Project Beehive, which seeks to achieve greater automation of the Indian Army Corps of Electronics and Mechanical Engineers (EME) and connect all its workshops onto an integrated smart network endowed with real-time data analytics capabilities, is likely to be up and running by October 2020.

The automated platform will make information on army equipment available in a hierarchical fashion at the click of a button, said EME director general Lt Gen Anil Kapoor.

“Automation of the corps will give us a lot of advantages. Currently, under WASP (Workshop Honeybees), workshops have been automated. And, as part of Project Beehive, these WASPs or workshops would then sit on a centralised ‘beehive’ - a massive integrated network in New Delhi, from which we would draw honey (data),” he said.

Background

The Corps of EME is an arms and service branch of the army and its various roles include repair of military equipment and maintenance of their operational fitness.

Established in May 1943 as the Corps of Indian Electrical and Mechanical Engineers (IEME), it provided stellar service during World War II. After Independence, it came to be known as the Corps of Electrical and Mechanical Engineers (EME).

Since then, the corps has changed considerably in role and size and contributed effectively during the 1962, 1965 and 1971 wars as well as Operations Pawan, Meghdoot, Vijay and Parakram.

With the proliferation of high technology and modernisation of army, the corps was re-christened as the Corps of Electronics and Mechanical Engineers on January 1, 2001.

Continuing the odyssey of enhancing professionalism, the corps has spearheaded management of technology transition as a step towards imbibing state-of-the-art technology. The programme is organised to co-partner the users and improve threshold levels of technology absorption and assimilation.

The corps has also been effectively co-partnering with PSUs and the private sector to form a consortium for achieving self-sufficiency by indigenisation and effective in-house research and development.

The corps continues to serve in Antarctica. The EME team continues to maintain the lifeline of the Maitri Station under difficult and hazardous environment.

Project Beehive

The work on WASPs (Workshop Honeybees) has already been going on for a year now. It will be working module by module on the overall framework. And, the Beehive is expected to be up and running by next year.

There are about 2,000 army workshops across the country and each of those will be connected to the centralised data network having eight echelons.

“This project began with a proof of concept. Then the alpha or beta level testing comes, following which it will be sent to Army Cyber Group for cyber clearance, and once we have that go ahead, it will move towards an army data centre. And, then we will further try to scale it up once we have achieved it,” said Lt Gen Kapoor.

The army has partnered with the ministry of electronics and information technology (MeitY) and team of officers along with hand-picked coders are working on the project.

“The centralised network will allow to access data about any equipment we have across the country in real-time, and it would also have the capability to analyse that data, and say tell about which equipment is due for maintenance, so it will allow data mining,” said Lt Gen Kapoor.

The real-time database will include the condition and status of each of its approximately 30 lakh pieces of equipment in 2,000 categories.