Manufacturing will restart sometime. But you will not be able to deploy all your manpower in the current situation. To avoid crowding at the work place, the Government will not allow full manpower for quite sometime to come. 

Safety is first Priority: When you reopen, Production is not the first priority. Priority is Safety of your Team. How do you ensure safe working of employees without infecting them. Already there are a few examples of Factories contributing to the spread of the Virus. The factory near Mysuru is a case in point. We need to ensure we take maximum precautions. We addressed the Risk Identification and Mitigation Plan in earlier articles. 

Demand may bounce back: Now let us look at how we can manage with only fraction of manpower that Government is going to allow. From what I hear, probably you will be allowed only 30-40% of manpower. When the Lockdown is ended in a gradual manner, the Demand may bounce back. Let us hope for the Best. If the Demand is going up and you have only 40% of manpower, how do you fulfil the demand? 

Low Productivity: Indian Manufacturing Companies have been sitting on huge Productivity improvement opportunities. We have been talking about it in many articles earlier. The Manpower is used in excess both in Shop floor and in offices. Both Blue Collar and White Collar Productivity opportunities are existing for a long time. 

Double Your Productivity: This is the time to Double Productivity at your Factories. You need to quickly put Teams together for this purpose. Let the Teams formulate Paper plans immediately and then you can try to take permission for small teams to go to the factory. 3-5 People teams are already visiting the Factories. These team members can be rotated and each line can be taken up for re-engineering by rotation. Our experience is that most of the Companies do not require huge amount of changes on the shop floor to double the Productivity. If a team is very clear about Lean Principles, then a Small team is enough to re-engineer a line. The Team can live telecast their work to a larger team sitting at homes. You need to re-engineer each operation. The target is to get same output with 50% manpower. 

The other day a Company was allowed to start Production as they are serving the Medical fraternity. They had 140 people in place of the normal 275. The Team started Production. The motivation of the Team was high as they felt they are serving the nation in these troubled times. In 5 days, they started giving 95% of their normal output. In their words, they cut down on 'non-essential' work (NVAs). I am sure their high motivation would have helped. We need to study it and ensure it more sustainable. Some more work is definitely needed. But the team has shown how a Calamity can be turned in to an Opportunity. 

The Productivity improvement may continue after the Factory reopens too. But these Projects have to be made the top priority for the Company. Productivity can be improved no matter how good is the efficiency in the Company. 

We would recommend that the Companies do not go for high investment on Robots and so on immediately. We need to arrive at a situation where only Robots can add further value. But many companies can improve Productivity in a big way just by looking at their work methods and may be some small investments. We recommend that you put a very small budget for each line. This will ensure that the team will come up with the most Frugal Engineering ideas. We do not want to encourage temporary and flimsy work. But we should also not throw away big money when it is not needed. 

Using Industry 4.0 diligently : If Companies can use Industry 4.0 elements diligently, they can improve the efficiency in a big way. 

Eg. A Machine shop will be able to use their machines much more effectively if they can schedule their Machines with the help of a Software that connects all the machines and monitors their loading. 

Eg. A Task assigner software can be developed to drive all the Routine work in a Factory like Process Quality monitoring / Machine monitoring / Production monitoring and so on. This software may work on smart phones. The time of the Executives can be used much more effectively with the help of this Software as it can schedule activities dynamically and ensure there is less unproductive time. 

Look for Immediate return on every Rupee that you spend on Industry 4.0. It will pay back!! 

Digitalisation: This is the time to go for Digitalisation in a big way in your office Activities. If you have not been acting on this agenda, now you have enough motivation to do it. The White Collar Productivity can be addressed with this. Each Department should take up the work of re-engineering their work and reworking the SOPs. If you did not have SOPs, then this is the time to write them. With all the team members sitting at home, they have all the time to write SOPs. Every Team should take the target of managing their work with 50% of the Man-hours that are available. 

Companies like Siemens and Wipro are supporting Companies in Industry 4.0 and Digitalisation agenda. Already there are good number of Projects that are happening in the Country. But I would suggest that you do not look for examples. You need to be trail blazer and create examples. 

Senior Management Awareness and Commitment: The Senior Management has to educate itself on these possibilities and ensure they motivate their teams to take up this agenda. We notice that many Senior Management members may not be aware of these opportunities. Their conviction is important for this agenda to come even on to the table. 

What will you do with the Excess manpower? 

If you are able to improve the Productivity by two times, then you will have many excess employees. It is also a Social responsibility of Companies to ensure that they do not send out big number of Employees in these tough times. We are here to contribute positively to the Society. Trying to just take from the Society is not sustainable!! 

You can try different options.

• If you are having growth, then you need not fire the Employees. You will simply not recruit more.
• If you have been having plans to go for some Vertical integration, then this is the right time. Cost advantage will help you. You have the People ready. 
• If you are not able to do any of these, then train the teams in Vocational Programs. Help them to become independent professionals like Carpenters / Electricians. There is huge demand for this. 
• Help a few employees to become your Suppliers. It does not take as much money as you imagine. You will be able to help them to get loans from Banks with your guarantee.

