In the past 6-9 months, most of the Industries across India have started complaining about their Businesses slowing down. May be this problem very much exists in other countries too. But, let me focus on Indian Companies. The Slow down panic is there in many industries and everyone has his/her own theory about how bad it is, why it is happening and how long it will last. 

In this article, I would like to just focus on ‘What a Company can do during the Slow down’. 

Every Company would have expanded their capacities with some expectation of Sales every month. When that Sales is not happening consistently for a few months, they would start panicking.  Usually, you would see following happening in Companies where the Sales is not happening as per plan and it started dipping below the last year and last few months average. 

-      Sales Team looks help-less. They are not achieving the Targets consistently and Sales numbers are falling steadily. The Sales team keeps reporting bad numbers. After a few months, the Management may start accepting that there is nothing that can be done, and Sales team is trying their best! 

-      Employees get fired. The Contract employees are the first to be fired. As the Sales Dip continues, the firing will extend to other types of Trainees, Junior Staff, in Some companies’ Senior people will be fired as it gives better bang per firing. These same Employers talk about the need for Employees to work as owners in good times and when things go wrong, they fire the employees (Rajiv Bajaj put this wonderfully in his interview with CNBC).

-      Inefficiencies increase in Factories. The Factories start idling and the Production efficiencies increase. Again, this keeps getting accepted as okay as the Volumes are down. 

-      New Product activity reduces. Most of the Companies will see their New Product activity reducing as they do not want to take more expense and more risk during the slow down. 

-      Mad rush to reduce Fixed Costs. The Semi Variable / Fixed Costs get cut ruthlessly. Maybe it is right to do that. But even the essential ones will get cut.

-      Negativity all around. There will be a mourning environment and the energies are down. Senior Management pet topic is about how to cut Costs (Again nothing wrong with this approach. But that can’t be the only chant.)

-      Company starts going into a shell. You can almost see the company getting into a shell withdrawing all signs of life! It is almost like closing your eyes hoping the storm will just pass and it won’t affect you if you close your eyes! 

-      Everyone starts asking for Government help. Last but not least, everyone starts looking to Government to rescue them. Government can help Companies to enter in to new markets across Globe by passing on some subsidies to them. This is done by many Governments across the world. China is a wonderful example of supporting their Industries selectively so that they can penetrate the Global market. But, you can’t expect Government to come to your aid whenever there is sluggish demand or more serious slow down. 

What else we can do?

I would argue that most of the Indian Manufacturing Companies have huge possibilities for improving themselves. The inefficiencies that are there in the Companies are huge. The Slowdown that is happening can be used to rediscover themselves in many areas of Business. We can look to becoming a stronger Company that can withstand these Slow times! I am not talking about throwing lot of money at problems. I am talking about fundamentally restructuring your P&L in such a manner that you can withstand these Slowdowns. 

Let me highlight a few ways below. We will deal with each of these areas in detail in articles that will come in subsequent weeks. 

01.  Skill up your People: A Company is built only by the People that it has. When the Top line dips, Companies should not look at firing its’ People. This is foolish and it is akin to shooting yourself in your foot. When you look at the Shop floor Employees, most of the Companies are living on Contract employees and Trainees whom they can fire immediately! This is no great Leadership! You can show great Leadership by:

a)     Re-engineering the Learning: Defining the Skills required for each of your Employees, Skill them up by using Modern Technology like E-Learning. Use this Slow down to re-engineer the way you focus on Skills. 

b)    Make Learning Contextual: Define Micro Skills and Micro Learning agenda for employees depending on your Business agenda for this Year. Train them for the Context by using the E-Learning. 

c)     Bring Skills to the center of the Business: Link Skills to Performance and link Skills to Performance assessment. This will ensure your Employees create a pull for Skilling up. 

The Business Goal for this activity should be to Triple the Sales Turnover created by each employee in the Organization over next 2 years. This is very much possible. Leaders need to take up this challenge.

Do not look at firing Employees. Rather, build a Team that is totally committed to your Organization and this will make you win in the Longer run. In the Short term too, only this can create good results. If you fire people and improve your Bottom line, the Investors would see it clearly. You would be harming the Company by doing this. 

02.  Re-engineer your Business Systems: Most of the Indian Companies do not have a clear way of working. The SOPs are there in ISO files and they get dusted before every re-certification audit. After that no one looks at them and no one follows them. Some of the following can be done:

a)     Re-engineer the way you Manufacture. If you have not implemented the Lean Concepts on your Shop floor, this is the time that you should do. Everyone will understand the seriousness of the Situation in a Slowdown. 

b)    Re-engineer the way work happens in various Functions. The Productivity of every activity can be at least doubled if you have not applied Lean principles to it. I am talking about the activities that your Staff does. Time taken for releasing a P.O, Time taken for accounting a Bill and so on. 

c)     Define the way of working in every Function. You should define your ‘way of working’ in every function. New Product Development System should be defined, Cost reduction System for your company should be defined, Sales Process should be defined, Marketing Process should be defined and so on. 

The Objective of this exercise should be to get every activity in the Company done in 50% of the time compared to what it is now. 

03.  Re-engineer your Costs: The Opportunities for reducing the Cost in a significant manner are there for many companies. In the past decade or so, the Companies are focusing more on Costs. But still there are opportunities to reduce Costs. Some of the activities that can be taken up are:

a)     Taking up Big Targets for Cost reduction.

b)    Conducting Brain Storming sessions. 

c)     Involving Subject Matter experts.

d)    Bench marking with World Class Products.

The Objective of this exercise again should be to improve the Profitability by 35% or more. A Big target will make your team to think entirely in a different manner. Have trust in your team, they will deliver the results. 

04.  Re-define the Market Place and the way you approach it: In the current status of the Industry where there is a big change that is coming up in Auto sector in terms of surge in Electric Vehicles and reduction in IC Engine vehicles, many Companies have to have a relook at their focus areas. They may have to redefine their Industry focus. A Foundry / Machine shop that is focused on Auto sector has to realign itself to other Industries.

When a Slowdown happens, it is not that the whole Business has disappeared. You are not growing. But there may be several other Companies that are growing. Indian Economy is growing by 5% right now. You are not aiming to capture the whole Economy. It is just fine for you if you are able to capture a few more new Customers. Every Prospective Customer is looking for new ways to save money and reduce costs in this environment. How can your Team deliver this to these Prospective Customers? If you are skilling up your Team, you can ask them to deliver this result for you. If you are firing them, then there is no one to deliver this result for you!! 

If you have been rejecting RFQs that are 20% below your Price expectations, then can you challenge your team to start reducing the Costs and accept more of these RFQs? 

05.  Re-engineer your Products: Use this time to align with your Customers much more. Every Customer wants the same product at much lesser price. You may be having ideas for reducing the Cost and come out with a new Family of Products. But you would have been postponing it due to the pressure on the Factories and R&D Team. Now, the Factories are not having the Pressure. Focus more on New Product Development, come out with the Family of Products that may be Priced 20% cheaper and most of the functionality. 

This is the time to teach ‘Frugal Engineering’ concepts to your New Product Development team and become more attractive to your Customers. 

Fill your Company with Positive energy

There may be many more Initiatives that can be taken up. What I am suggesting is that you should use this time of Slow Down to energize your Employees and ask them to take your company to the next level in terms of Competitiveness. 

