Jayasankar Kuruppal, Senior Vice President – Manufacturing, CEAT
Under the leadership of Jayasankar Kurupal, CEAT’s Halol manufacturing facility has been designated by the World Economic Forum as an ‘Advanced Fourth Industrial Revolution (4 IR) Lighthouse. He is trained by “JUSE” on concepts and methods for organizational transformation that is focused on creating long term prosperity for all stakeholders with emphasis on quality, customer and sustainability. “Digitization or digital transformation is no more a buzzword. As you can see, the adoption has been rapidly increasing over a period of time, especially in the last few years, the available data, mostly 90% data is now available online for manufacturing. And this is fueled with the fact that computing power has increased for the last one decade. So it’s become easier for organisations to implement digital solutions. If you look at the CEAT, we have been doing digital transformation in factories for the past 7-8 years, but it has now taken momentum. We are the first tyre factory across the globe to get the recognition of people and started tasting the success or the benefits of digitalization,” enthuses Jayasankar Kuruppal.
What are the strategies adopted by CEAT to reach the SDGs, especially when there is a renewed focus on reducing the carbon emission? “Two years back, we launched our vision to reduce the carbon footprint by 50% by 2030. Our initial focus is on renewable energy. In the last few years, we mainly used renewable energy. The usage of wind and solar energy has increased from zero to 30. We have been working on reducing water consumption too. We are working very rigorously with new technology, new equipment, and better fuels to reduce the steam, which in a way, will help reduce water usage. If you look at the automotive field, the tyre, especially the Bureau of Energy Efficiency, has created the labelling requirement for tyres. From 2024 it will be mandatory for all car companies to have elaborate ratings on their products. It’s a combination of tyre as well as the vehicle. This ensures that the auto CO2 emission is coming down as per our Paris Agreement.”
The challenges faced by the industry: “We got to climb out of the old manufacturing methods. As I mentioned earlier, digitization is coming in. We need to review our competency requirements for the entry-level. Earlier, we used to look at recruiting mechanical, electrical or electronics engineers. But, we now have to start looking at people with coding proficiency,” Jayashankar mentions when asked about the challenges that the manufacturing industry is facing. He added, “The young generation is not interested in working at a remote location, far away from the major city. This is another big challenge that we are facing.
Other than digitization and automation, EV is the major trend that will change the automotive industry. Today approximately 12-15% in the two-wheeler segment is EV. So EVs are going to drive the change in the automotive industry. This is my personal belief.