#brilliantfactory

The Heaviest Haul: New Locomotives Are Putting This Indian State On The Fast Track

The Indian town of Marhaura isn’t on many tourist destination lists.

Located on the western edge of Bihar, one of the country’s most densely populated and least developed states, the town has an economy that’s based largely on harvesting mangos, bananas and sugar cane from plantations that fade out into a curtain of pale haze that never quite lifts. Just over 60 percent know how to read. “Bihar happens to be one of the least industrialized areas in India,” says Nalin Jain, the CEO of GE’s Transportation and Aviation businesses in the country.

Yet Jain is building a high-tech “brilliant factory” on the edge of town designed to produce a fleet of new locomotives for Indian Railways. It’s a heavy haul. The project involves moving a mountain of earth to raise the 67-acre lot where the plant will stand by 9 feet — the area is prone to flooding — but also installing basic infrastructure such as bathrooms for girls in local schools so that they can attend class and apply for jobs. “We aren’t building a factory on an island,” he says, “we are creating a whole ecosystem that will lift the economy in that state.”

Last year, Indian Railways (IR) awarded GE Transportation a contract to build 1,000 new diesel-electric locomotives. These next-generation machines will start the process of upgrading the IR’s 5,000 older engines — mostly from the 1970s and 1980s — that currently haul freight over its railroad network. The state-run railroad operator, which holds a 26 percent stake in the joint venture, had already had Marhaura in mind. It typically opens new factories in underserved parts of the country. For example, GE also is building a maintenance shop for the new locomotives in Roza, Uttar Pradesh, a town in another populous state racing to catch up to the rest of the country. France’s Alstom, which won a large contract from IR for electric locomotives at the same time as GE, is building in Bihar. “They want these contracts to be catalysts for economic development,” Jain says.

We are in the midst of another manufacturing revolution, due in part to a number of factors which are helping drive innovation in the space. While GE may know a lot about the topic, we understand that there are others that may know more. So to delve into how this revolution was started and how we proceed (and to make ourselves smarter), we gathered partners, entrepreneurs and thought leaders to talk all-things advanced manufacturing at the third installment of our GE Ventures Insight Series, held at San Francisco’s The NWBLK.

Kicking things off were Beth Comstock and Karen Kerr (GE Ventures’ new Senior Managing Director of Advanced Manufacturing) who talked about the opportunities as we forge into this new era of manufacturing, as well as the trends that are forcing change. Beth touched on GE’s efforts in advanced manufacturing, while Karen shared her view on design and big data being two main drivers for innovation.Karen then introduced our panel:

Pictured above are Rick Arthur (GE Global Research), Rodney Brooks (Rethink Robotics), Saul Griffith (Otherlab), Russ Muzzolini (Nanosatisfi), and David Dornfeld (UC Berkeley) who discussed the state of manufacturing now and what we can do make the manufacturing revolution successful.

It was a lively discussion with a lot of learnings to take away:

Moore’s Law is evening the playing field as the price of machines, robotics and materials decrease dramatically.

Design has changed everything, from materials, to functionality, to improving processes. Great design leads to big efficiency.

Speaking of big, data is informing everything up and down the supply chain, giving us better insight to how we make things, allowing us to optimize operations. Big data is making the brilliant factory.

As the need for more things to be made and fabricated quickly increases, manufacturing services are popping up – something we’ve never seen before. This in turn will boost the industry and create new jobs.

Big thanks to all our panelists for participating and to The NWBLK for hosting.