Friday Dec 13, 2024
Friday Dec 13, 2024
Monday, 10 June 2019 00:52 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}
The Industrial Development Board of Ceylon (IDB) which is now in the threshold of celebrating its Golden Jubilee, this year has taken initiative to introduce the Robotic Application Centre for Industries in Sri Lanka (RACI). The Centre for the Application of Robotic will henceforth be referred to as CAR.
The CAR is now known as the Fourth Industrial Revolution. The first three revolutions in the industrial world were steam and water power, electricity and assembly lines, and Information Technology (computerisation).
But with the fast advancement of science, industrialists in the world found that humans refused to deal with the three D’s, which is what is dirty, dangerous and difficult. But still, those needed to be attended to for the benefit of humanity and the solution was Robotic Application. This revolution was unprecedentedly very successful. Hence there was a big demand for the introduction of Robotic Application for the local industries.
With this in view, a conference was organised by the IDB Engineering Department headed by IDB Engineering Director Nishantha Weeratunga and the very first introductory conference was held at the IDB Head Office at Katubedda, Moratuwa on 29 May for the benefit of the industrialists operating far and wide in the country. The local industrialists were clamouring for the introduction of advanced technology to compete with international industrialists especially those operating within Asia.
The IDB, the haven of the local industrialists responding positively to the great demand of the industrialists of this island nation, has found it fit to introduce CAR to coincide with the IDB Golden Jubilee due to be celebrated this year.
Nishantha Weeratunga, who shoulders heavy responsibility in this regard, was very keen to take the initiative to introduce the RACI in Sri Lanka, with the support and guidance of the IDB Directors’ Board and blessings of the Ministry.
In his introductory note, Prof. Rohan Munasinghe of the Katubedda University said: “Although the Robotic Applications Technology looked new to Sri Lanka, it has been in use in many parts of the industrial world hence what we have to do was to use the experience of those industrialists and move on and Sri Lankans need do nothing to experiment as already we know the recipe to use.
Prof. Munasinghe observed that to some extent we have been using this technology but not to the expected extent. The objective of the conference was to show the industrialists how they could use to the maximum, depending on the nature and requirement of the industries, to increase the efficiency of the selected areas by the respective industries.
“We, of the Moratuwa University, could give the necessary guidelines working in collaboration of the IDB and the tools of this nature makes industries easy to perform,” he said.
Those present at the conference were addressed by IDB Director General P.L.U. Rathnamalala, Prof. Rohan Munasinghe, NAITA Director General Eng. P.R. Rodrigo, Nishantha Weeratunga and Marketing and Media Director Sarath Udayasiri.
