British aircraft engine maker Rolls-Royce and software major Tata Consultancy Services said they were expanding their partnership to “exploit future data innovation opportunities.”
This included making better decisions through using analytics to mine hidden insights, patterns and unknown correlations from large chunks of data taken from products, engineering and manufacturing facilities of Rolls-Royce. Some of the applications include engine health monitoring, fuel efficiency and predicting the issues in an aircraft.
Neil Crockett, chief digital officer at Roll-Royce said the company was building its own data analytics and artificial intelligence capabilities. But, he said, the partnership with TCS was going to allow the firm to create those abilities quickly. “We want to focus on being a trusted innovation partner for our customers.... We don’t want to become a digital technology company ourselves.”
TCS said the partnership would help Rolls-Royce accelerate its ‘Digital First’ vision, improve existing services and create new areas of growth. It said the digital transformation for Rolls-Royce would be supported by the company’s ‘Connected Universe Platform,’ a platform-as-a-service. “It will allow Rolls-Royce to more easily develop, deploy and launch products and services... quickly,” said Rajesh Gopinathan, CEO, TCS.
The company said as part of the agreement, it would also provide Internet of Things (IoT) capability, where devices communicate with each other intelligently. The firm said that the IoT digital platform capability would allow data to be captured, shared and analysed more rapidly across Rolls-Royce so that new products can be developed quickly.
Data analytics hub
TCS and Rolls-Royce also said they would be unveiling an analytics and agile applications capability hub in Bengaluru. “Bengaluru has become a key pillar in our digital strategy going forward,” said Ben Story, strategic marketing director, Rolls-Royce.
He said Rolls-Royce had more than 1,300 employees in the country working on ‘some of the most advanced technologies’ and helping build engines of the future.
TCS said it had also opened a customer delivery centre in Derby, U.K., dedicated to servicing Rolls-Royce. It will provide support from its global delivery centres and Rolls-Royce sites across the U.K., Germany, the Nordics, Canada, Singapore and India.