This way there can be myriad ways in which you can take care of your Employees. Have a firm resolve that you are not going to send any employee away without a solution for him/her. You would be able to do it. Be Patient and give it some time. Meanwhile you can ask all other employees to take a cut in their Salaries / Wages. This is a much better option than putting some on the road! 

You can use this Calamity to emerge stronger! Are you using your time well ?

When you look at a typical Manufacturing Company in India, the usage of IT is very limited. A small percentage of Big companies use IT in an effective manner. While a great majority do not use the Quality, Manufacturing and other Modules in ERPs like SAP even though they would have paid for it and they lie unutilized in their servers. 

Resultantly, most of the Important work in Manufacturing happens off line. We don’t try to control the Manufacturing process as it is happening. Most of the controls are off line. We seem to be letting defects / problems happen and then we are reacting. 

Can we go more online? 

I think we should go much more online than what we are right now. I would recommend using some Apps for specific purposes. I would recommend using IT in two areas to begin with:

a)     How Employees Learn 

b)     How Employees pursue Routine

Let us examine how we can use I.T effectively in these two areas. 

How Employees Learn

Objective of this exercise can be to reduce losses on the shop floor and improve efficiency by bringing a focus on to the Skills and Knowledge of every employee in the Shop floor.

Today in most of the Companies there is some focus on the Skills of the Workmen. In most of the Companies this focus is very weak. There is no effort to continuously improve their skills. Focus on the Skills and Knowledge of Staff is much lesser. Only a very small percentage of the Companies the Staff are getting trained in a systematic manner.

We can’t afford this anymore. We need to become very efficient if we want to grow our top and bottom lines.  Let us act on this ! 

I would suggest defining the Competencies that all the employees need. These competencies may cover:

a)     Product Knowledge:The employees need to have good knowledge of the Products that they produce. 

b)     Process Knowledge: The Manufacturing Process and the process in every function can be another focus area. 

c)     Systems Knowledge: The Systems that the company may be following can be another focus area as this will ensure employees know the way of working in the company. Eg. Manufacturing system, Daily Work Management System , Policy Deployment system etc. 

d)     Functional Knowledge: This covers the knowledge that each Staff member needs to have respective to her function. Eg. APQP / MSA / Problem solving knowledge for Quality Engineer. 

Bring the Training online

You can bring the Training on these topics online by doing the following:

-       Define the Training agenda for each employee covering topics from the above 4 fields. 

-       The topics defined should have close link with the requirement of Knowledge and Skills to achieve the goals for that year / Quarter. 

-       Divide each of the Competencies in to several Micro Competencies / Skills as applicable. We should go really micro so that the topics become small enough for easy consumption. 

-       Have Learning hours every week. I would recommend at least 2 hours every week. 

-       Make the Learning content available on line on the cloud. 

-       Define Certification Standards for every Micro Competency / Skill in terms of Knowledge, Implementation and Results. 

-       Certify the employees continuously for the Micro Competencies. 

This will ensure that the Employees will have continuous focus on Skills, Knowledge. This will ensure the efficiency on the shop floor improves. 

The Training and Development has to be owned by the Functional Leaders. They will be the Sponsors of the Training as they will have to show the ROI. 

By bringing focus on Skills and Knowledge, the Functional Leaders can make huge progress on the efficiencies in the shop floor and that will more than pay back their investment on the Training. 

How Employees pursue Routine

Routine is something that is not very exciting in a Manufacturing facility. But, without a strong and consistent routine, the heart beat of the facility can not be consistent. Most of the problems that Manufacturing Companies face is usually related to a violation of Routine. 

Defects happen as the SOP is not followed, High Break downs of machines happen as the Preventive Maintenance does not happen, New Products do not perform better as the New Product Development process is not followed well. The list can be very long. 

Strengthening the Routine in a Manufacturing Company can give very high returns. 

If you look at how the routine is being followed now, it is mostly offline. 

-       Quality System is verified off line.

-       Machines Preventive maintenance happens offline.

-       The Production Routine of a Supervisor happens offline. 

-       Safety checks happen online if they happen.

How do we bring the Routine of the Shop floor online? I have some suggestions.

01.  Online Quality Checks: Develop a Software that will work on hand held devices (may be smart phones) that can do the following:

a.     Trigger Quality checks on the basis of the Product that is running on the line. 

b.     The triggers may go for People across the hierarchy to take care of the ‘Layered audit’ principles making Quality the Collective responsibility of Employees at all levels and not just the responsibility of that Junior Inspector of Quality on the Shop floor. 

c.      The Data will be accepted in various ways by the Software:

                                               i.     Physical data entry by the person to whom the check is triggered. 

                                              ii.     A Photographic input for Visual Checks.

                                             iii.     An electric pulse from an Instrument having capability to give output. 

                                             iv.     There can be more ways in which we can collect actual data on Quality. 

This will ensure that the Quality System becomes online and the checks that are happening and not happening will be clear. Quality can be controlled online.

02.  Online Safety system: Similar to the above Software, one can use the concept for Safety checks too. The input can be similarly taken. In addition to the inputs mentioned above, the CC TVs that are available in Shop floors can be used to identify unsafe acts and alert the concerned employees. 

