaluation. While this could also be open to subjectivity and corruption, an open and transparent system of administration can certainly minimise this.

The next step would be to validate and certify training institutes which possess practical training infrastructure for the skills that they are supposed to impart. It is a proven fact that the best training institutions are those either attached to or run by an industry. So, why not classify and categorise them so that students as well as colleges can seek their services as required in a transparent manner? This could be done through a process of accreditation.

Lastly, but most importantly, we as a people need to change our thinking. The root cause of many of these problems is the importance given to ‘scores’ and ‘marks’ rather than actual performance and practical skill. A country full of people obsessed with certificates and marks for everything from primary school to engineering colleges and even music examinations, must change its focus to evaluation of practical skills, capability and performance. After all, it is the practical skill and capability of an employee that is the only consideration after the first job placement. So, why not make the first job placement itself a practical test for skills and competence? Then, perhaps, nobody will run for a paper qualification or certificates!

Import Of Aircraft Spares – Is This ‘Make In India’?

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There has been a news item in the last two days on HAL signing an MOU with BAe, UK, for spares support for the Hawk trainer as well as the Jaguar. If we hark back 40 years, HAL manufactured the Jaguar under licence from BAe. Logically, over these 4 decades, HAL should have developed indigenous sources for the spares for these aircraft. It has obviously not happened. This is a classic example of the myth of ‘Transfer of Technology’. Many questions therefore arise from the announcement of this MoU.

What is the penalty that the country (and its tax paying public) paid with its precious foreign exchange for the maintenance and overhaul of these Jaguar aircraft over all these years? For, the OEM has surely charged HAL and the IAF exorbitantly for each spare part.

Did HAL attempt indigenisation of critical spares of Jaguar over these four decades? If so, what were the reasons for going back to BAe for spares? There was enough time for HAL to indigenise hundreds of spares that could also have enabled Indian vendors to develop similar parts and equipment for the LCA, ALH, Mirage and others. If all the divisions of HAL, at Bangalore, Lucknow, Korwa and Hyderabad could not indigenise the parts, why could it not have at least contracted it to a private player, even MSMEs? Radel Advanced Technology, an MSME has successfully indigenised many equipment including for the Jaguar, at a fraction of the cost of imported ones. So the question is, has HAL failed in skilling its engineers in indigenisation, or has it failed to give enough importance to the issue?

When on the one hand, the Government talks of ‘Make in India’ and on the other, a prestigious defence PSU actually signs an MOU for spares support for a 40-year old aircraft, it becomes clear that there is either a lack of capability or a lack of will to indigenise, design and manufacture in India.

Under these circumstances, how can we claim that we have produced an ‘indigenous’ LCA? This raises an even more worrying thought – were we fooling ourselves by wanting to make the Rafale in India? Even if we do, under licence, will we not be in the same boat as we are with the Jaguar and the Hawk today? Doesn’t this MOU prove that HAL has failed to assimilate even 40 year old technology over all these years?

Looking ahead, how do we develop the capability to design and manufacture aircraft that are completely indigenous?

The solution lies in taking multiple steps:

To begin with, the determination and will to design and produce an indigenous aircraft as well as all its on-board systems, over a limited time frame.

Ensuring that the supply chain for the manufacture of the complete platform is in the ratio of 80:20 where 80 is the share of the tier 1, tier 2 and tier 3 suppliers, and the lead organisation retains only 20% – the important major part of integration, testing and delivery.

Steps to indigenise all spares for all the aircraft concurrently with the aircraft manufacturing programme, through the process of identifying and promoting MSMEs as suppliers for these – in this process, streamlining and expediting the lengthy and often infructuous tendering process, with the specific intention of achieving the stated goal.

A strong leadership within the PSU to take these steps forward and drive it down the whole organisation. With the right attitude and determination, we can do it. If we can indigenously design and execute the Mars Mission, we can design our own fighter aircraft too.

Shortage of Skilled Engineers Threatens to Ground Make In India flight.

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The recent launch of Drona, School of Engineering Practice, included a lively panel discussion on the issue of skilling engineers for ‘Make in India. This was reported in OneIndia. Here is an extract: While launching the Drona School of Engineering Practice, spearheaded by aerospace veteran G Raj Narayan of Radel Group in Bengaluru recently, experts shared some crucial facts.

Some of the facts have been mentioned here:

About 1.5 million engineers graduated from more than 3500 engineering colleges across India in 2014.

Only 4 to 7 per cent of engineers are actually fit for jobs in the core engineering sectors.

Graduates seem to lack higher-order thinking skills, analyzing, evaluating and creating.

Huge demand from core engineering industries for practical engineers with hands on experience.

Sunrise industries of Aerospace, Defence and Electronics need thousands of skilled engineers for design as well as manufacturing.

Very few training schools for engineers in core engineering disciplines, especially electronics and aerospace engineering design.

None possesses robust processes, documentation and project management.

