The colours of the Indian Army’s Corps of Electronics and Mechanical Engineers. Photo: indianarmy.nic.in

NEW DELHI

13 October 2019 22:55 IST

Project Beehive for 2,000 workshops

The Army’s Corps of Electronics and Mechanical Engineers (EME) has launched a major initiative under Project Beehive for automation of the entire Corps to enable real-time monitoring and response of its 2,000 workshops across the country.

“It will take about a year. We have the proof of concept which we are going to first alpha and beta test. Then we will give it to the Army cyber group for cyber proofing, after which it will be implemented across,” said Lt. Gen. Anil Kapoor, Director-General, EME.

The Corps observes October 15 as its Raising Day.

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Eight modules

The Corps is segregated into eight modules at different levels, of which one module is done and the second is under way. Operation Beehive was launched on September 1 this year and “will be completed by October 2020,” Lt. Gen. Kapoor said.

The 2,000 workshops across India will be connected into the beehive and each of them will be able to track their equipment and readiness in realtime, Lt. Gen. Kapoor said. “For instance, on a click, all critical readiness states is displayed. The equipment, how much mileage was done, when is the next service due and so on. It also allows easy forecast of requirements,” he added.

The Army is collaborating with the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) on this and EME officers were part of the product development. Lt. Gen. Kapoor said officers were part of the development process so that “at no step we are found wanting.”

“We want to get out of the vendor lock-in,” he observed.

Systems upgrade

The Army had earlier automated its workshops under WASP (Workshop Honey bees) which is now being upgraded to be on same level with Beehive. “WASP has been in existence for two years now. We are now upgrading it now to make it contemporary,” Lt. Gen. Kapoor said.

Giving a glimpse of the magnitude of the task and the workforce that needs to be integrated, Lt. Gen. Kapoor said there are over 2000 equipment types in the Army of different magnitudes and vehicles alone constitute about 80 types. The entire depth of equipment is 30 lakh.

The Corps has a wide ranging mandate from refit, inspections, trials, recovery and refurbishing of the Army’s weapons, equipment and systems in addition to design and development of weapon systems in collaboration with development agencies. With the level of automation progressively going up, the Corps of EME is “preparing for a leaner workforce.”