CENTRAL FACILITY :: Central Workshop

A Little History

The Central Workshop was intended as a core facility, to carry out all mechanical fabrication works required at IIT Kanpur. Down the years, the Workshop underwent changes in character, as well as in the place it occupies in the perception of the people it was meant to serve. Several departmental workshops were established in the intervening years, reducing the importance of this central facility, yet it continues to serve a large cross-section of this Institute.

Prior to 1987, the Central Workshop was deemed to be a single section, under a single Workshop Superintendent, although it was subdivided into four specialised units, namely, the Machine Shop, the Precision Shop, the Fitting Shop, and the Carpentry Shop. In addition to the four sections, there were three "cells" viz., the Millwright Cell (for mechanical repairs of machines), the Job-Receiving Cell and the Store-cum-Office. A member of the faculty served as the Faculty Adviser and the Dean, R & D, was directly responsible for administrative decisions. The division of the Central Workshop into constituent and specialised units, after the fashion in Industry, was a mistake; it was not recognised, at that time, that jobs in an academic institute are one of a kind.

In 1987, the post of Superintendent was vacated, and the Central Workshop was divided into its four units under separate administrative control. Each of these units had a Technical Officer as its In-Charge, with the seniormost being the first among equals. The sinecure of Faculty Adviser was abolished and a faculty member was appointed as the Head, Central Workshop.

The Present

In July 1997, the first move was made towards correcting the historical error of organising the Central Workshop into four separate specialised units. The Central Workshop is now one single unit, although the various earlier units continue to occupy their separate spaces because of the difficulties and expenses of moving large machines physically. There is both a need and the desire to alter the physical layout, and it is hoped that it will be done at the first opportunity. When that happens, the Central Workshop will, hopefully, be the lean, efficient service organisation that it was meant to be. At present, a single Technical Officer is In-Charge. The Head is at the apex of the administrative structure, and the whole section is directly under the Deputy Director.

From its hey day, the staff strength in the Central Workshop has been declining steadily. From ninety five in 1966, the strength came down to forty six in 1997 and now stands at thirty three. In April 1997, the management presented a staffing plan to the Deputy Director, envisaging a stable strength of twenty one from the year 2006.

The major facilities in the Central Workshop consist of machining, carpentry, blacksmithy and welding. In addition, a painter on the staff is deputed to do painting and polishing work of equipment related to academic activities. The kind of machining work that can be done consists of turning, milling, planing, grinding, abrasive cutting of hard materials, and grinding of cutting tools. The lathes vary in specifications ranging from 300mm bed length and 100mm swing to 3.45m bed length and up to 600mm job diameter. A special machine is a micro-drilling machine, which drills tiny holes of diameters from 0.1 mm to 0.3 mm, encompassing approximately 150 different diameter sizes. There is also an engraving machine with a pantograph ratio that can be varied from 1:16 to 1:2; this machine can make graduated dials for measuring instruments (it has also been used to make brass plaques for presentation).

Of the total work that the Central Workshop does, a large proportion consists of final year B.Tech. projects of the Mechanical Engineering Department. In the financial year 1997-98, 541 job orders were executed. These comprised B.Tech. projects of the ME Department (31%), other undergraduate projects (22%), M.Tech. projects (8%), Ph.D. projects (6%), sponsored projects (2%), faculty research projects (4%), laboratory equipment (10%), work for non-academic sections of the Institute (14%) and miscellaneous items (3%).

User Relations

In the early eighties, the Central Workshop fell from its preeminent position as the core fabricating facility of IIT Kanpur. Part of the reason was administrative failure and the consequent loss of confidence amongst users. Another reason was staff discontent, arising in part from the fact that people tended to take their funded jobs to their own department workshops and brought unpaid work to the Central Workshop (this syndrome continues to compromise staff attitudes in the Central Workshop). In recent times, much effort has been directed towards rebuilding user confidence, and more user-friendly procedures have been instituted. A single-window job-receiving desk is all that an indentor needs to visit, followed by a meeting with the In-Charge, whose office is just across the corridor from the job-receiving desk. The In-Charge provides advice on the technical aspects of the job and also on the drawings (many users are unfamiliar with engineering drawing). Once the job order is placed, the indentor needs to visit only once more, when he comes to collect his job. (Some users, however, prefer to make frequent visits to chase the job, but that is optional!). The In-Charge receives finished jobs on behalf of the user and checks the quality of the work. Finally, the newly designed job order card asks the indentor to indicate the extent of his satisfaction with the job.

The second semester is a period when the Workshop is kept busy with B.Tech. projects. At other times (and, under special circumstances, during the second semester also), potential users are invited to make use of this facility. If project funds are available, payment for work done in the workshop is (obviously!) welcome; this, however, is not essential. The Central Workshop is well working on refurbishing its image as a facility in IIT Kanpur that really works.

For more details contact:

Professor B. N. Banerjee

Department of Mechanical Engineering

IIT Kanpur, Kanpur 208016

Telephone: (0512) 59 7081

e-mail: bnb@iitk.ac.in

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