Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) announced on Wednesday the launch of the Industrial Autonomy and Engineering Laboratory at its Sahyadri Park campus in Pune. The IT giant presented this laboratory as the first 'lights-out factory lab' in India, designed to promote AI-driven manufacturing.
The term 'lights-out factory' refers to a production facility where autonomous systems operate production lines with minimal human involvement. According to documentation provided by TCS, the new facility includes a fully robotic battery pack assembly line. This operational multi-stage setup will allow manufacturers to create prototypes, test, and scale AI-based production systems while mitigating implementation risks.
The company specified that the laboratory models the process of workflow automation in self-optimizing factories by integrating digital twins, robotics, industrial AI, factory management systems, and real-time intelligent analytics. Sreenivas Chakravarty, Global Head and Vice President of Industrial Autonomy and Engineering at TCS, stated: 'With our state-of-the-art TCS Industrial Autonomy & Engineering Lab Lights-Out Factory, we are advancing TCS's vision for creating AI-centric manufacturing systems. We have built a facility that can help clients turn their aspiration for humanless production into reality. The laboratory clearly demonstrates how the Human + AI model can drive enterprises from digitized operations to increasingly autonomous production systems.'
The Pune laboratory will support various industrial use cases, including predictive maintenance, automated quality control, real-time process optimization, human-machine collaboration, and autonomous manufacturing operations.