Use this time to create some World Class Benchmarks! 

I meet this team from a big Indian Tyre Manufacturing Company every month. I am helping this team to improve their Leadership Qualities. They are making very good progress. One of the members of this team is a Body Builder!! He is devoting a lot of time to exercising, lifting weights, running and so on. He is an absolutely fit guy!! He is real motivation to everyone around him. 

But, I should say that this is an exception than rule among Employees of Indian Manufacturing. Even among youngsters, the percentage of people who are actively taking care of their health is very small. In any group of employees, I have not seen more than 20% who exercise regularly. Most of these people who exercise are just walking. May be 1% or 2% probably go to the Gym. 

In any company it is the Mid to Senior Level Employees who take important decisions that affect more people in the Company, and these are the Leaders who give a Direction to the whole Company. I have seen that in most of the Companies this Leadership Team is not very healthy physically!! Again, there are always exceptions. There are some Leaders who are avid Marathon runners! Some Leaders who play sports and go to Gym regularly. But, as I said before this category is Very Very small! 

Leaders need to be healthy Physically, Mentally, Emotionally and Spiritually. These are the Four types of Energies that are available to all of us. Many of us may not be aware of the four types of Energies. 

What are the ill effects of ‘Unhealthy / Not very healthy Leadership / Employee Team’??

Handling Pressures: Today the Business environment is becoming more volatile than ever. The teams need to be contributing actively. The pressures are increasing continuously. The suicide of VG Siddhartha of Coffee Day is a case in point. I do not know about his Physical health at the time of Suicide. But, from what I read in the News Papers it is very clear that he was under tremendous stress mentally. Continuously working on Mental health could have helped him?

Growth Orientation: A Team that is healthy physically and mentally will be much more Growth oriented than a team that is not very healthy. Many Companies have the problem of their Employees not pushing for improvements. The Employees are quite busy in the routine and do not look at improvements at all. Taking care of Physical and Mental Health will help in enhancing the Capacity of the individual to handle more and look for improvement possibilities. 

Execution capability: A Team of unhealthy Employees cannot be very good at Execution. They will keep missing the targets frequently and there will be generally frustration around. As the Targets are being missed, the Company will keep revising the targets downwards. This adds to the generally despondent environment around. 

Productivity will suffer:The People Productivity will be an obvious victim. The team will not have much of inclination for working on improving Productivity as they will be feeling that they are already stretched a lot. 

There can be many more ill effects of ‘Not very healthy’ Employees. 

How to promote Wellness in a Company?

There are many ways in promoting the Wellness of Employees. I am capturing some of them below. I have been fortunate to be part of many such initiatives. Hence these are Initiatives that are working in Companies. Not theory.

You can start various initiatives to promote wellness in your Company:

a.     Conduct a Yoga course. Repeat it every year. Encourage more and more employees to participate and learn.

b.     Yoga weekly practice. Have a Wellness Centre in your company and encourage your employees to get together to practice Yoga and Meditation periodically.

c.     Zumba Practiceweekly

d.     Promote Sportsthroughout the year. Encourage employees to take leadership for individual Sports like Cricket, Basketball and so on. 

e.     Encourage your Employees to participate in Marathons. Encourage a Core group.

f.      Encourage your employees to Walk at work every dayas part of their work. Let the office / Factory be designed accordingly. Eg. Let there be a walk involved for getting coffee / food etc.

g.     Have an App for Health monitoringand motivate employees to Volunteer to get on to it. 

h.     Organize for ‘Health Talks’ on various Health related topics by Physicians. 

i.      Organize for ‘Healthy food habits’Consultation.

j.      Promote Employees learning Meditationand practice it regularly.

k.     Conduct a Course on ‘Mental health’and encourage employees to join it. Many Yoga institutes conduct this type of Courses. 

l.      Encourage employees to participate in Social Initiatives. This gives them Spiritual Energy.

m.   Give help to Employees who need Counsellingfor problems at work or for problems at Home. 

There can be many more initiatives. 

Volunteer Groups

It is important to encourage employees to take lead in the above Initiatives voluntarily. Wellness cannot be promoted by the Company unilaterally. It gains energy if you can find a group of Volunteers who will run many of these initiatives. 

Company can be supportive to these Groups.

Use of Technology

Technology can be used for promoting the Health concept in a very active manner. One way is to have your own App for your Company. You may collaborate with any of the Health Apps that are already there and customize the app for your Company needs. 

You can link the Medical tests of employees that you may be doing annually to the Health Apps and encourage the employees to address the Health issues proactively. 

Wide variety of Initiatives 

Companies should introduce many initiatives in this area. Employees may have their own priorities in the area of Health. Everyone may not be interested in the same initiative. Some may be interested in Yoga. While some others may be interested in Zumba. Similarly their interests in Sports also may vary. A Company should have a Target of engaging 100% of employees thru one Health initiative or the other. 

What can be the Metrics for the Health of Employees?

It is very important to measure your efforts towards the Health of employees. There can be two types Metrics. 

a)     Process Metrics

b)    Result Metrics

Process Metrics 

You need to measure the Process by which you are trying to promote the Health of Employees.

-      Number of Participants in each of the Initiative.

-      Regularity of Participation.

-      Number of Initiatives introduced vs Initiatives Successful

-      Number of activities planned vs executed in each of the Initiatives. 

-      Number of Volunteers in this area.

Result Metrics

Results can be measured in a few different ways.

-      Number of Employees in Good health.

-      Number of Employees who improved their Health. 

-      Number of KPIs of employees in which there is improvement

Each company can devise their own way of measurement. But, measurement is important to ensure you know where you are going with the initiative. 

Many companies do not have this type of focus on Health. Their reasons would be that they do not have time for this. But, if you are able to encourage a group of employees to take lead, then the Collective effort of the employees can push this focus forward. 

Do you have focus on your Employees’ health?

All of us who worked in a few companies in our respective careers and those like me who had the wonderful opportunity to work with many Companies as a Business Coach would have observed that some Companies had a very good Working Culture whereas many Companies did not have such a great working Culture. 

We generally say the Culture of the Company is good and may be recollect that this company had the practice of ‘Town hall meeting’ or ‘Annual Sports meet’ and so on. 

Let us look at what a Good Work Culture is and how do we develop it in a conscious manner in a company.  

I remember a definition of ‘Culture’. ‘Culture is the way we do things around here’. 

So, a Work Culture personifies the way you run your Company. To understand this better, let us look at the case of any of the Religions that we practice. Each Religion has its Rituals / Festivals that are celebrated by the Practitioners of the Religion. These Rituals / Festivals survived for Centuries. In the Geographical locations where these Rituals / Festivals are followed rigorously, the Religion flourished. According to the Rituals / Festivals the Culture of that Religion developed. In the Same Religion, there may be different Rituals / Festivals in different Geographical Locations. So, the Culture in the same Religion in different areas may be slightly / vastly different. While the Governing Doctrine is same, the Culture may be different based on the Practices / Rituals / Festivals in that region.

But, the Practices / Rituals / Festivals play a very big role in sustaining a Religion. All the Religions have been sustaining for Centuries! 

Now, if you want to develop and maintain a Good working Culture in your Company, you should be able to define your ‘Good Work Culture’. This may depend on the Values that your Company Practices and the way you want to contribute to the Society through your Company’s work. 

