Diversified contract manufacturers, Aequs and KLE Technological University (KLE Tech) have joint forces with a view to establishing the Aequs Innovation Centre (AIC). It is a knowledge centre true to its name that is known to develop innovative products for some of the biggest clientele in the Toys and Consumer Durable Goods markets. 

"AIC will function as an innovation ecosystem and incubation platform for accelerated product development while leveraging the joint capabilities and infrastructure of Aequs and KLE. The objective is to speed up the idea-to-prototype journey for these emerging industries in India's manufacturing journey," said Aravind Melligeri, Chairman & CEO of Aequs, during the launch event at AIC today.  

Further, adding material to the knowledge shared, he quoted, "The AIC seeks to ease a long-felt pain of enterprises, particularly in the hinterland, which faces challenges in developing products from scratch with limited expertise and resources".  

"This new industry-academia initiative will harness the unconstrained minds of young engineers and academia. The Aequs Innovation Centre is in line with KLE Tech's belief that higher education institutions need to continually innovate to meet the demand of global economies by developing their capacity in research and development," said Dr Ashok Shettar, Vice Chancellor, KLE Technological University.  

Planned to be fitted at the Industry 4.0 Lab built by KLE Tech University, the AIC will leverage Aequs' knowledge and proficiency to train engineers and make use of their expertise in cutting-edge technologies and product design & development, and benchmarking processes in the industrial ecosystem. This will result in the manufacturing of top-notch Consumer Durable Goods to bring in maximum brand satisfaction.   

With that being said, direct employment will be at large as the AIC anticipates employing around one hundred-plus engineer and students in the first five years.