Keeping Atmanirbharta in focus, IIT Kanpur is hosting International Conference on Precision, Micro, Meso, and Nano Engineering, COPEN12 from 8 – 10 Dec, 2022

Kanpur : The Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Kanpur is organizing the International Conference on Precision, Micro, Meso, and Nano Engineering, COPEN12 from 8 – 10 December, 2022. COPEN is a premiere conference for the manufacturing community in India. COPEN12 is the 12th edition of the conference, and the first time that IIT Kanpur is hosting it.
With rapid development in the fields of Precision, Micro, Meso, and Nano Engineering, the future holds growing scope for India to become atmanirbhar (self-reliant) in these domains. These key engineering domains contribute largely to the fields of affordable healthcare, space exploration, defence, aerospace, and allied areas. The conference emphasizes on seeking deliberations for the advancement of research in these areas.
Organizing Chairperson, Professor J. Ramkumar, from the Department of Mechanical Engineering, IIT Kanpur, opened the inaugural session of the conference with a Welcome Note on December 8th, 2022. He stated that COPEN12 follows a new modality that is intended to ensure higher quality scientific exchanges.
The conference caters to three broad themes – Precision Engineering, Manufacturing Processes, and Measurements and Smart Manufacturing. COPEN12’s goal is to bring the young Indian manufacturing research community together, and one way to do this was to have early-career faculty members give talks at the conference.
The conference received a total of 215 submissions, out of which, 175 have been accepted. More than 300 delegates from the industry, international community, government R&D labs, faculty, and students are attending this edition to present more than 100 papers and around 40 posters at the conference. This includes 15 invited talks from distinguished technical experts from India and abroad, as well as three keynote addresses from key industry personnel, where they would present the problems and deliberate on finding solutions.
There are three different presentation tracks available: an alpha-track for presenting posters that showcase early-stage research and development; a beta-track for presenting 4-page papers that showcase research that has reached some maturity; and a delta-track for presenting improvements to research that has already been published in reputable international journals within the past year.
Professor Abhay Karandikar, Director IIT Kanpur, was present at the inaugural session and gave an inspirational talk on the significance of manufacturing in the modern era and the role eminent researchers play in the process. He said, “The manufacturing sector has been witnessing rapid changes with the advent of newer and better technologies in the recent past. The future holds multi-dimensional opportunities in manufacturing where India would play a vital role. With significant research in Precision, Micro, Meso, and Nano Engineering from our researchers, India could be atmanirbhar soon and also a leader in manufacturing technologies. I believe this conference would give a diverse platform for the delegates and attendees to deliberate on the challenges and solutions to accelerate the objectives of Skill India and Make in India initiatives, especially in the field of manufacturing.”
Professor Suhas Joshi, Director IIT Indore, was the Chief Guest for the inaugural session, and provided some insightful commentary on the development of manufacturing technologies all over the world over the course of the past half century. Professor Sameer Khandekar, Head of the Department of Mechanical Engineering, IIT Kanpur emphasised the importance of precision in the process of designing manufacturing systems.
The inaugural session was concluded by Organizing Secretary, Professor Mohit Law, with a Vote of Thanks.
Invited speakers for COPEN12 include – Shri Sham H. Arjunwadkar, CEO, Foundry Geometrix and Mentor, NCTS – IIF, India; Dr. Vishwas Puttige, Amace solutions Pvt. Ltd.; Prof. Satish Bukkapatnam, Texas A&M University, USA; Prof. Murali Sundaram, University of Cincinnati, USA; Dr. Jaydeep Karandikar, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, USA; Dr. Koushik Viswanathan, IISc Bangalore; Dr. Sunny Zafar, IIT Mandi; Dr. Sajan Kapil, IIT Guwahati; Dr. Suvradip Mullick, IIT Bhubaneswar; Dr. Venkata Naga Vamsi Munagala, IIT Kharagpur; Dr. Afzaal Ahmed, IIT Palakkad; Dr. Deepak Marla, IIT Bombay; Dr. Dinesh Setti, IIT Palakkad; Dr. Chandrakant Kumar Nirala, IIT Ropar; Dr. Madhu Vadali, IIT Gandhinagar; Dr. Ramesh Kuppuswamy, University of Cape Town, South Africa; and Dr. Shiva S, IIT Jammu.
Prof. U.S. Dixit from IIT Guwahati is coordinating a workshop on “Underwater Precision Manufacturing”, while Prof. G.L. Samuel from IIT Madras is coordinating a workshop on “Recent advances in Metrology and Measurements”.
The COPEN12 conference is being generously supported by Science and Engineering Research Board (SERB), DRDO, BARC, ISRO, UPCST, IIT Guwahati, CMTI, Lohia Corp, among others.