Pune has always been more than just a city. It is a hub of ideas, a cauldron of engineering discipline and youthful curiosity. For decades, this city has quietly shaped the manufacturing backbone of our nation — which is why it came as no surprise that it was chosen to host the inaugural International Conference on Reliability Excellence on September 25th and 26th, 2025. If there was ever a city that captured India’s engineering spirit, this is it — and on those two days, Sheraton Pune became the stage for a question that the nation had never addressed collectively before.
That question emerged in the very first session. In his welcome address, speaking to the leaders from automotive, aerospace, energy, defence, electronics, consumer technology, academia and software reliability, Mr Anindya Sarangi, Head - ASQ South Asia posed it with clarity and intent:
Now this wasn't an academic inquiry. It was the anchor around which the whole gathering would revolve. Because reliability, he emphasised, is not a departmental measure any longer — it is a national requirement & central to our ambition for Viksit Bharat 2047. If we are to build India's global equity, the nation must move beyond "Made in India" and embrace a new identity — of being trusted globally. And trust is something that is only possible through reliability.
Sarangi's message was clear that “This is not just a conference, this is a national movement.”
They were not listening as representatives of individual companies or sectors anymore — they were taking part, contributing to a national mission. The question on the table was — Can our products be trusted every time?
And the voices that followed began answering that question with striking clarity.
Dr. G. Satheesh Reddy, Former Chairman of DRDO and Member, National Security Advisory Board, Government of India, speaking from the lens of defence and aerospace, reminded the audience that the cost of unreliability can be catastrophic, especially in matters of national security. “A good product must work beautifully even after years.” This statement instantly reframed reliability as not just an engineering goal, but a moral one as well.
Speaking during the session Economics of Reliability, Mr Sundaramanan G, Chief Scientist, Wipro, shifted the conversation to direct consumers and how reliability is something that everyone can connect with — it has no barriers. “Reliability leads to lasting customer loyalty.” He noted that if a product offers dependable performance, it builds confidence long after the first use.
Supporting this argument, Mr Manoj Meena, Founder & CEO, Atomberg, speaking at the Emerging Technologies session, shared how they embrace IoT and data loggers to collect field data (humidity, temperature, transient behavior) to better understand and predict failures. He further stated: “The more data we have from the field, the better we are able to make our products.”
“Parts per million” Reality Check
The defining moment of the two-day conference came when Mr C. V. Raman, Conference Technical Committee Chair and Member of Executive Committee & Former CTO, Maruti Suzuki India Limited, took centre stage. He explained how a modern vehicle is an ecosystem in itself, supported by over 14,000 suppliers — many of them MSMEs.
Every product we admire is built on an invisible foundation of thousands of parts and thousands of people. Reliability is not something that can be assumed at the end. It must be engineered from the very beginning.
Raman delivered the conference’s most stark reminder:
This statement became the emotional centre of the conference. Reliability was no longer confined to a metric, a dashboard, or a factory KPI. It became personal — about families, patients, soldiers, and people who rely on systems that must not fail.
At this point, the focus shifted from why reliability matters to how India should build it. Conference Chair Mr Rajendra Petkar, President, Tata Motors, emphasised that reliability must become a shared national discipline through which India builds its global brand.
Across two days, the conference became a living archive of India’s engineering capability. Hundreds of case studies and technical papers demonstrated what is possible when reliability is treated as a design focus, not a checkpoint.
TATA Motors engineers showcased how EV powertrain reliability transforms when real-duty-cycle CAN data is used to understand field stresses — revealing degradation behaviour that lab simulations alone cannot capture.
ICRE also demonstrated how Model-Based Systems Engineering reshapes design by embedding RAMS attributes directly into system architecture, allowing assumptions to be validated months before physical prototypes exist.
Representatives from Cummins showed how AI-enabled predictive testing compresses validation cycles, while Atomberg demonstrated how Python-driven reliability modelling strengthens everyday appliances — proving reliability belongs to all sectors.
During leadership discussions, Ms Kavita Kaushik, chairing the “Reliability Lessons Learned” panel, observed that reliability is not merely a technique — it is a behaviour.
She stressed that reliability culture must flow across suppliers, teams, design reviews and ESG expectations, with leadership prioritising long-term trust over short-term gain.
This collective realisation led to the creation of the Reliability Self-Assessment Framework — a shared map that allows organisations to understand where they stand and where they must improve.
By the time conversations wrapped up in Pune, delegates left not just as participants, but as contributors to a national mission. Reliability is no longer a technical choice; it is a national calling.
ICRE Pune marked only the beginning of a long-term mission to build a global brand through reliability — a mission that will shape the journey toward Viksit Bharat 2047.
