NEW DELHI: The Indian Army is working on streamlining and automisation of its maintenance response to improve operational readiness. The readiness state of entire equipment inventory including the vehicles, drones, missiles, tanks, night vision devices, radars, rifles, helicopters down to the cables will be available at a click for the Commanders.
Lt Gen Anil Kapoor, Director General, Electronics and Mechanical Engineers (EME) Corps said, “We are working on a software that will present all critical readiness states at a click. It will show the state of serviceability, mileage, the next service due and so on thus providing the commanders' ability to prepare better for the operations and exercises.”
Software Beehive will connect Army’s 2,000 different types of workshops all across India. Every decision-maker in the chain will be able to track equipment and their readiness in real-time. The Army conducts exercises all year round in varied terrains which include deserts with extreme high temperatures, super-high altitude with the temperature plummeting up to minus 50 degrees to marshy areas thus the maintenance of these equipment to keep the army moving becomes utmost important.
Beehive will arm the commanders with ability to forecast requirements, allocate and relocate vehicles in different theatres and will help in the procurement planning too, said Lt Gen Kapoor.
The Corps of EME keep the army mobile and functional with its responsibilities right from the design, development, trial, inspection and refit of weapon systems and equipment. They also provide technical advice to units and conduct recovery operations in peace and war.
“The process will take about a year to complete and is being done in 8 modules. We are going to first do alpha and beta testing, then will go for cyber proofing of it by the Army cyber group after which it will be implemented across,” said Lt Gen Kapoor. Of the eight modules, one is done and the second is underway. It will be completed by October 2020.
What it can track