It is good to start right at the top and be clear about the type of Work Culture that you want to build. But if you are not very clear about this overall objective, then you can look at some universal ‘Good to have’ Objectives. 

Some examples are as follows:

01.  Performance Focus: Competent Employees / Vendor Partners would definitely be very happy to work in an environment where good Performance is recognized and encouraged. 

02.  Professional Improvement: Again, the Employees / Vendor Partners would like to have a culture of Company encouraging / giving opportunities to the employees / Good Vendors to Learn continuously.

03.  Wellness: Employees would love to work in a Company where their Wellness is given a good importance. 

04.  Customer Orientation: A Company where good Customer Orientation is there (Both internal and external Customer) would progress well.

05.  Contribution to the Society: All Stake holders would be happy if the Company is seen as contributing to the goodness of the Society at large.

06.  Process focus: Company may give importance to ‘How’ the Goals are being pursued in the Company and not just the Goals themselves.

This way a Company may have some overall Objectives that are not just monetary objectives but means to achieve the Business Goals of a Company in a consistent manner. 

Why should companies pay attention to Culture?

People are the foundation for any Company. All the Stake holders are important. But it is ultimately the Stake holders who are making / breaking the company. 

Even if a Company is not building a Working Culture deliberately, a Work Culture gets developed on the basis of how things get done in the company. 

A Good / Bad Culture would develop without your active participation. If you want to develop a good culture based on your Company’s values, then it is better for you to participate in that process and try your best to influence it. If you do not control it, it will be left to the Dominant personalities in your Company who would anyway influence the way the work gets done in your Company. 

If you are not controlling the Culture in the Company, then the Work Culture can keep changing as the Leaders in the Company change. This is the reason we keep hearing ‘It was an exciting place till 2 years back when ‘xyz’ was in charge’. 

How do we build the Working Culture in a Company?

As we discussed earlier, the Company’s Work Culture is sum of its ‘ways of getting things done’. 

One needs to introduce some specific Practices in the company that work towards the Objectives that have been set.  

Let us discuss with reference to the Six Objectives of Work Culture that we earlier discussed. 

a)     Performance Culture: Some of the Practices that may be adapted to establish this culture are:

a.     Having Measurable KPIs for every employee.

b.     Having Transparent link between KPI score and Ratings. This should be visible to all employees.

c.     Having clear rules for Promoting Employees.

d.     Having practice of giving Objective Feedback by all Supervisors to their teams.

e.     Celebrating Performance at the Micro Level. Leaders in the Company can have practice of giving small mementos to encourage Small but significant progress towards Goals.

f.      Celebrating Good Ideas towards Work Objectives.

There can be many more innovative ideas.

b)    Professional Improvement: You can promote many practices towards this Objective. Some of them are as follows:

a.     Having periodic Technical Paper presentations and inviting IIT / International University Professors who are experts on your Company’s Technology area. 

b.     Sponsoring the higher studies of Employees.

c.     Promoting study of your Technology area.

d.     Promoting the learning of Formal Technical Problem-Solving methodologies.

e.     Promoting Discussion forums on HR, Finance, Supply Chain related topics along with local companies.

f.      Improving the Skills of Employees with focused training.

This is definitely not an exhaustive list. 

c)     Wellness: Promoting Wellness can be done thru a variety of means. Some of them are as follows:

a.     Conducting lectures by Doctors / Yoga Experts to address Physical / Mental / Emotional and Spiritual Health. 

b.     Conducting Health Camps

c.     Weekly Wellness camps where Yoga / Zumba etc are practiced.

d.     Health monitoring of Employees

e.     Recognizing Role models in the area of Physical fitness

What is critical is to do these activities continuously and not as one time activity. Employees adapt these practices at their own speed.

d)    Customer orientation: There are several practices that can help you move towards this objective:

a.     Taking periodic feedback / Score from Internal Customers. 

b.     Internal Customers to have a say in the Performance evaluation of Internal Suppliers. 

c.     Recognizing Best Internal Suppliers by Internal Customers. 

d.     Publishing Great Customer service stories in the Company.

e.     Inviting Senior Executives from other companies to tell Stories about Customer orientation. 

Truly this area has enormous potential for innovation in promoting Customer orientation. 

e)    Contribution to Society: This is an area that you can use to activate the fourth Energy – Spiritual Energy of every Human (After Physical, Mental and Emotional Energies). Very powerful one. Some of the Practices that you can think of are:

a.     Encouraging employees to form a group that contributes money, physical effort for Societal Causes of their choice. 

b.     Channeling the Company’s CSR efforts thru Employee groups.

c.     Encouraging Stake holder Groups to participate in Public relief activities.

d.     Helping the people in immediate surroundings of the Company.

Stake holders participating in these activities will have enormous satisfaction and they will be able to realize their higher energy.

f)      Process Focus: It is very important to let a Process Culture prevail in your Company. Don’t focus on the Results always. Encourage your Stake holders to follow the process and have faith that the results will come. Some practices that can help you are:

a.     Have a defined way of pursuing Goals in your Company that prescribes a good Process. 

b.     Measure the performance of a Stake Holder with Process Measures along with Results Measures. Having only Result Measures will push the Stake holders to somehow achieve results. 

c.     Promoting a ‘way of working’ in every sphere of the Company like New Product Development, Quality Process, Problem solving etc.

d.     Reward People / Functions excelling in Process.

You can do the above and you can do more. Each company should find its’ own mix of Activities / Practices / Rituals / Celebrations that promote the Culture that you want in your Company. 

But you SHOULD participate in the building of the Work Culture in your Company. Leaving the Culture building to a few strong personalities in your company that too accidentally is very Dangerous. 

Catalyst: Volunteerism can be a Catalyst for Culture Building in a Company. Encouraging Employees to promote the activities that they can personally relate to can be very productive in furthering the Culture. Human beings can generate a lot of Positive energy when they connect to an activity where their heart lies. A Company should encourage this. The Positive energy they generate can be quite contagious!! Eg. Someone who is passionate about Social work should promote the Societal angle in your Company. You would be surprised to see how many of your Employees are interested in Social causes. I know many Youngsters earning just Rs 10,000 per month. But contributing to a Social cause every month! 

Build the Work Culture in your Company Actively !! 

For any Manufacturing Company, the Problem Solving is an important Business Process. The Company needs to give it a high priority and treat it as such. There needs to be specific Structure to handle this important Business Process. 

Very few Companies in Indian Manufacturing treat this as an important process. If they do not give this importance, there would be a big adverse effect on the ability of the Company to progress. They would have serious problems with the Customers. There would be suffering on a daily basis for all concerned. This is a major reason for the tensions and stress in every Company. But still Companies are not able to put their finger on this issue and address it squarely. 

Let me try and list down the issues that a Company needs to do to address Problem Solving in a systematic manner. 

01.  Capture all the Problems in a Company:Most of the Companies have records for the Customer Complaints / Rejections and Supplier Quality. They record this in a systematic manner. But they need to do this for Internal Quality Problems too. Usually there will be a bunch of phenomena that keep repeating in the Internal Process. They should record these Phenomena and count each one of them  as another problem to solve. It is best if all the Problems so captured get in to ONE Problem Solving Software. 

