Alliance University, Bangalore signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Wipro3D, the metal additive manufacturing (AM) business of Wipro Infrastructure Engineering (WIN), for a collaborative MBA Degree program in ‘Smart Manufacturing and Digital Leadership.’

The recent impetus to the digital transformation in multitudinous enterprises around the globe led to an increased demand for a workforce with competency and skills in smart manufacturing. It is the need of the hour, especially in sectors such as aeronautical, automotive, electronics, health care, and renewable energy. These sectors accentuate the need for process automation and manufacturing digitalization to ensure high resilience, enhancement in operational efficiency, predictive analytics in maintenance, and mitigation of outages. They demand the right mix of competencies in digital manufacturing technologies, business management, and implementation methods. As the conventional BTech and MBA programs do not embed this critical competency among students, Alliance University, in collaboration with Wipro3D, has embarked upon this new program in smart manufacturing.

The involvement of the industry partner Wipro3D from conceptualization to delivery stage enables the students to gain insight into real-world application of additive engineering, data analytics, and cloud practices at various stages of product development. Experiential learning methods, the development of solutions for the industry-defined problems, and individual and team-based projects are among the program's distinguishing features. Digital Transformation, Additive Manufacturing, Disruptive Technology Management, Logistics 4.0 for Reconfiguring Supply Chains, Information Security Governance, Manufacturing Operations Strategy, Entrepreneurship & New Venture Creation are some of this program's custom-developed courses.

Upon completing the program, the students would earn a regular MBA degree from Alliance University and certification from Wipro3D. Due to burgeoning interest among national and global enterprises in transforming conventional manufacturing into a smart practice, it is envisioned that the students graduating from this program would be able to eke out high-impact careers in industrial and strategic sectors.

The MoU signing ceremony took place in the presence of Dr. U. Chandrasekhar, Program Director – Addwize, Advanced Technology Centre; Mr. Ajinkya Bhosale, Manager of Wipro3D Bangalore; and Dr. Anubha Singh, Vice-Chancellor; Dr. Nivedita Mishra, Registrar; Dr. Samir Ranjan, Associate Pro Vice-Chancellor (Academics & Research); Dr. Michael James Barnes, Dean –School of Business; Dr. Rojalin Pradhan, Program Director – BBA; Dr. Sukanya Kundu, Area Chair - Operations Management, School of Business; Dr. Harinath Aireddy, Associate Professor - College of Engineering and Design, of Alliance University.