03.  Online Maintenance Checks: Again, the approach is same as explained in s.no 1. The Supervisor / Operator will check the Maintenance points on line. The machines that have Breakdowns and Machines that already have Zero Break downs can be treated differently in terms of the checks that you do. 

04.  Online Assembly line: The Assembly Lines can connected to Internet and following actions can be brought online:

a.     Start up procedure. Many of the Start up procedures can be automated where the Software will sense the presence / absence of certain parts / resources. The Pressure in the airline can be sensed by a Transducer and recorded. 

b.     Running Status recording. The Line may stop for various reasons. The losses may be entered by the operators to ensure we capture the losses. The Software can ensure this. 

c.      Who is working at the Station. This is quite easily captured by the Software for traceability purposes.

d.     No Fault forward. The Defects that can happen at each station can be defined, Quality checks to capture these defects can be available at every station and using a RFID / Barcode system we can prevent a defect going to the next stage. 

e.     Line Work Management. The Line can display the data on Production / Losses and escalate the information in case of Line stoppages and other inefficiencies. 

There can be several more ways in which the work on a Shop floor can be brought online. When we do it, we have tons of data coming up from the shop floor.

Analytics: We need to have our Engineers trained to analyze this Data and take learnings from the data. The learnings may include:

-       The Quality checks that are getting missed out and address some practical issues that may be there in carrying out these Quality checks. 

-       The Engineers who may be missing Quality checks at a certain time of the day and this data can help us to understand the way of working of the Production Engineers and help them to arrange their work much better. 

-       The Safety points that are getting violated frequently and what needs to be done to avoid these violations.

-        The Breakdowns that have relation to running a specific product and specific operation.

-       Relating the defects to the people / conditions / time will become easier. 

There should be a small team who does these Analytics, takes the learning and does something about it. 

When you go online, the Team has to become more Disciplined and more knowledgeable about everything around. The training discussed earlier will ensure this. The Online working will also highlight the absence of Knowledge and Skill of People much more. 

Indian Companies have to shift to working Online earlier than what we think. 

Are you getting ready?

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?

While Indian Manufacturing Companies are trying to implement Ind 4.0 solutions, one more area that is begging for attention is ‘Production Planning’. The issues with Production Planning are more in Companies that are Assembly oriented where several Parts are needed to make one Assembly. 

Automotive Vehicle Manufacturers manage their Inventories very well (?). But, this is more due to their usage of their ‘Volume Muscle Power’ and not due to Excellent Planning. Most of the Component Manufacturers suffer the consequences. Still, the Inventory Management in Automotive Industry is much better than the other industries like for example Capital equipment industry. But, even in Automotive Parts industry the Production Planning problems are quite severe in many Component manufacturing companies. 

The Problems that happen are as follows:

-      Production does not happen as per plan. 

-      Shop floor assembles whatever Product for which material is available! 

-      The Plan is changed several times.

-      The Production Capacity is lost on a daily basis or Inventories of unwanted Products piles up as the Shop floor produces something to keep the Workforce Busy!! 

There are several reasons for the Production Losses. Some of them are as follows:

-      Material Shortages. This is by far the biggest reason for the Production plan changes. 

-      Break down of equipment.

-      People related losses – Absenteeism / Shortage of People.

Material Shortages: Every Company in the Country is looking to improve their Top line. It does not make sense to say that Suppliers are failing on Deliveries. In most of the cases that I have investigated, the problem lies with the Company and not the suppliers. The Production Schedule is changed so many times that the Suppliers have given up on the Original Production schedule of the Company and they wait for the frantic calls of the Buyers to plan their Production! Once a change is made in the Production schedule, it will have a cascading effect on many Materials and therefore Suppliers. 

Breakdown of Equipment: As I discussed in one of my earlier Articles, the basic Preventive Maintenance is not being done in many companies. They have to pull up their efforts in this area. 

People related losses: The People Policy of Companies is to blame here. Many companies are simply using the ‘Temporary manpower’ concept beyond its’ due. The way the companies are dealing with the People element is giving rise to absolute lack of commitment on the part of the employee force. This is resulting in high Absenteeism and Attrition. 

Forecasting: In these companies there is constant fight between Production and Sales on the issue of Forecasting. Sales say they can’t forecast what the Customer wants and Production and Materials say this is the reason for Production Planning Problems. Usually it ends up in dead lock. Many companies have given up on resolving this issue. 

Some of the Consequences of this situation are:

High Inventories: Most of the companies that are having the Production Planning Problems are having high Inventories of Raw Materials, WIP and Finished Goods. While they are having Shortages of some materials, in anticipation of higher Production they get many more materials and pile them up. 

Losing top line: These Companies also lose at least 10-15% of their Top line every year due to the mis match of their Production and Demand. 

Lift your Game in Production Planning

Companies need to understand that there is no Silver Bullet for such problems. Every Company has to find their own solution. But, they can adapt some Best practices.

Forecasting: To address the issue of ‘not being able to forecast the demand of customer’, companies can form a ‘Production Steering Team’ that will have members from Sales, Materials, Production, Quality and so on. This team should meet every week with some agenda. The agenda will have two broad parts:

a)     Reviewing the here and now issues with reference to Supplies from Suppliers and Supplies to Customers.  

b)    They should also review the Forecasting process, look at the Forecasting accuracy for each Customer and see how to address the problems of forecasting with reference to each Customer. 

