The virtual knowledge platform was organised by Manufacturing Today with a select group of top decision makers who shared how to overcome current challenges and convert some of them into new opportunities for their businesses.
Moderated by industry veteran Anbu Varathan, Director General & CEO, Indian Machine Tool Manufacturers’ Association (IMTMA), the closed-door event was attended by Jagdish Ramaswamy, President & CEO, Hindalco Ltd; Parminder Singh, Country Head, Design and Manufacturing & Media Entertainment-India & SAARC, Autodesk and Vineet Sahni, Group CEO, Lumax DK Jain Group & Senior Executive Director, Lumax Industries Ltd.
Varathan who moderate the discussion began with contextualising the time the industry is going through. “The last 18 months since the Covid has struck us, the government has been playing a very important role, a vital role for the nation to emerge stronger from the pandemic impact. Also, keeping the future growth in mind, some of the key measures (taken) include giving impetus to the capital expenditure in the budget and raising the budget for the capex to almost Rs5.55 lakh crore, an increase of almost 35%.”
The role of technology, the role of digitalisation, the role of innovation and the possible road map and the possible turnaround strategies for the industry as a whole and individual companies are the points, said Varathan, he would like to focus on.
He began the session by asking Ramaswamy to share his thoughts. And industry expert, Ramaswamy began by saying that everything is going to become more digital. “It is fundamentally going to change the way the operators are going to run the shop floor; the supervisors manage the shop load and the managers manage the output.”
“The network architecture has to completely become modern. You cannot have a closed loop architecture where everything sits within the four walls of your factory. You have to let network architecture make data flow freely,” he said.
Varathan then move to Sahni, a veteran of the auto industry, for his perspective on the twin aspects of agility and sustainability in the journey of digitalisation and how he saw digitalisation and technology playing out in the globally interconnected world of manufacturing.
“Digitalisation is as good or as bad as it is interpreted. Therefore, digitalisation does not mean we are doing away with human mind and human talent. When you get digitalisation, you need a mind that can interpret the data right and execute for agility and sustainability,” said Sahni.
Varathan then turned drew Singh into the discussion for his thoughts on how it can convert disruptions into opportunities.
“The challenge is how to bring your customer into your design process. Earlier, we were very familiar with mass production — one thing which is sold to everybody. But today our customer is very much specific. He wants market of one. He wants his requirement to be considered. And for that, he is ready to pay more,” he said.
“That’s why mass customization is replacing what we call it as mass production.” Singh said, adding that mass customisation is a big theme and you need automation for that.
Customer experience, mass customisation, and collaborative efforts of all stakeholders were the key points of Singh, summarised Varathan.
By the end of the deliberations of the three guests, Varathan had, as he summarised, taken the discussions to cover a wide arena of topics from strategies to overall approach to digitalisation, from the turnarounds to talent management and from innovation to the leveraging of people aspect.
Watch the full video of the webinar here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AmwPp1__0Vw