pune the recessionhit industry is looking at professional bodies like the indian institute of metals iim for expert assistance in bringing down the cost of production by way of using finecoated lowgrade metal materials as a part of this effort leading metallurgists from across the country will gather here on january 23 to deliberate the recent advancements in the surface modification techniques and its industrial application the meet is being organised by the pune chapter of the iim and will be hosted by the tata research development and design centre trddc at its hadapsar industrial estate campus at 9 am on january 23 advance surface engineering is extensively used as an enabling and enhancing technology for varied industrial applications including automotive aerospace power electronic biomedical and machine tools among others the upcoming meet is expected to throw several pathbreaking ideas about making quality products by way of using lowgrade materials with high quality surface coating that enhances the product life said n b dhokey chairman of iim pune chapter such materials can be suitable replacement for the highgrade materials that are currently in use and can help reduce costs he addeddhokey who is also a professor in metallurgy at the college of engineering pune coep said the meet is of immense significance for not only the industrial units in and around the city but also the students of metallurgy the city is a known automotive and autocomponent hub while the coep is among the only three engineering institutions vnit nagpur and iit powai being the other two that offer btech and mtech programmes in metallurgy invited speakers will deliberate on themes ranging from advances in surface engineering to the use of surface engineering to control global warming trends in resistance coatings functional coatings and plasmaassisted technologies for advanced surface modification treatment of metallic materials metallurgists shrikant joshi from the university of hyderabad a c bidaye from the bhabha atomic research centre mumbai suman krishna from the national metallurgical laboratory jamshedpur shrikant ingle kumar iyer and max babi are the invited speakers the daylong proceedings will conclude with the dara p antia memorial lecture which will be delivered by subra suresh dean of school of engineering at the massachusetts institute of technology mit usa at 430 pm a distinguished professor sureshs ongoing research at the mit focuses on experimental and computational studies of the mechanical responses of single biological cells and molecules and their implication on human health and diseases his work has also led to seminal contributions in the area of nano and microscale properties of engineered materials