Many Company teams end up doing only (a) above. Looking at Forecasting as a process and improving its’ accuracy is not addressed objectively. When we become aware of the problem and start addressing the reasons for not being able to know the Demand of the Customer, we will be able to solve majority of the problems. I have seen companies improving significantly on Forecasting accuracy once they approach it systematically. 

I know some companies who have graduated to understanding the Demand using some Data models and avoiding Forecasting inaccuracies. 

It is also good to consider implementing the Supply Chain Management Concepts. Different people handling Procurement, Production Planning, Production, Sales/Customer Management adds up to the problems. The difference in Demand Planning at several stages in the company result in high Inventories and shortage of Materials for Production. 

Combining Procurement, Production Planning, Sales / Customer demand Planning, Dispatches in to one function of Supply Chain Management can help in avoiding the differences in the Demand Planning at various stages. 

Supplier Engagement: Companies have to work out their own Supplier Engagement models. 

Companies need to engage with Suppliers on a regular basis and not just when there are problems. Suppliers also have to be given a safety net that if they plan their Production on the basis of Schedules from Customer and if really the Demand does not happen, the Customer will take care of the Suppliers. They may compensate the Inventory Carrying costs and so on. Please note that a good relationship with Suppliers will pay off on the long term. Many companies are focusing on the short term and trying to make money at the expense of Suppliers.  Obviously this will not work and it is not working. Companies can measure the effectiveness of their Supplier Engagement model with the number of shortages that they are having on the shop floor. 

Even after a very good Supplier Engagement, there may still be residual problems with some suppliers. These needs to be addressed systematically by categorizing the suppliers in to Red / Yellow / Green suppliers on the basis of the shortages they are contributing. The Reds have to be dealt with by the Procurement team in a time bound manner. 

I have seen that this type of focused approach pays significant dividends to the Companies.

People Related issues: Companies need to work out a People Policy in a practical manner. They should have a hard look at their ‘Cheap Labor Policies’ and see whether it is Worthwhile to have such Policies. Every Company should have a sizeable Permanent Work force and they should learn how to manage the ambitions of the Work force. This is the only Solution. Unfortunately, the practice of avoiding Permanence to the Workmen has become a practice. The People on the Shop floor are treated as Dispensable commodity. No wonder that they are also treating Companies as Dispensable! I think the Companies are losing out on Shop floor efficiency / Quality in a big way due to this.

The Cost of ‘Cheap labor / Voice less labor’ practices is being felt in Quality losses, Productivity losses, Customer market share losses by the Indian Manufacturing Companies. 

This is not the right practice and we need to have a good proportion of Shop floor employees as permanent. We also need to have ‘Self-Managed Teams’ concept on the shop floor so that the Permanent workmen can manage the smaller proportion of Temporary Labor. 

Other Losses: There may be a few other losses that are affecting the Production on a daily basis. These needs to be attended to head on. Companies should stop dodging these issues and they stop behaving as if there are no problems. One example of such a problem is the ‘Fettling’ issue in Foundries. Every foundry loses a significant part of their Top line due to the Fettling issue and still they don’t solve it for decades together. I am happy to note a small percentage of companies who are trying to bring in Robots in this area and solving a very sticky problem of Foundries. 

How to leverage Ind 4.0?

Once these Basic issues are resolved, Companies have opportunities to leverage on Ind 4.0 elements to further improve. 

The Consumption pattern across Industries is becoming more transparent. Using this data,  Companies can understand the Demand Patterns more clearly and be better prepared for the Upswing / Downswing of the Demand. 

Companies today cannot leverage on such tools. This is like collecting and understanding the Quality Data much more before you really apply a tool like ‘Design of Experiments’.

The Planning of various resources within the company can undergo a big change. A Machine shop today has lot of Queuing / Waiting problems on a daily basis. Using a SCADA or a Customized Planning solution, the Machine Planning alignment can be improved much more. The main issue in a Machine shop is not Planning alone. When something changes, how do you Re-plan is the issue. This can be addressed by an AI powered Software that keeps learning from its’ experiences and Planning the Machine loading in a Dynamic manner. 

Ind 4.0 has many uses in SCM. Monitoring the performance of your Fleet of trucks, Converting your Traditional Kanban in to E-Kanban and many other opportunities are there. 

We need a Breakthrough: I notice that many companies are still in the ‘Denial’ status. Companies need to have a longer period outlook and aim at improving before it is too late. 

As part of my work, I meet some very senior Consultants across India. I was there at Delhi, NCR Region recently and was exchanging ideas with some very Senior People in the Industry. Each of these people would have touched about 50-75 Companies each. The status across India with reference to Efficiency / Systems is the same. Probably 5% of the Companies may be doing well to continuously improve. Rest are not in good shape. The companies can be classified in to three categories on the basis of their Intent to Improve:

01.  Leading the charge: Companies that are aware of Improvement possibilities and those that are striving to improve continuously. This may be roughly 5% of the Indian Manufacturing Companies. 

