The Kerala-based Network Systems & Technologies Pvt Ltd on Tuesday claimed that it has become the first Indian company to bag the GE Medical Systems' Global Excellence Award.

The hardware manufacturing arm of the NeST group has been conferred this award for maintaining high standards of quality and on-time delivery in supply of hardware and quality maintenance in hardware for 2002-03, said a company press release.

NeST has been actively working with GE for the past three years by supplying GE requirements of electronic sub systems, MR sub-systems, wire harnesses and power supplies.

The company had been awarded the best supplier award twice by the Indian arm of GE during 2001 and 2002.

In yet another diversification move, the NeST group will be setting up an application specific integrated circuit chip design & training centre in Bangalore.

Claiming that this is the 34th business unit under the NeST umbrella, the group's managing director N Jehangir said, "The new venture is in line with our continued endeavor to offer education and training in state of the art technologies as they emerge."

The NeST ASIC training centre at Bangalore will operate as another unit of NeST Institute of Advanced Technologies, which already is involved in running NeST Cyber Campus Education Centers, Curriculum Development Center, NeST School of Animation, NeST Call Center Academy, public school and technical management of an engineering college.

The NeST ASIC Center will offer advanced courses, hands on training and live projects in FPGA designs in association with Altera Inc, US, a leading FPGA development tool supplier.

Pointing out that the NeST group has been registering a consistent growth of 35 per cent per annum since its inception in 1991, Jehangir said, "NeST Group's 20 plus manufacturing facilities located at Thiruvanathapuram, Kochi, Bangalore and Mysore offers diverse manufacturing competencies ranging from components, equipment, systems and packaging.

From a small enterprise in 1991 to becoming a global conglomerate, the NeST group is known for its technological excellence, high quality and customer care in futuristic technology areas like fibre optics, wireless and information technology.

The group registered a turnover of Rs 500 crore (Rs 5 billion) during the last (2002-03) fiscal and is heading towards achieving a target of Rs 650 crore (Rs 6.50 billion), this year, he added.