Centre spends Rs 763 cr to improve job quotient

Visakhapatnam: Centre of Excellence in Maritime and Shipbuilding (CEMS) launched here a few years ago is gearing up to become a hub and spoke model to support work integrated education and training so as to enable successful and smooth post-college transition to employment for young adults/youth.

CEMS is a high-end skill development facility located at Gandhigram (Scindia) established by the Ministry of Ports, Shipping and Waterways at a cost of Rs 763 crore. It specialises in upskilling and reskilling students and professional workforce in Industry 4.0 skills.

The institute will be formally inaugurated here on Wednesday by Union Minister for Ports, Shipping and Waterways Sarbananda Sonowal. CEMS campus in the city has a hostel facility for 200 students. It is equipped with all the hardware and licensed software related to the training courses. It was established in the building of National Ship Design and Research Centre (NSRDC), which later became the venue for functioning of Indian Maritime University (IMU). After IMU shifted to its permanent campus at Sabbavaram on the city outskirts, CEM was set up in the building with the required manpower, systems and software under the prestigious Sagarmala Project to provide skilled manpower as a crucial foundation for Coastal Community Development.

"CEMS is doing a wonderful service in bridging the skill gap between academics and industry requirements," an official pointed out. It provides skilled manpower for manufacturing, shipping, aerospace and automotive sectors. CEMS has state of the art labs in Visakhapatnam and Mumbai.

CEMS focuses extensively on the end-to-end activities involving design, manufacturing, operations, MRO, logistics, factory layout, automation, piping, heating ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC), electrical, pumps and motors. It is equipped with a world-class infrastructure in its labs in Visakhapatnam and Mumbai with cyber-physical infrastructure involving labs in functional domains of learning product design and validation, advanced manufacturing, test and optimisation, dimensional accuracy control system, nesting productivity improvement, hull design, research machine shop, automation, mechatronics, robotics, process instrumentation, virtual reality and hydraulics.