Godrej & Boyce – Zurvan Marolia, senior VP

The after-effects of Covid can be bucketed into three categories: Changing customers’ priorities and buying habits; re-looking at layouts in operations basis; and accelerating digitalisation of operations and working online.

This includes addressing the latent needs of the customer and cutting down on time to market. The move to online, which has proved to be the fastest (and only) growing channel, requires ready availability of good quality durable products at competitive prices. To keep up with this level of demand they have implemented a robust execution strategy which has served well.

Work from home has changed the target customer which necessitates a wider range of products.

Management of operations at remote locations have benefitted from online communication as it has improved teamwork by providing a platform for coordination and cross-sharing.

There has been a complete relook at plant layouts and process definition to minimise the need for working in close proximity. Innovative methods are used for designing low-cost solutions to reduce manual material handling and transfer. It has also encouraged adoption of paperless communication.

Digital manufacturing is one way of reducing manual aspects of processes on the shop floor.  It’s a step forward in deskilling operations, the need for which was acknowledged even prior to lockdown.