Ola’s upcoming EV factory in Tamil Nadu to deploy 5,000 robots

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New Delhi: Ride-hailing major Ola on Wednesday said it has partnered with Siemens to leverage the latter’s technology at its upcoming electric vehicle manufacturing facility in Tamil Nadu.

In December, Ola had announced inking an agreement with the Tamil Nadu government to invest Rs 2,400 crore for setting up its first electric scooter factory in the state.

“Ola’s factory will be built on Industry 4.0 principles and will be the most advanced manufacturing facility in the country. It will have almost 5,000 robots deployed across various functions,” a statement said.

As part of the partnership, Ola will have access to Siemens’ integrated ‘Digital Twin’ design and manufacturing solutions to digitalise and validate product and production ahead of actual operations, it added.

A digital twin is a virtual representation of a physical product that can help understand and predict the physical counterpart’s performance characteristics. Digital twins are used to simulating, predict, and optimise the product and production system before investing in physical prototypes.

“The factory will be artificial intelligence-powered with Ola’s proprietary AI Engine and tech stack deeply integrated into every aspect of the manufacturing process, continuously self-learning and optimising every aspect of the manufacturing process,” Ola said.

This will provide unprecedented control, automation and quality to the entire operations, especially with Ola’s implementation of cyber-physical and advanced IoE systems, it added.

Ola said the entire material handling at its factory would be fully automated for maximum efficiency – right from raw materials to materials movement inside the factory, to the storage, to the finished scooter rolling off the production lines and being loaded onto trucks.

“These advanced technology systems will seamlessly blend with Ola’s workforce to provide the perfect synergy of humans and machines working in tandem to build the most efficient production system and deliver the highest quality products for Ola’s customers,” it added.

The factory is expected to generate almost 10,000 jobs and, with an initial capacity of 2 million units a year. It will serve as Ola’s global manufacturing hub catering to its customers in India as well as key markets across Europe, UK, Latin America and ANZ.

“Ola is delighted to partner with Siemens to build the most advanced manufacturing facility in the country. This will be our global hub and will set a benchmark in quality, scale and efficiency, demonstrating India’s capability to build world class cutting edge products,” Ola Chairman and Group Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Bhavish Aggarwal said. Sunil Mathur, Managing Director and CEO of Siemens India, said the company is a global leader in Industry 4.0.

“We are proud to contribute to Ola’s vision of creating a factory of the future using our automation and digitalisation expertise to ensure the highest levels of productivity and quality while enabling an agile and flexible production process,” he added.