02.   Problem Solvers: Every Company should identify Problem Solvers from across the Functions in the Company. In many Indian Manufacturing Companies, the Quality Function plays a major role in Problem solving followed by the R&D Function and Production Function. But it is required for a Company to involve Engineers from Materials, Process Engineering, Plant Maintenance also to be involved in the Problem Solving. The Company should identify the Engineers and designate them as ‘Problem Solving Ninjas’.

03.   Develop the Ninjas: There has to be specific Development Plan for the Problem-Solving Ninjas. I covered their Development in a separate article earlier on 10/2/2019. You need to Grade the Ninjas in to Leaders and Members of the Teams. The Leaders would lead a Problem-Solving effort whereas the Members can become members in the Problem-Solving Team. 

04.  Decide the Problem-Solving Capacity of the Organization: Decide how many problems can each Leader handle at a time. This would decide the Collective capacity of the Organization to solve Problems. A Company needs to boost this up as needed from time to time. 

05.  Allot the Problems: The Problems that are captured in the ‘Problem Solving Software’ of the Organization needs to be allotted to the Problem-Solving Ninjas by the Software on the basis of a Logic. This would ensure that ALL the Problems are parked with one group or the Other. 

06.  Problem Solving Methodology: Each Company needs to adapt a Problem-Solving methodology that it prefers. It can adapt a Standard methodology like 8D or formulate its’ own methodology with Best Practices. 

07.  War Room: Every Company needs to have a War Room for Problem Solving. This is the Room that will host two types of meetings. One is a Review by Management. Second type is the Team meetings of the Teams. Normally a Schedule is kept for each team and every team would meet as per the schedule.

08.  Meet Daily: If you want the Problem solving to improve in your Company, then every Team has to meet EVERY DAY for at least 45 minutes. If the teams do not meet and then you expect the Problems to get solved, it is not a reasonable expectation. The Team should meet every day and then solve the Problems. They need to spend as much time as is needed on the Shop-floor for Problem-Solving. This is a Primary requirement. 

09.  Measures of Problem Solving: How do you measure the success of Problem Solving in your Company? There can be two types of Measures. Process Measures and Result Measures. Result Measures are very clear. That would include your Customer Rejections / Complaints, Supplier Quality, In-Process Quality etc. The Process Measures would include the following:

a.     Daily Meeting schedule adherence. 

b.     On Time Activity. Number of Activities planned vs done on a daily basis. 

c.     On Time Problem Solving. When each 8D is supposed to be closed and when it was closed. 

d.     Quality of Problem Solving. The 8D Check List score calculated by the team and certified by the Coach.

e.     Repetitive Problems: If the Quality of Problems is good, the problems will not come back. 

10.  Problem Solving Coach: It would be very much required to have a Problem-Solving Coach who would help the teams to improve the Measures of Problem Solving. 

11.  Certifying the Problem Solvers: It would be useful to Certify the Problem solvers on the basis of their Knowledge, Skill and Results. The Certification should also lead to Rewards for the Problem Solvers.  This would take care of Motivation of the Problem Solvers. 

12.  Approving Solutions: Company should authorize a few Senior people who would Certify the Solutions being implemented. This would ensure that the Collective wisdom of the Company is at work in Problem-Solving. 

13.  Use Technology to train the Ninjas: The Experience of the Senior People in the Company should be translated in to ‘Standard Check Lists’ for all known and repetitive problems. Using these Check lists E-Learning programs can be developed to train the Ninjas. For every known Problem, the Program would teach the standard steps that need to be taken to move towards the Solution. This would reduce the time taken to solve the Problem. This is a good way of using the Collective Experience that is available in the Company. 

14.  Managing the Knowledge Base: The Problem Solving in a Company can create enormous amount of Knowledge on Products of the Company and the Process of the Company. This knowledge needs to be captured in a Knowledge Data base and this Data Base can be used for:          

a.     Learning from Mistakes in Design/Process

b.    Going back to the Solution in case the Problem reappears.

15.  Problem Solving Conferences: The Company can think of conducting Problem Solving Conferences where the Problem Solvers from across the Company would converge and present the Technical papers about various issues in the Company and Best Problem Solvers may be rewarded. Usually the Company would invite Technical experts to this Conference to help teams to learn something more. 

This way, the Manufacturing Companies can look at addressing Problem Solving as a special Discipline that cuts across Functions and look at developing this Competency in the Organization. 

How well are you addressing Problem Solving in your Company?

We have been discussing about preparing for the advent of Industry 4.0 and how Indian Manufacturing Companies can prepare for the inevitable. We discussed how various Functions in a company can get ready for Ind 4.0 situation.

In this article, let us discuss about the Leader of the ‘Future Factory’. What are the Capabilities that a Leader of Future Factory needs to display? 

A Future Factory will be characterized by the following:

-      Definitely a Less Manpower environment.

-      Highly Automated set up.

-      Much higher Manufacturing Technology. 

-      Much higher Capacity in each Factory due to the automated set up. 

What are the Competencies required for a Leader of this type of Factory?

I would say, he requires the following Six Competencies:

01.  Analytical Capability: The Leader of Future Factory will have to be very comfortable with Data. He should be able to make sense of the Data and should be ready to use Data Analytics to make sense of the happenings around him/her and take actions. The typical situations that require him to show this capability can be as follows:

a.     The Online Quality System in the Factory is throwing up a lot of Data about the Process status. The Analytics Software is showing a number of Patterns of Data. The Software is continuously learning (AI) and showing new meanings from the old Data. The Data analysis of last Six months just showed a Pattern that can be a Solution to the Biggest Customer Complaint that the company is having. The Quality Team has to be supported in understanding this data as it is the first time a new sense is being made from the old data.

b.     The Zero Break down record in the Factory has to be maintained by managing the various Sub-systems in each of the Machines in the Factory. The Data from monitoring the Temperature, Vibration of various parts of the Machine has to be made sense of and Predictive Maintenance has to be improved. 

c.     The Software that the New Product Development team is using is throwing up lot of Analytics that can be used to Learn from the Development and apply learnings to the future products. 

d.     The Problem-Solving Software that is helping the Engineers to solve the Problems is capturing lot of interesting Data. This data has to be used to draw lessons for New Products. 

e.     Finally, SAP is being used more effectively. The Cost Data is getting generated as per each Activity. This data has to be analyzed to identify Wastes and eliminate them.  

There can be myriad more ways in which the Data will be generated and will have to be interpreted. 

The Factory Leader does not have to do all this job herself. But, She should be able to give Leadership to her Team to adapt this point of view. 

02.  System Builder: The Leader of the Future Factory has to be a great System Builder. Wherever he sees a Problem, he has to look at a System solution for it. If he Looks at solving the Problem for today, then the whole System can be short circuited by this problem and the Desired result will not be forthcoming. 

Eg. In a Highly Automated Factory, the output from Dust Collector is Designed to be collected by a Pneumatic System and taken to a Dust Storage system. Now, when the Pneumatic System Breaks down due to Dust contaminating all the Seals / O rings in the system, the Factory has to look to alternative System that can withstand the Dust. If temporary solutions are looked at or if the Pneumatic system is kept idle and the factory goes back to manual collection of Dust, then very soon the Manpower will creep in and the inefficiencies will go up. 

The Leader has to look at building a System around everything. He should be looking at Killing problems once and for all. 

