As part of its initiative to expand its AIoT activities in India, the leading supplier of technology and services, Bosch India has transformed its headquarters in Adugodi, Bengaluru, into a new smart campus called Spark.NXT. The nextgen campus was virtually opened by the Prime Minister of India Narendra Modi in the presence of the Chief Minister of Karnataka Basavaraj Bommai and top company officials from Germany and India.
Developed at an investment of about INR 800 crore over the last five years, the campus has come up in the location where there were manufacturing activities to make several products, including a few garage equipment. The new campus has the capacity to house 10,000 associates. The 76-acre site is the company's first smart campus in India and features multiple smart solutions based on sustainability, security, and user experience for associates, visitors, and facility management.
According to Soumitra Bhattacharya, Managing Director, Bosch Limited and President, Bosch Group, India, the Spark.NXT is, 'a curiosity to transition and transform to meet the business expectations of not only grabbing the opportunity but also co-creating the opportunities of the future.' It is broken down into mobility, living, industry, software and sustainability.
Entered India a century ago and incepted as MICO in 1951, and later became Bosch India, the company leveraged its world-class AI, IoT, automation, and digitalisation capabilities to develop its smart campus for a sustainable, self-reliant, and future-ready India. To further enhance its R&D capabilities for the new way of working, it has trained over 10,000 associates through a comprehensive reskilling initiative over the past two years.
Filiz Albrecht, Member of the Board of Management and Director of Industrial Relations at Robert Bosch GmbH, said, “The Spark.NXT campus will provide inspiring working conditions for associates to focus on the development of user-centric innovations for a better quality of life in India.”
Albrecht, who will become the Board Member of Bosch Limited from tomorrow and take responsibility for India from July 1, 2022, further said that Bosch brings together associates from more than 150 different countries as a global player. “We foster a flexible and inclusive working culture that combines authenticity with cultural diversity. With its array of smart solutions, this campus proves our commitment to creating a greener ecosystem. This empowers us to remain an employer of choice while driving sustainability in everything we do,” Albrecht added.
Bhattacharya said that with the new Spark.NXT campus, the company continues to invest in smart and sustainable solutions that are ‘Invented for life’ and supports the Government’s vision for an Atmanirbhar Bharat.”
On asking how Bosch India peruse its suppliers and customers in the carbon-neutral journey, Bhattacharya said, “Our partners are MSMEs and they are very different from Germany (in terms of size). We try ensure that the philosophy is enacted in a manner that they can achieve their goals by running their companies.” He said that the company would not insist on its suppliers achieving carbon neutrality targets. Instead, the company will show them the measures to reduce their carbon footprint. “We do create milestones, as Bosch is a process oriented company. The biggest essence our partners see is continuous training of all what we know, free of cost. We do a very practical way of training,” he said.
Talking on what the company shows to its customers through Spark.Next, Bhattacharya said, on many occasions, the customers have told that Bosch is ahead of the carbon neutrality roadmap. Collaboration is something that the world needs; he called it, “obsessive collaboration with a purpose. It has to be focused; we work very closely to meet their needs and also give whatever we have. We work with our partners to ensure their financial strengths by giving them solutions which they can absorb and use in their journey
Special Initiatives
The company has invested INR 50 crore in reducing energy consumption at the new Adugodi campus over the long term. The campus will meet up to 85% of its total energy needs with in-house solar panels and the purchase of green group captive power. Almost two-thirds of annual domestic water demand at Bosch in India is set to be met through rainwater harvesting projects. Furthermore, enhanced green cover with 9-million-litre capacity underground tanks for rainwater harvesting reduces water demand by 60%. Bosch has applied multiple smart, sustainable, and user-friendly solutions that move the campus towards the future of work, including Bosch DEEPSIGHTS, an advanced AIoT-powered analytics platform for Industry 4.0 that provides smart energy and water management to bolster sustainability and excellence in optimising resources and managing utilities. The Bosch Intelligent Air-Conditioning and Comfort Assistant (BIANCA) is a smart solution developed to improve employee comfort at the campus and reduce the latter’s carbon footprint, reducing HVAC energy consumption by 30 to 50%.
The company has also deployed an ambient air-quality monitoring solution to monitor key noise and air pollutants constantly. This data will be shared with associates in real-time to enhance their well-being.
The WayFinder application helps in navigating the campus with ease. Additionally, the smart parking solution Park ZEUS offers a seamless parking experience for both associates and visitors, making the task convenient and sustainable. ~3-4 mins of lesser time for parking results in annual savings of 1500+ man-days, 2500+ litres of fuel, and 5000+ kgs of CO2. This solution also reduces manual security efforts by 50%.
Bosch Building Technologies offers smart solutions to maximise the security of people and premises. These discreet applications combine access control, intrusion detection, and intelligent surveillance with advanced video analytics featuring two‑factor authentication.
The Visitor Management System is designed to offer a delightful visitor and employee experience at the Spark.NXT campus while streamlining facility management, reducing wait times by 75%.