02.  Aware but ‘No will’: Companies that are aware that they are not in good position with reference to efficiency and Systems. They have started feeling the heat due to the Low efficiency. The improvement started in a very slow manner. These Companies keep going forward and sometimes sliding back again.  This category may be about 15-20% of the Companies that we see.

03.  Blissfully unaware: Rest are blissfully unaware of the improvement that they can make. They keep thinking that nothing more is possible and they are doing just about everything. The Knowledge in the Company gets limited due to this attitude at the top. This consists of about 75% of the Companies in India.

The above numbers may not be accurate. But,  I am sure they are in the region of being reasonably accurate. 

Let us complete the last week’s article. We will have to cover Four more elements that I have identified last week. 

04.  Who is owning the Quality?

Current Condition: Most of the Companies still have the Quality function handling Quality Control job and struggling to make it to Quality Assurance. 

In every company there would be areas that require immediate controls due to the problems that may be there and areas that are relatively stable and are ready for Quality Assurance approach. Both can co-exist. We only have to ensure that the QA works on Assurance all the time and if a Control approach is needed in some areas, that should be done by the Production team. 

Every company undoubtedly have a strain on the Bottom line and they try to control the Costs. The Quality Function also would have its’ targets to cut the people. Most of the time the people who are there in the Function do only the Control function and there is no one to lead the Assurance function. The Quality Function in most of the Companies are structured to do the Assurance function. But, they keep doing only the ‘Control’ function and Other Functions like Production, Engineering, Materials etc  are simply not participating in the Quality Function. 

Lift the Game: The Companies have to ensure that the Quality is owned by all Functions. A Layered Audit approach has to be adapted. The Quality parameters have to be audited by the Engineers across Production / Quality / Engineering / Materials etc. The Layered audit has to be driven by the QA Function. Following the audit, continuous improvements have to be carried out in every area. This should become a way of life. 

Each Function has to own the parameters that can be naturally taken care by them. Machine related parameters should be controlled by the Maintenance Function. The Audit also has to be done by people at ALL levels. Right from Plant Head, Functional Heads every Staff member has to be involved in the Audit.

I have seen that once everyone in the Manufacturing Plant starts participating in the Process audit, they start exuding a lot of Confidence. I have seen Engineers responding to Customer Audits in a confident manner. The Process genuinely improves. If those who are responsible for the Shop efficiency are not familiar with the Process on the shop, how can it Improve? 

How to use the Ind 4.0 elements: Once the Quality Control Is being owned by everyone, the Quality Assurance can focus on the Assurance element. The Plant Team would be aware of and Confident of the Quality Process in the Plant. 

In the area of Quality Control the Machines can be used more intelligently. Many Assembly lines that are being used by Indian Companies have capabilities that can be used to monitor Quality. 

The Ind 4.0 elements can be used for Assurance function too. Eg. For No Fault Forward. 

-      Using Handhelds and making the Quality Data online as explained in the previous article. 

-      QA team should learn Big Data Analytics to make sense of the Data that would be generated once the Quality Data is made online.

-      Using Analytics the Process has to be understood at a Micro Level.

-      As we understand the Process at a Micro Level, we strive to control it at a Micro Level. 

05.  Response to Customer

Current Condition: Response to Customers is needed at least in two situations. When dealing with a New Product and when servicing him with existing Products. 

In most of the Companies the New Product Development is not in a good shape. The Product does not get done in time and when the Product is ready the Quality may not suit the Customer. There would be a number of iterations in the Development and the Companies do not seem to improve on this in a systematic manner. Every company needs a good New Product Development System. Again probably only about 5-10% of the Companies may have this system. 

While servicing the customer with the existing Products, Company has to deal with Quality Problems reported and the Customer Audit findings that they have to answer. On both these counts, the Companies have miles to go. The Customer Audits are still approached with a huge effort before the audit or total disregard. 

Lift the Game: The Response to Customer can be improved in both these areas.

A New Product Development systemhas to be put in place with clear KPIs. The KPIs have to be reviewed in Design and Management Reviews. The Cross Functional Teamconcept has to be driven hard in this area in the Company. Without Cross Functional approach the Company cannot improve the New Product Development. The Employees involved have to be treated as a team and their skills have to be improved continuously. Basics like usage of Design Check Lists and Recording Learnings from Projects have to be implemented. 

The Problem Solvinghas to be improved in the Company as discussed earlier. This can help the Company to improve the Quality Significantly. 

How to use the Ind 4.0 elements: Usage of Additive Manufacturingfor Proto Development is something Companies are trying out with some good success. 

Companies can create Libraries of their Product Development learnings and use Artificial Intelligence to learn from their experiences and improve their Future productswith their Learnings. 

The Knowledge Bank from Problem solvingin a Company can also be input for the Design of the New Products.

Using E-Learning and VR for Trainingthe new Engineers that come in to the New Product Development System is something that is very much feasible for all companies. This can save a lot of time for Senior people who spend a good amount of their time training the New comers and guiding them. E-Learning can help you to save on the Senior People time which is a scarce resource. 

06.  Machine Condition

Current Condition: The Machine Maintenance was discussed in detail in one of my earlier articles. I do not intend to repeat it in this article. But, let us discuss a bit more about Machines with reference to the Quality of Process / Product. 