Eg. An Automated System is giving a problem handling some specific parts of the Company. While it is suitable to 75% of the parts of the Company, it is giving trouble handling 25% of the parts of the Company. The efficiency of the system is pulled down. Immediate Solution is needed for this problem. The Company set up a team to solve this problem while not reducing the efficiency of the whole System. Along with this, the Leader has to ensure that the Company learns from this experience and the next Factory has to take care of this problem from word go. The Design team also has to learn from this Process incident and ensure the future New Products are Designed to take care of this manufacturing aspect. The Leader has to ensure this at a total system level. 

While these Qualities are required even in a less automated environment, the costs of not doing it are very high and can be lethal in an Automated / Ind 4.0 environment. 

03.  Avid Learner: The Leader of a future Factory has to Learn on her Feet. This can be a great challenge! The Learning is not just for her. She has to ensure the Learning is there at Organization level. 

In the Future Factory, there will be a lot of Data just about everything. There will be Data Analytics team in the Factory and they will be throwing up a lot of Data and Interpretations. 

The Leader has to encourage the Team to Learn from this Data. Otherwise there is no use of this Data.

Other than this Learning within the Factory, She also has to Learn from the outside world. She has to understand how the Customer is progressing in his Business and keep shaping up the factory to suit the Customer. 

Eg. Customer’s Data Analytics may show that Demand for a particular product may be going up 3 months from now. The Factory Leader has to take this information, deal with it and also ensure that the Sales team is continuously picking up these cues from the Customer and help her shape the factory to suit it. 

The Learning also has to cover the Ind 4.0 elements. The Factories across the World would be having new learnings from same elements almost on a daily basis. The Leader has to learn from the information available on the Public domain and she has to participate in suitable events like Technical Symposiums to keep learning from the environment. 

Paid Factory Tours, Supplier Seminars, Industrial Exhibitions, Industry association events can be some sources for new Learnings.

Every Leader has to organize her own combination of events that will give her chance to pick up learnings from the relevant environment around her. 

04.  Integrator: This role can be part of ‘System Builder’ Role. But, as it is a very important function of a Future Leader, this is being discussed separately. 

A Future Leader should be able to look at a Quality Problem and link it to the Machine, Manufacturing Process, Maintenance Practices, Improvement required in Design of the Product, the improvement required in designing the next Machine and how the factory has to work in future to avoid this Problem. 

This is a very critical ability and not easy to master. It is not required that the Leader should be expert across the Board in all Functions. But, he should be able to see the linkages clearly. 

The Future Factory would be working as one unit. The differentiation between one Function and the Other will disappear to a large extent. An Engineer would be required to have expertise across Functional areas as they exist today. 

A Leader should be able to mold such Engineers!!

05.  Team Developer: Factory of Future will be such that it will work as a unit or fail as a unit. Working partially will be difficult due to its connected / automated nature. One system depends on the other. So, if one System is not working it will affect the other. 

The Team work and working as a unit are required much more than the non-automated environment. 

The information between the various areas of the Factory has to flow seamlessly and the whole team has to deliver the result together. 

Eg. The Shop Engineer (Who will handle Production, Quality, Maintenance) at each stage of Manufacturing has to interact with the Engineers at other stages and also interact with the Data Analytics Engineers (Who will be the new breed in every Factory) to make sense of the Factory performance and take actions on a daily basis. 

The Leader of the Factory should develop his Team for a smooth daily interaction and ensure they work as a team. 

06.  Frugal Engineer: In the environment of highly automated factories, the difference between your Company and a Company in USA/Europe can totally be blurred as both the Companies will be having equally automated factories (may be same supplier of equipment too). 

What can be the key differentiator for an Indian Company? If the Leader is a Frugal Engineer, he can help the company not to throw Big money at the Machinery. Spend just as much as is needed. Design the Product with just enough meat and don’t give away more than needed (Russian Designs are clearly out of fashion). If your Company can either make do with 75% of the Automation as in USA and give same output or if you are able to take 25% more output from the same Machinery as in USA, then you can have a leverage over other world Manufacturers. 

In Future Factories, your competitor is not just the company in NOIDA. You will have to compete with the one in Detroit too. 

India is having a very high number of Engineers. Not many Countries can match us in this. The Leader of Future Factory should be able to use the capabilities of these Engineers to differentiate ourselves from the rest of the world in efficiency and money for each Rupee of investment. 

These are some of the Capabilities for the Leader of a Future Factory! There can be more. Some or all of the above look like they are needed today too. 

Two differentiations. 

01.  Many Leaders of Today Factories do not have these Capabilities. India is very big and we have too few Leaders with these Capabilities. 

02.  There is a subtle difference in the same Capability that is needed for tomorrow. I am sure you will notice in the above discussion. 

Are you a Leader for the Future Factory?

There is a good buzz in the Indian Manufacturing Industry now about Digitalization and Industry 4.0. Every Managing Director would like to tell his/her colleagues at the Club about how they are implementing Digitalization in a big way and trying to implement Industry 4.0 and so on. 

I hear many Functional Managers also trying their hand at collecting more data from machines. They are not very clear what exactly they want to do with that data. But, they have started a Project anyway. 

This same companies are having modern Machine Tools that already collect a lot of data as a routine. Most of this data is not being used at all. 

The other day I heard about a Machine Shop Manager who is collecting data about vibration on the tool holder on the Machine tool and trying to decide when to change the Tool. This is a smart local application. This Will definitely help the Manager to avoid Quality losses due to blunt tools running for more than their life. 

But, these smart local applications are very few. 

Irrespective of what they already have, Managers and Managing Directors across the Industry are in mad rush to get a tag of ‘We are implementing Industry 4.0’. 

I see following problems in many of these companies rushing to ‘try Industry 4.0’.

01.  Many Indian Manufacturing Companies have not yet implemented the Basic Lean Practices in their Shop floors. 

02.  The Pull principle is not being used. There are many companies that are still having Batch Production on their shop floor. 

03.  The Layouts are still archaic that necessitate unnecessary movement of material.

04.  I have seen companies allowing excess Production as they do not want their workmen to be idle!! 

05.  There is no focus on the Skills of the Workmen. With the attrition problem on the Shop floor, this is a serious problem for the industry.

06.  I know many companies that have not solved some perennial Supply issues and resultantly produce according to what material is available and not what Customer wants! 

07.  Wherever the Companies have installed Automated Machines and invested in to Technology, I have seen that the Company is having more problems with the Higher Technology machines. The Quality losses are higher in these machines, they breakdown more and over a period of time many of the wonderful features of these machines are by passed and it is used worse than its’ less Automated cousin that is co-existing. 

This is not a complete list of problems. I am not saying there are no Companies that are not using Technology and Lean Principles. But, this is a very small percentage.

I see three issues from this situation:

a)     Understanding Lean approach: Majority of Indian Companies have still not understood and leveraged the Lean Principles. 

b)    People element:We have not understood how to address the ‘People’ element when we bring in higher Technology. We need to help the person involved to ‘Work differently’. 

c)     Short term approach: We are still looking at this year results and many of us are worried about this Quarter performance and this Month’s performance. We continue to remain ‘Short Termish’!

While this is the status, there are some companies that are waking up as the Market Competition is increasing and they can’t simply tolerate the HUGE inefficiencies on the shop floor. 

Every Company has to wake up!! If they are not woken up by the ‘Indian Competition’ then they will be woken up by the ‘International Competition’. 