Practicing engineers need of the hour

Speaking to One India on the occasion, Narayan said that Drona is a logical solution to his four-decade-plus experience as an entrepreneur. “What we need today is practicing engineers. We are offering a holistic exposure to engineering.

In the aerospace and defence sector, there are very few schools in India to prepare engineers to get ready for the opportunity of Make in India,” Narayan said. Cleared by the Centre for Military Airworthiness Certification (CEMILAC), Radel has been offering system design, CAD/CAM services, design and development of airborne and ground support equipment, documentation support, development of LRUs, ground test equipment and obsolescence management for aerospace, defense and related OEM industries.

The delivering unit that fires rockets on Jaguar fighter is one of the many projects the company has executed. It has also contributed for programmes like the Advanced Light Helicopter (ALH) Dhruv, Light Combat Aircraft (LCA) Tejas and Sukhoi (Su-30 MKI). “The Make in India vision of Prime Minister Modi is a welcome move and it will re-write the research, development and manufacturing concepts in the country. But for Make in India’s success, we need skilled and smart engineers.

A holistic exposure to engineering is the key,” says Raj Narayan. Skill the nation and not kill the nation: Vidyashankar M N Vidyashankar, President, India Electronics & Semiconductor Association (IESA), said that India will have to create over 120 million jobs in the near future. “Make in India is the key, but adding engineers into the market without empowering them is dangerous.

If we don’t skill the nation, we are going to kill the nation,” Vidyashankar, a retired IAS officer who had served with the Karnataka government said. Citing a global study, Vidyashankar said that by 2020, if India’s doesn’t take care of the echo system in the electronic segment, then it would overtake the crude oil import.

Unique features of Mission Drona

Promises to create skilled engineers in the fields of electronics, aviation, and aerospace and defence sectors.
Offers a unique Apprenternship (Apprentice-Intern) programme providing fresh engineers with training in design and manufacturing, with mentoring from veterans from the industry.
Trainees are provided with hands-on work experience and exposure to live projects.
A six-month project related ‘Campus2Career’ holistic programme includes training in soft skills.
Other courses offered are a short 3-week course and 3-day introductory workshops on current technology topics.

Adani Group Wants to Capitalise on ‘Booming’ Indian Aerospace and Defence Sector; But Do We Have the Skills?

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The original article appeared on IBTimes

Indian multinational conglomerate Adani Group is reportedly soon expected to make an entry into the growing Indian Aerospace and Defence sector. The Gujarat-based MNC “is quietly evaluating a foray into defence and aerospace production.”

The report suggested that the Adani group could venture into helicopter manufacturing sector. ET reported that Adani executives led by Karan Adani, the elder son of billionaire group chairman Gautam Adani, have met with representatives of large overseas defence companies to explore tie-ups for manufacturing a range of defence equipment.

The Adani Group is the latest among large Indian MNCs to set foot into the defence and aerospace sector. Under the Modi government, with a view that the Indian Aerospace and Defence sector will note a phenomenal growth, several companies have recently entered the rising market.Recently reports had emerged that the Reliance Group is planning to enter the defence and aerospace sector. Similarly there also have been reports that Tatas, Mahindra & Mahindra and Larsen & Toubro are also expected to beef up their presence in the Indian Aerospace and Defence sector.

While the Indian Aerospace and Defence sector is expected to grow at a phenomenal rate, industry experts have raised concerns on the acute lack of skilled professionals for the sector. Rajiv Pratap Rudy, Minister of State for skill development and entrepreneurship, back in February had observed that the Indian aerospace sector would need at least one million skilled workmen in next 10 years.

But the biggest drawback according to Aspiring Minds Report 2014 is that “Only a shocking 4 to 7% of engineers are actually fit for jobs in the core engineering sectors”.

G Raj Narayan, Founder & MD of the Radel Group and Chief Mentor of DRONA – a finishing school for engineers — is of the opinion that engineering students, who wish to enter the Indian Aerospace and Defence sector must be given more practical training.

“Aerospace & Defence sector in India is likely to grow ten folds by 2025 opening up diverse career opportunities. But the drawback is not many engineers in the country has the requisite skills or a prior hands on training,” Narayan noted.

“It is imperative that the educational institutes expose students to practical training during the course module on global lines making them competent enough to handle the challenges later,” he added.

Job-Ready From Day One

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The original article appeared in The Statesman

About 1.5 million engineers graduated from more than 3,500 engineering colleges across India in 2014, but how many of them are really employable in the core industries?

One of the studies (Aspiring Minds, Report 2014) says that only a shocking four to seven per cent of them are actually fit for jobs in the core engineering sectors. An earlier study by the World Bank (2010) showed that employers were not satisfied with the fresh engineering graduates they recruited. Graduates seemed to lack higher order thinking skills: analysing, evaluating and creating.