The Machines used for Manufacturing do have big role in deciding the Quality of the Process and the Product. These Machines will have to be maintained with this fact as the background

The Preventive Maintenance in many companies today is not having much Direct link to the Quality of the Process / Product. This is worried about only by the Quality team or sometimes by the Production team. The Maintenance team is not really focusing on the Quality of the Product unless the Manufacturing is stopped due to bad quality. Improving the Machine condition to improve the Quality is not very widely practiced in Indian Manufacturing.

Lift the Game: The Process Capabilities have to be used to manage and Improve the Process. The Machine condition has to be directly linked to the Process Capability. Maintenance team should play an appropriate role in improving the Process Capability. Improving Process Capability may have elements other than Machine. Here, the discussion is limited only to the Machine. 

The Traditional Plant Maintenance team has to participate in the ‘Layered Audit’. They will have Check lists that are centred around Machine condition and its’ linkage to Quality. 

Many of the Indian Companies are going for Automated machines and Automated Plants. In such a situation the roles of the Maintenance Engineer ,Quality Engineer and Production Engineer gets clubbed in to one. The Engineer who is managing the Automated Plant needs to worry about all three elements.

How to use the Ind 4.0 elements: Today technology exists for collecting a lot of Data from the machine and Monitoring the performance of the Machine at a micro level. 

If a Cutter on a Machine tool is becoming blunt, traditionally the Operator would change the Cutter only when it starts producing rejections OR he will change it when he produces a certain number of components that may work or may not work. Now, I have seen some companies put Vibration Sensors on the Tool holder and then measure the Vibration. When the Vibration increases, then they know the Cutter has to be changed. This helps in preventing Bad Quality. 

Using similar technology, it is possible to make Digital Twins of every critical machine. This would help Prevent Bad Quality. 

There are several more ways in which the Ind 4.0 elements can be used. Using Vision Camera Technology to prevent a wrong Operation by the Operator at the Assembly line. 

07.  Work Culture: Work Culture gets impacted by all the elements that have been discussed in this article. 

Current Condition: Currently the Work Culture in the Shop floor needs a lot of improvement. It is characterised by the following:

-      The Engineers hardly do any Engineering related work. All of them do Admin work in terms of chasing for Material from Stores/ Purchase or chasing for People from various agencies. They hardly have time to do any other improvement work. 

-      While the most Value Adding work is happening in the Shop floor, the focus of the whole company is not on the Shop floor. The Production Supervisors / Managers would be running around to catch the glimpse of the HR Manager for People related issues, Chase the Quality Head for Quality related issues, Chase the Materials head for material that has not come and so on. 

Lift the Game: The whole company has to be reoriented to support the Shop floor. Production team has to use Andon signals to indicate the problem that is there on the shop floor and Senior Management should reorient the Respective team to come to shop floor and solve the Problem. The Production team should be engaged in doing Kaizens that will help in Better Quality and Quantity. 

How to use the Ind 4.0 elements: 

Handheld technology can be used to guide the Engineers in their work. The Routine should be driven by the App on the Handheld. 

The Inefficiencies have to be monitored on line, analysed and Prevented. Again, in this case the Manufacturing Engineer should learn about Data Analytics.  

Seize the moment: The Indian Manufacturing Companies are under pressure to improve their Top and Bottom Lines. 

They need to seize the moment and Lift their game in preparation to the Ind 4.0. The ROI on investment in to Ind 4.0 can be improved if the returns from ‘Lifting the game’ are added to the kitty. For ‘Lifting the Game’ we don’t need much Technology. We need a lot of Will Power and some Vision. 

Several Indian Companies are aspiring to use Industry 4.0 elements and they are trying to get the tag of ‘We too are implementing Industry 4.0’. But, as I was mentioning in the last few Articles, we are simply not ready. May be a small percentage of companies are truly there. But, most of the Companies are just not anywhere near to using Ind 4.0. 

We have examined the Plant Maintenance area last week. 

Let us look at Quality Assurance this time.

Indian Manufacturing Companies are supplying World over and we are generally capable of achieving any level of Quality if we put our efforts in to it. I know Companies that supply to the Best Companies in the World. Usually these MNCs take complex parts from India. As they find Indian Companies accommodating and willing to learn. 

But, most of these MNCs also would have experienced that Indian Companies take quite a bit of time to ‘get in to the groove’ or ‘take off’ in supplies. Then, they also have a problem of giving ‘Good Quality consistently’. By the time the Customer heaves a sigh of relief that the Supplies have finally taken over, they will have a rude shock of getting a Batch of Parts that are totally off the Specs. They may notice something going wrong ‘terribly’. This usually shakes the confidence of the Customer.

I have seen that the Companies in India suffer, suffer the Customer and if the Relationship wades through all this and survives, the supplies may really settle down. But, a few hiccups here and there keep happening. The Customer would have accepted it and keep debiting huge costs to the Supplier. 

Many Companies in India may find that the ‘Lucrative Business’ that they found in the Western world slowly starts losing money! Many companies would have slowly exited the Business. Very few would fight hard and improve themselves. The Companies that don’t learn, keep having the same experience being repeated with various Customers. 

