Benchmarking the Best Practices

Vineet Baid, CEO, Falcon Autotech Pvt. Ltd., says his organisation is running various initiatives to improve upon the three pillars of SCM, namely velocity, accuracy and costs.

What measures is your organisation taking to ensure that your SCM strategy is in alignment with your business goals?

We are running various initiatives to improve upon the three pillars of SCM, namely velocity, accuracy and costs. Some of the core themes behind these various initiatives include data driven decision making, early warning systems, focus on collaboration, building redundancies and fall back mechanisms, minimising ambiguity in processes and decision making.

Having the right QA processes and implementing them for supply chain partners (vendors) is extremely important for manufacturing companies. What are you doing in this regard?

Falcon builds and implements mission-critical solutions, hence, it is imperative for us to be spot-on with respect to quality. Our solutions undergo extensive QA processes at various stages, the parameters of which have been defined internally to suit the functional expectations from the machine. The entire process is supported by powerful software, with the core idea to collect as much data as possible in a structured manner and then run advanced analytics to take decisions. Last but not the least, each solution undergoes extensive functional testing at our own site, covering multiple scenarios and boundary cases before the solution is shipped out to the customers.

Creating a ‘Make in India’ brand will need consistency and excellence of manufacturing as well as engineering across the supply chain ecosystem. What are the key challenges in achieving this?

It’s absolutely correct that the government can only create a push towards investments in manufacturing in India. For this momentum to sustain, we will have to perform together as a country. I see only one challenge which we need to overcome – our mindsets needs to evolve. Unless we start becoming crazy about quality, performance and consistency, like the Germans or the Japanese, everything else is futile. I find all other factors on our side – skills, understanding, hard work, adapting, language etc. There is no direct formula for changing mindsets, hence requiring multiple interventions in organisations both, top-down and bottom-up. Once this happens though, everything else in terms of process, systems, controls etc will follow.

How should companies re-align their supply chain to be ready for Industry 4.0?

Industry 4.0 is the latest wave in the field of industrial revolution and with the advent of advanced technologies and data analysis, supply chain players are required to deploy the same, in order to remain relevant and competitive in the present world. Opening doors to cloud computing, big data and data analytics and social networking, along with revamping operational strategies, are some of the changes called for from companies. Since the customers are evolving in their needs and expectations, companies need to be more agile, whilst providing better visibility efficiently.

How can companies manage their supply chains energy efficiently to reduce their carbon footprints?

Making the supply chain processes efficient help companies not only save the carbon footprints but also save finances. Hence, the top level leadership needs to be part of the paradigm shift, driving the company towards energy conservation and judicial utilization. Besides, overhauling the procurement process, perhaps getting into sector based collaborations with suppliers delivering higher carbon reductions would be of further value. Lastly, benchmarking the best practices and process capability analysis to enhance energy efficiency and competitiveness, following up with regular audits and making processes transparent and standardised, would further reinstate energy efficiencies.

Note: Interview with Mr.Vineet Baid Originally Published in The Machinist September, 2016 Issue