It is this gap between the existing education system and the actual industry requirement that needs to be met. The sunrise industries of aerospace, defence and electronics need thousands of skilled engineers for design as well as manufacture. Today, while we find many training institutes for software, even computer hardware and networking, there are very few training schools for engineers in core disciplines, especially electronics and aerospace engineering design, and none that include robust processes, documentation and project management.

Currently, the Radel Group has embarked on a novel initiative for the engineering fraternity aimed at mentoring and training them in a real industrial environment on live projects to make them industry-ready. The Drona School of Engineering Practice is a timely and unique initiative that focuses on creating skilled engineers, especially for the electronics, aerospace and defence sectors.

There are several areas where the “Apprenternship” programme offered by Drona differs from other training programmes. The most important one is the mentorship provided by veterans of industry and personal guidance from one of the most respected inventors of India. Another key differentiator is the hands-on work experience and exposure to live projects. The student gets an insight into the design and development cycle of defence and aerospace systems that meet global industry standards of performance, reliability and efficiency. The graduate is trained in systematic quality analysis and documentation processes that are essential for a manufacturing industry, especially in the A&D sector.

The “Apprentern” is provided soft-skills training and a working knowledge of how an industry operates. A fresh engineering graduate who opts for the Drona programme at Radel goes through a complete transformation of his/her thought process, through which critical, analytical and innovative skills blossom.

Training is provided in written and oral communication skills, business etiquette and time management. The engineer emerges at the end of the course as a confident and competent young and dynamic professional, with enhanced communication skills — in effect, industry-ready. Every industrialist is aware of the time, cost and effort of training fresh engineers. In most organisations, the first few months are spent in training new recruits, with literally no output. The Drona programme takes on the initial training effort of the industry and provides the employer with a trained engineer, ready for the job, so that the employer gets productivity from the new engineer right from day one.

The intensive six-month holistic programme, “Campus2Career”, offers several skilling programmes in embedded systems, avionics, electronics design and related domains comprising all aspects that are required to make a fresh engineer job-ready. The aspiring trainee can select from a variety of subject modules that have combinations of embedded software, embedded electronics design, avionics, mechanical Cad and PCB designs, technical documentation and project management, apart from a basic introduction to various facets of industry (production, planning, admin, HR, etc) and, importantly, soft skills such as verbal and written communication, time management and business etiquette.

The first session of Drona’s “Campus2Career” starts from 1 July 2015.

Creating a generation of Design Engineers for Make In India

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Core engineering skill is what every employer in an engineering industry looks for, in a fresh engineering graduate. Most freshers applying for jobs in this sector however, falter at the very first step – the screening test. Many cannot answer even the simplest high-school level question in physics or mathematics. Those that clear this small hurdle, fall at the next – the interview. Again, simple questions stump them. Yet, when questioned about the details, they are not able to explain anything.

Finally most of them admit that the project work was just bought out from small institutions or individuals who make a business out of it. The candidate who is finally hired by the company needs extensive training for 3 to 6 months, before any useful work is produced. Till then, there is zero output from the new employee. This story is true for many engineering industries. This is the kind of talent gap that they face.

As is well-known, the root cause for this is the over-emphasis of our education system, even at the undergraduate level, on rote-learning and theory, at the expense of practical application. Ultimately, this is counterproductive, because an engineer is basically one who has to apply theoretical principles in practice.

Tweet this:“While skilling the technician is important, creating a new generation of product designers is imperative”.

So, what is the solution? The student is helpless, as he is a prisoner of the system. So too are the teachers. It is not easy to overhaul the engineering education system, but solutions have to be found, to unlock the potential of these ‘rough diamonds’ – our engineering graduates, so that our goal of self-reliance in manufacturing through ‘Make in India’ can be achieved.

‘Make in India’ is about manufacturing our own products with IPRs owned by Indian companies. It is not about just manufacturing foreign products ‘under license’. Not long ago, we had Indian companies manufacturing ‘Indian TVs’ with component kits imported from abroad. But now, you have Korean and Japanese brands selling their TVs in India, but almost completely manufactured in China. Hence, the need of the hour is for Indian companies to learn to design and manufacture our own products.

So, how do we create a generation of design engineers that can produce innovative new products? Engineering students need to learn the practical application of each theoretical concept, and need inputs on multiple aspects related to the design and manufacture of even the simplest equipment. The very process of thinking, conceptualization, and designing elegant, reliable, rugged and power efficient products, whether in embedded software or electronic hardware, how to ‘marry’ the two, and adopting a well-documented design process, making sure that every aspect of the product life cycle is covered.

While these concepts can be explained at brief workshops, it is only through actual hands-on work on a live project that a student or fresh engineer can learn and understand the practical implications of each of them.

While skilling the technician is important, creating a new generation of product designers is imperative. Only this can ensure a sustainable and meaningful ‘Make in India’. Radel’s new venture ‘Drona School of Engineering practice’ does precisely this.