Now, many of these Companies are trying to join the Bandwagon of  Ind 4.0. They can’t succeed unless they Re-engineer their processes totally. 

Let us look at a few Micro areas within  Quality Assurance. We will discuss the Current condition and how they can Lift their Game in preparation for using Ind 4.0 elements.

We will look at the following Micro areas in Quality Assurance:

o   Quality Plan Adherence

o   Quality Problem Solving

o   Employee knowledge and Skills

o   Who is owning the Quality?

o   Response to Customer

o   Machine Condition

o   Work Culture

01.  Quality Plan Adherence 

Current Condition: I have seen that the Quality Plan Adherence in many companies is not in good shape. How much Percentage would you score if you check each line against the Quality Plan that YOU have worked out? My experience is that the adherence ranges from around 30% to 70% when checked actually on the ground. 

Those of you who are not able to agree to this should actually go to the lines and check it. If you are really at 90-95%, then you are a minority in the Indian Manufacturing. Congratulations! Keep improving from there! 

Why is the Adherence so low in many companies?

Some reasons that I observed are:

a)    Does not recognise change: The Quality Plan would not have been updated for changes that are happening on the ground. Resultantly, it becomes a Dumb Document. 

b)   Impractical load of work: The Inspectors / Operators who are supposed to carry out the Quality checks are loaded very heavily with the work and I found in a few companies that if they have to do all the checks that are prescribed in the Quality Plan, they have to be available for at least 12 hours instead of the 8 hours for which they are available. No one cares about this. Operators simply can’t keep up with the work. They don’t check many of the Parameters.  Everyone in the Company would know it and ignore it. 

c)    Simply ignored: There are many Quality Checks that can be done. But, they are simply ignored. If you ask the concerned employees, they would immediately start doing them. 

Lift the Game: The Quality Plans have to be revamped. Recognise what is happening on the Ground. Work out a Layered approach for implementing the Quality Plan. Involve many more people in the implementation of the Quality Plan. Every one working in the Factory should participate in the Quality Plan implementation. Right from Factory Head to the Operator handling the Machine. 

The Quality Plan implementation has to be audited by the Quality Team on a daily basis. Some companies have implemented this Layered audit approach in a very nice manner. The results are wonderful. When the Engineers involved control the process on a daily basis, their knowledge improves and they become very confident. I have seen that these Engineers are able to face up to Customers in a much better manner. 

How to use Ind 4.0 : Now, we have a very well developed Hand Held Technology available. This along with the connectivity that we have makes it amenable to take the Quality Plan usage online. You can think of having a Mobile Software that will help you monitor the Quality parameters on line. You can trigger Quality check points to various people in the organization in the spirit of the Layered Audit that we spoke about earlier. The Quality Plan monitoring may interact with Bar code technology / Photographs / Video abilities in an intelligent manner to monitor the Process closely. 

Once you go on line, you generate enormous amount of Quality data. This needs to be analysed by a full time Manufacturing Data Analytics team. 

If you have standardized each workstation properly in the Process, then you can look at using Vision Technology to monitor the movements of the Operator and try to control the Quality at the root. 

There are many things that can be done using Technology once you get your Basics in place. 

02.  Quality Problem Solving

Current Condition: The Quality of Problem Solving in Companies leaves much to be desired. The Problem is at various levels.

a)    Not many  people are involved in Problem Solving. 

b)   People involved do not have good Knowledge and Skills.

c)    While Management wants Quality to improve, they do not invest in to improving these Skills. 

Lift the Game: Formulate a Big group of Engineers in the Company who are ‘Problem Solving Ninjas’ of the Company. Invest in to Training them and developing the Group. 

Create a War room and encourage the teams to meet every day for at least 45 minutes to actually solve the problems, for technical discussions etc. 

Build a Good Problem Solving Methodology over a period with continuous improvements.

How to use Ind 4.0 elements: Once you have the Problem Solving Methodology working well manually, you can automate it with a Mobile Based Software that will control the Problem Solving across the Organization.

You can use the Video technology to capture the Learning from each Problem that is solved and have a Knowledge Management System in the Company that can be used for Training as well as learning from Past mistakes. Coupled with Artificial intelligence and a good methodology of indexing the Solutions, you may be able to even input the learnings in to your Design process. 

You can let your Design process continuously learn from the Problem Solving Process in the Company. 

03.  Employee Knowledge and Skills 

Current Condition: The Companies that give importance to Knowledge and Skills are very few in Indian Manufacturing. Even those companies that are focused on Training are not having laser like focus on Skills with a relation to Results. 

The Employees in all areas of the Company keep doing several important works like right from Design of Product to facing the Customer without proper Knowledge of the Products / Processes of the Company. 

Indian Companies are still recruiting people without a measure of whether they are needed and why they are needed. 

The link between the progress of an Employee in a Company and the Knowledge & Skills that they have is very blurred. 

Lift the Game: Companies need to define the Functional and Leadership Skills that the employees need to have. I would recommend a Leadership Model be built for every company based on their own Business scenario and the Values that they want their Employees to espouse.

While the definition of what all is needed can be put in place, every company needs to prioritise the skills that they want to focus on for this year based on the Business priorities. 