The Other Side

While this is the status of majority of the Companies trying to implement Industry 4.0, the Companies offering ‘Industry 4.0 solutions’ are also in the same Boat! While there are some International Companies like Siemens and a few of Local Companies that have understood how to use Industry 4.0 elements to take their clients to the next level, majority of the Companies offering the ‘Expert services of Industry 4.0’ do not know what they are talking about! 

I have personal experience of talking to a few of these experts who have fancy websites calling out the World to implement Industry 4.0 with their help. Most of these Companies have not done anything in this area. Most of them do not know anything about Lean! 

So, we have a very dangerous combination of Companies who are not ready for Industry 4.0 but want to implement it anyway! On the other side we have a big contingent of Companies who do not know anything about Manufacturing offering Industry 4.0 solutions. A lot of money is getting wasted around!! 

How can we go forward?

It does not matter what the current status of the  Manufacturing Company is, if they have understood the need to improve their efficiencies and the power of Lean then we can progress. 

I would suggest that these companies take up a Re-Engineering of their Manufacturing that would involve the following:

-      Put Three Year Targets like:

o  Tripling People Productivity (Blue and White Collar Please)

o  Cutting Quality Losses by 75%.

o  Cutting Manufacturing Costs by 50%

o  Solving 100% of Customer related problems permanently

You can formulate a few more Goals that are relevant to your company.

-      Only a BIG target will wake up your Company and your team! You will achieve it! 

-      Formulate a Full Time Task force which can be filled with Young Engineers straight from College. Bring in technical experts as needed. But, having a positive mindset is more important than the Technology. 

-      There should be representation from every Function in this Task force. 

-      Educate their Employees on Lean Principles starting with the Top. 

-      Recast their Value Stream Map on the basis of Lean principles. 

-      Resolve the perennial problems like Material Shortages, Bad Sub-Contractors who do not deliver on time and so on, Perennial Quality Problems that have become as permanent in the company as the owner himself/herself! 

-      Formulate several Projects that should be championed by the Task force with help from the regular Teams. 

-      On the way at the right time, we should start educating the employees on Industry 4.0 and the Technology that is available.

-      Visiting International companies to understand the Lean principles in action or Industry 4.0 in action is a very good idea. 

-      Implement Industry 4.0 elements as needed to achieve the Three year Goals. Finance Head should ensure that there is no Project that is being done just for the fancy of it. Every Project should pay back handsomely. 

When you are achieving some BIG targets in 3 years, that will allow you to spend a good amount of money to achieve it. The problem of how to finance the Industry 4.0 Projects will be addressed. 

So, you can turn your weakness of ‘Low Efficiency’ and ‘Not having implemented Lean’ in to something more positive as it would help you to spend good amount of money as you will get the payback relatively easier. 

So, when will you start off? 

Improve your Profits significantly and become a genuine implementer of Lean and Industry 4.0!! 

In many companies, the cost of White-Collar Staff is very significant. By international standards, the number of staff that Indian Companies hire is significantly high. The Productivity of the Staff in a company seems to be very low. We seem to be throwing ‘Warm Bodies’ at work and problems! More Problems, more ‘Warm Bodies’..

The Indian Companies have been waking up to the higher costs of employees in the past Decade or so. The profits are under pressure. Top line is not growing as aggressively as one may want. 

In this situation too, many companies have been addressing the Blue-Collar cost. Companies have been trying to hire cheaper and cheaper labor. I know many companies who try to run the whole Manufacturing Plant with temporary and low-cost labor. Genuine attempts to improve Productivity have not been many. Indian Companies have a long way to go in improving the Blue Collar Productivity. 

By Comparison, the White Collar Productivity had been an unexplored area for most of the Companies. 

No Standards for work!!

Most of the Companies do not have a Standard for the work of the White Collar Employees. What is the work each Position should be doing and what is the Standard time and effort that each of the work is supposed to take?

Resultantly there is no measure for the work of the White-Collar Employees. When something is not getting done, more employees are recruited. Sometimes having more people will result in more confusion and more inefficiency. 

The other side of this continuum is that some companies simply refuse to recruit White Collar Employees or fire who is there. Even this act will not have any rationale. Usually it is the ‘feel’ of the Boss who may just ‘feel’ there are too many people and they are ‘wasting’ their time! 

Direct and Indirect Cost of White-Collar Employees and their work

The White-Collar employees are tasked in every company with very important tasks. They decide what Raw Materials have to be purchased, at what cost, how much inventory to keep, what price to sell a product, how to market the products and many other crucial decisions. 

So, the money that the Companies spend on the Salaries of the White-Collar employees is only a small proportion of the Total cost. The Cost that this group of Employees can inflict on a Company is huge. They and the work that they do can either make or break the Profits of a Company.

Hence, this category of employees deserve a much higher Quality attention! It is not enough to just focus on Blue collar and drive their productivity ! 

What needs to be addressed?

Companies need to consider addressing two elements of this category of employees. 

01.  The numbers in this category. How many people you have and how you can optimize this number? This ensures you spend as little as possible on this category of costly employees. This addresses the Direct cost of White-collar employees.

02.  The Quality of the work and decisions of this category of employees.  Companies need to pay attention to this as they can inflict a very high cost on the company due to the quality of the decisions that they may take. 

Let us address these issues in two or three articles.  

Addressing the Direct Cost of the White-Collar Employees

This again can be addressed at two levels. You can improve the Productivity of White-collar Employees in two phases. 

a)     Multiply the Productivity by applying the Lean Principles.

b)    Go to a new level of Productivity and way of working by adapting Technology tools that are available today.

Multiply the Productivity using Lean Principles

I would suggest a methodology to address this area. 

While many companies may have KPIs for their Employees and may be some of them are using them well, the Productivity at Task level may still be suffering. 

Have a Target: When you start improving the White-Collar Productivity, it is important to have a CLEAR target. I would suggest the target as ‘Avoid recruitment for next one/two years’.  Do not start with a target of ‘Cutting 25% of Staff’. This would be like cutting the foot to fit the shoe. While this is so basic and everyone should be knowing, I see many companies just firing Staff to reduce costs!! A Good team is what the Management should be looking to build. They would reduce costs and improve profits! 

Log your time: Encourage the employees to log their time and find out what are they actually spending their time on. You can give them Log sheets and ask them to capture what they are doing and to what KPI is it really related to. This effort may give you a long list of activities. Pick the Pareto items for improvement.  You need to do this for each Position in the company. 

Time Study: Study the specific Tasks on which you are spending significant part of your time. By capturing the micro details of the Task, you can examine the various losses that you have in doing that particular task. Usually you would have very BIG losses. 

Identify Kaizens: Identify the improvements that you can do to reduce the time that the task takes. The improvements may involve changing the Work flows, changing the authorizations, improving the ERP features and many other activities. 

Carry out the Kaizens: Here, the company has to move with some great purpose. One should not be stuck with some Kaizens that are difficult to implement. It may involve modifying your ERP and modifying your methods. Good amount of ‘Change Management’ is needed here. 

Multiply the Productivity  

One should aim at improving Productivity by 2-3 times with this methodology. A lesser target will not justify the effort and possibilities that are there in every organization. 

Wherever IMA handled this type of Project, the improvement in Productivity was at least twice. 

What is critical: Try out in one model area. Take the help of outsiders in this project. An outsider can bring a fresh perspective for this work. But, you should develop an internal team that would focus on Productivity of People forever. 

Next Article: We will examine how an Organization can transit in to a New Way of working at the next level of improvement. 

In my interactions with about 100+ Companies as part of my Consultancy and Job experience, I have seen many problems related to Lack of Knowledge on the part of Employees in companies. Every company struggles with this problem. Some have identified that this is the problem. Some struggle the consequences without understanding the Root cause. Let us examine a few of them.

Customer facing teams not having the knowledge of Product and Company: Today, we are all losing the people in Sales, Service and Marketing teams quite often. New people keep coming in almost every month! But, my observation is that Companies do not have any tool for teaching these new people or some companies have very ineffective tools. Very few companies (may be 2%) have good systems for teaching them in a systematic manner. Result is that we have loose Cannons going to Customers and promising the sky, moon and the Galaxy whereas the company is here on earth! This is perhaps the most dangerous of all the problems related to knowledge. 

R&D Teams working with low / no knowledge of product: The R&D teams also are losing many people every month in most of the companies. Again when the new people come, companies do not teach them about their product or they say they don’t have time to teach them !! Result is that the R&D Engineers are designing the products / parts without understanding the Big picture. This creates more iterations at the best and companies lose big opportunities for optimization of their new products at the worst. 

Operators on the Shop floor  manufacturing the product without knowing the process: I am sure all of you are suffering with the problem of losing Operators on the Shop floor every month in a big number. Still, very few companies have good teaching methods for the new operators. Some companies have Training schools. But, use very ineffective processes to teach them about the Manufacturing Processes. Result is that the Company loses a lot of People Productivity as new people do not produce at standard rate for quite some time. The Company also loses in a big way in Quality. I have seen many companies who are living with this problem for years without addressing it !! They not only lose money, they lose customer confidence and they lose Top Line ! 

Manufacturing Team not exposed to Lean: Most of the Indian Companies have Manufacturing Teams who are not conversant with Lean Principles. This problem is there at senior levels as well as junior levels. This results in companies working in a very inefficient way. They use resources at least 2X than what is required. Many companies feel very happy if they can meet 100% of the Customer Schedule. They are not focusing on working efficiently and saving some big money. 

The same type of problems are there in Procurement where the teams do not have knowledge of Best Procurement practices, Engineering teams not conversant with Value Engineering principles, HR Teams not knowing about better Training practices, Stores teams not having knowledge of Kanban, Inventory Management.. the list can be long. 

Indian Companies are working with lot of inefficiency! We can improve our Bottom line and Top line  in a big way if only we can address this problem of Employee Knowledge in respective areas. 

Today we have Technology Solutions

Today there is enough technology available for companies to leverage and develop Learning Solutions for the employees. 

E-Learning: Using E-Learning, the Knowledge required can be taught to the employees in a systematic and uniform manner. The advantages of this technology are as follows:

a)     Make the learning interesting.

b)    Make it uniform for all employees.

c)     Test the knowledge and certify the employees.

d)    Repeat all this at no extra cost throughout the year and beyond.

Virtual Reality: Using 3D and VR, one can teach about Product and Technology. The 3D Videos can help you to give a unique experience to the employees to look at the Products In a Virtual manner, look at them from all angles and understand the small details very well. This technology can be applied using the VR Goggles. This technology can be used in Product technology and it can also be used to convey an Induction program that will take a remote employee right in to the Factory using 360 Degree Video. There can be many more applications to this technology. Augmented Reality is another related technology that is available in this area. 

Gaming:Gaming has multiple approaches in Companies. Especially in Manufacturing. Using this, the knowledge can be conveyed in an innovative manner. Gaming can also be used to expose the Employees to different Business Problems in a fun or serious manner. Serious Gaming can be quite useful to companies to enhance Learning. 

How can you apply these Technologies?

Develop Solutions: A Company needs to get the Learning Solutions developed as a one-time affair. This is going to take some time for companies to do it. All the Knowledge that is needed for a company may not be available in a documented manner. The Knowledge has to be documented and it has to be used along with the Technology to develop innovative solutions. 

Proficiency Levels: The Proficiency levels have to be defined in a Company for Employees at various levels in each type of Knowledge. Product knowledge is needed for an R&D Engineer at the highest level. But, for a HR Executive this may be required at a much lower level. 

Learning Management: The Courses to convey the knowledge have to be made available to the employees for learning and certification. This data base has to be maintained using a Learning Management System.

Learning Centers: Learning Centers can be developed with a combination of Physical work benches and E-Learning Videos that help the employees to learn the process theoretically and then apply it on the work bench. One can aim at bringing the new employees to the required Productivity and Quality in the Learning Centers before allowing them to the Shop floors. 

Organizational push: While all this can be done, the Employees also have to take responsibility to learn. To ensure this, the Companies can think of making Learning and Certification of employees a mandatory affair. Unless the Employees are Certified, they may not be eligible for participating in the Annual Performance evaluation. This will ensure there is a Pull from Employees for the Learning and Certification. 

A Company can revolutionize learning and get tangible results with this approach. I believe Companies should take help from outside to do this. I personally would prefer People with good application knowledge than those who are expert IT People. In this area what is required is the innovative application ability. 

Are you ready to take your Learning to a new level ? 

What is Critical: To understand the Technology and applying it in a Model area is important to realize the power of this approach. 

India is a Power house to the world as far as Information Technology is concerned. Our IT industry is powering up a lot of efficiency across industries and around the world. But, the adaptation of Information Technology in Indian Manufacturing can be improved a lot. 

Many companies are yet to take the full advantage of the ERP that they would have implemented a few decades back. Most of the features may be lying unutilized or bypassed.

In many companies, the Finance module continues to be the most utilized one. Very few companies use the Production / Sales & Marketing modules efficiently.  

Whenever there are some proposals for a Software such as a CRM (Customer Relationship Management) or a Planning Software are made, the support for such proposals is not very high in the companies. 

The Management of many companies regard Software as a luxury as most of these are not getting implemented well. The results from these Software are not commensurate with the resources spent on it. 

I cannot say this phenomenon is universal. There are some companies that are successful in using the Information Technology more successfully. 

If we consider that the IT can be used at least in three ways:

Most of the Indian Companies are at the Bottom of the above Pyramid and some are just touching the second tier. 

There are many reasons for this low adaptation of IT in the Indian Manufacturing. One of the important reasons is the low participation from the Functional teams. IT is considered as the agenda of only the IT Department and sometimes the agenda of the Head of the Company or Head of the Finance. 

In most of the Companies the Head of the Finance is the Head of IT that tells us the story of adaptation of the IT in a company that restricts to Finance function. 

Advent of Industry 4.0 

We are in the midst of the Fourth Industrial Revolution that is inclusive of Cyber Physical systems, Internet of things, Cloud computing and Cognitive thinking. 

The various technologies that are available today can be leveraged to drive the efficiency in the Companies. 

Companies are trying to monitor the Machines using Sensor technology and trying to make sense of various parameters of the Machine like Heat, Vibration etc and trying to predict Break downs. They are collecting plenty of data and trying to analyse the data. 

Companies are trying to monitor the condition of their Machines / Products remotely using the Internet to help Customers get best performance from their Machines/Products.

Companies can now monitor the vibration of the Tool holder in a Machine tool to decide when to change the Cutter.

Companies have many options now to monitor the performance of the employees and help them conduct the routine in the Companies in a regular manner. The Mobile technology can help them in this. 

Companies can use the E-Learning concept to train their employees in a systematic manner.

There are several opportunities for companies to use the existing elements of the Technology in a manner that is unique to them and get a competitive advantage. 

We can see basic interest in various companies. Many companies are trying out some elements or the other. 

But, the knowledge of the Engineers and their participation is still very low. 

Approach it differently! 

To take full advantage of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, it is not enough if your I.T department is active. The whole company has to be actively seeking to use the various elements of the Industry 4.0. 

You need to train the Manufacturing Engineers in the modern technology. Without this, the I.T department will struggle to implement the new technology and the result will not be any different from your experience with ERP!! 

IT Aptitude: While everyone can not have the aptitude for I.T, there will be some people in your teams who may be having this aptitude in ample measure. 

I have experienced this in my career. When we picked up a few people in Manufacturing and other functions, trained them in IT and encouraged them to develop applications, they made a big difference to the company. 

Find your team: Identify those bright sparks that can make a difference for your company. You need to understand this and build your conviction of using Manufacturing Engineers for I.T Projects. 

Big Goals: To ensure your team puts in their best effort, you need to challenge them with BIG GOALS. Ensure these Goals will help your Company to go to a next level in your chosen field. Eg. If you want to reduce the losses in the Shop floor, aim at ‘Zero’ losses in a limited area. Do not take up a small Goal. You would not be challenging your team to go to the next level with the help of the Technology. 

Train them: Expose the team to various Industry 4.0 practices. Theory and Practice. It would be good for your teams to visit the companies / universities worldwide that have progressed in the technology that you are interested in. 

Full time team: Establish a Task force that will work full time to make progress in to your Goals. A part time effort will not be enough in this area. 

Top Management Support and Focus: The Top Management’s unwavering support is needed for this team to deliver. 

Every Company needs to adapt the Technology as their medium term focus. It has to be the BIG enabler in the next three years! 

So, what are you going to achieve in your Business in next Three years by leveraging Industry 4.0 .?

Today, India is becoming more and more prominent on the world stage. Whether it is the Business arena or Political arena or Health, Art & Culture, the world is looking at India with higher expectations. Indian Leaders are playing a prominent role on the World Stage. Whether it is the Sundar Pichaiah (Google), Sathya Nadella (Microsoft), Shantanu Narayen (Adobe) or Dr.Soumya Swamnithan (WHO), many more Indians are in prominent roles world wide. Indian Businesses are going out to the World. Acquisitions by Indian Companies are increasing. 

Indian Leaders to prepare themselves !

There are several Leadership Models that are available in the world including several with the Corporates. Many of these models are having ‘Self-Management’ as one element of the Leadership. But, they are all predominantly ‘outgoing’. They talk about what the Leader has to do out in the world. In Sanskrit these are called ‘Paraak’ (Outgoing). But, for a Leader to be effective, he has to be a master of his ‘self’. He has to undertake a journey in to his ‘self’. This is called ‘Pratyak’ (Inward).

India is having more than 5000 years of History in this Science as recorded in the Vedanta and Upanishads. This is the Science of ‘Self’. While I have read some of the Upanishads as explained by Swami Ranganathananda ji (EX-President of Ramakrishna Mutt), I am not an expert on this subject by any yard stick. 

But, I strongly feel we as Indians can adapt a Leadership Model that is focused on ‘Self’. Whatever the Leader may want to get done in the outside world, whoever he may be dreaming of influencing, he has to start with himself. He has to manage his ‘self’ and develop his ‘self’ to inspire others. 

A well evolved Leader can project a New and Dynamic world around him/her. 

The Indian philosophy of Leadership is that you have all that takes to become a fantastic leader in your ‘self’. It is already there. You have to only unlearn your old habits and take off the dust on the ‘mirror’. Once you take the ‘dust’ (old habits), your ‘self’ will shine through. 

On the basis of this philosophy:

We can adapt a Leadership model that centers around ‘Wellness of the Leader’ through maximizing the Four Energies that all of us have and Inspiring a Wonderful Change all around us. 

The Energies

If a Leader can Manage and Maximize his four Energies and use them well, he can have a wonderful effect on the world around him.  He / She will be able to inspire the people around them and help them achieve something Superlative. 

Physical Energy: A Leader has to manage his Physical energy very well. My observation is that only a small proportion of the Leaders who are actively managing high responsibilities take care of their Physical energies. A Leader may maximize his/her Physical energy by Physical exercises / Walking / Zumba/ Yoga or any other means. Those of you who regularly exercise will agree with me that a good Work out actually lifts your energy and not consume it. 

Emotional Energy: A Leader has to manage his/her emotions and maximize Positive emotional energy and minimize Negative Emotional Energy. You would have noticed that Positive Emotions would propel you to do more than what you would have thought possible and Negative Emotions would kill your day on an otherwise wonderful day at office. A Leader can use the energy from the Positive Emotions while avoid becoming an Emotional Person. 

Mental Energy: A Mind that is focused can work like a Laser beam. Today, we have several threats to our Focus in the shape of several Electronic Instruments around us. ‘Multitasking’ is becoming the order of the day. Multitasking simply does not work. You cannot be efficient while handling several things at a time. You would have experienced a wonderful efficiency when you simply shut out everything and focused on one task. You would have also experienced a situation where you were trying to do several things and not able to do anything properly. 

Spiritual Energy: This perhaps is the most powerful energy that all of us have. But, many of us would not have tapped in to it as yet. This is the energy that we can access when we keep a higher goal for ourselves that is beyond our selfish interests. One of my friend participated in helping the Chennai Flood victims a few years back. He worked for 20 days every day about 16-18 hours travelling all around Chennai. He says he was totally drained of his physical energy. But, was able to carry on as he felt he is doing something wonderful to the fellow human beings. After this experience, he has become a Believer in working for something higher ! Now, he has a higher goal in his life to help people around him while he is working and earning for his family which is a basic need. 

If a Leader is having a higher goal of doing something beyond his selfish requirements, he will tap in to this energy. He will do a larger good and he will also achieve his/her own personal goals too. 

An Entrepreneur may have the goal of achieving Rs 1000 Crores , he may also redefine the goal as ‘Giving employment to 2000 employees’. If he redefines it as the second one, he may go beyond his own selfish requirements. By defining it in the second way, he need not sacrifice his first goal. 

You would have noticed that Big companies like Toyota, Mitsubishi, Tata Steel have their Goal that look beyond themselves. The Social Goal becomes the bigger goal. Their own Financial goals become a sub set of the larger goal. 

How to Develop ourselves as per this model?

India has the resources to help us develop ourselves as per this Leadership Model. We have several Spiritual Leaders who are propagating these methods. These are Yoga, Meditation and several other tools. I am not sitting in judgement of how good the Spiritual Leaders are individually. But, the methodology that all of them are using is something that can work for us. Take what is good from them. 

As I know, this Leadership Model and this methodology to develop ourselves has nothing to do with any Religion. It has got everything to do with Human Beings. As such all Human Beings can use it! 

What is Critical: One needs to learn about the ‘Indian methods’ that are available in India. We need to explore more in to the concepts to decide how it can help us!!