They need to Train the employees on a regular basis rather than some spurts of Training. 

How to use Ind 4.0 elements: Once the Skills are defined, Priorities are decided and Training has started, the Company can look at optimising on the Ind 4.0 elements.

The company can adapt a Blended Training approach where the Face to Face training on short modules is combined with Micro Learning modules using E-Learning. 

The Company can get on to a Cloud based  ‘LMS’ (Learning Management System) and use it to drive Learning across the organization. 

Employees can be Certified for their learning, implementing Projects and getting results by an outside agency.

Using these elements the Company can bring Skills and Learning in to the centre of the way they do the Business.

With this focus, the Employees can certainly deliver more towards lifting the Top line and Bottom line. 

We will examine a few more elements about ‘Lifting the Game in Quality Assurance’ in the article next week. 

Have you started revamping your Quality System? Small changes won’t do! You need to rediscover yourself !! 

Across the world, the Manufacturing Companies are leveraging Industry 4.0 to become more efficient and to deliver more to the Customers. Indian Manufacturing Companies have a long way to go. I heard a Multi-National Company say that they are in Industry 2.0 or 2.5 in India while their Global operations are going strongly towards Industry 4.0. This is the status of many Indian Manufacturing Companies. 

To become receptive to Industry 4.0, Indian Manufacturing needs to lift their game in several areas. Majority of Indian Manufacturing seems to be stuck with traditional methods of working. Whether it is handling Quality or Maintenance or Industrial Engineering etc. 

Some of the Companies are finding the need to change and adapting better methods. But, still majority of the Companies are still in a very ‘Lazy State’. It is not just about the Staff and their knowledge. It is about the perspective of the Management itself. 

The Companies from Automotive Industry in India are in slightly better positioned as far as the Systems are concerned. But, even in this industry I observe that only about 25-30% of the Companies are having Good practices. 70% of Automotive and Auto Ancillary Companies  are still working inefficiently. 

In the next few Posts, I would like to discuss about a few areas in which the Indian Manufacturing Companies have to lift their game so that they can get ready for the Fourth Industrial Revolution!! 

Let us talk about Maintenance of Plant & Machineryin this Post. 

For ease of discussion, we will address two types of Situations. 

I.              Where the Traditional Machinery forms majority of the Machines in a company: Most of the Indian Manufacturing Companies have Traditional Machines with least amount of Automation. 

Current Status 

The Maintenance that happens in many of the Companies is only ‘Breakdown Maintenance’. The whole Maintenance team would be attending to Breakdowns. 

The Companies are dealing with:

-      Multiple Breakdowns of the same machinery.

-      Serious Production losses.

-      Preventive Maintenance not happening regularly. (Production does not release the machines for PM!) 

-      Companies replacing the Machines in frustration and when pushed by the Customer! 

-      The Spares required are not stocked in many companies. In some companies you have Costly spares that are rusting. You never have something what you want. 

Mindset of Maintenance Team in these companies: The Maintenance Team are busy chasing the Breakdowns. They are ready to burst if you just tap them on the shoulder!! They are frustrated with the Multiple Break downs. A good number of them are not ready to listen to any ‘Different approach’ as they are ‘suffering’. Their Bosses are ‘scared to touch’ them as the Basics may suffer!! The Bosses keep humoring the Maintenance team much less challenging them to get to new level!! 

Lift the Game

I suggest following steps to lift the Game in Maintenance of the Traditional Plant & Machinery.

01.  Strengthen the Maintenance team: If Breakdowns are too many and Maintenance team is under frustration, you can look at strengthening the Maintenance team by a) Training them b) Adding some Young Engineers to the team. Please do not fuss over this. You will more than recover your investment.

Differentiate: Even while having Break downs in a Factory, there will be at least 50% of your Machinery that is simply not having any Breaking down! These are ‘Zero Breakdown’ Machines. This may be due to your pattern of usage or may be these machines are built with generous Specs!! The Machines that have Zero Breakdowns have to be dealt differently. The approach has to be more Proactive to keep them as Zero Breakdown machines for a longer time. 

If you don’t differentiate, you would be waiting for them to Break down and only then you will do something! Does not sound alright. Isn’t it?

02.  Improving the machines: A proper Study of the Break down data for the last one year will help you understand why Breakdowns are happening and what you need to do to reduce them. The Corrective actions would involve things like a) Taking a few machines for major repairs b) Training users for handling the machines in a better manner c) Training the Maintenance team to reduce MTTR. 

The approach here should be that of a Project approach. The Worst 10 machines should get out of the ‘Worst’ List in 4 months’ time! You need to rev up your Engine to get out of a big Pot hole that you got yourself in to!! 

03.  Lift the Perspective of your Team: You need to Train your Team and take them to companies where the Maintenance Practices are at the next level. This will help them to know about the next level of Maintenance Practices. Otherwise, they may not simply know the possibilities!! 

04.  Introduce Predictive Maintenance practices: Introduce Predictive Maintenance for machines that do not have Breakdowns. Many companies have belief that they should deal with the Break downs and then finally go on to the Better Maintenance Practices! It is not needed to wait! When you Train your team and take them to Bench Mark companies, the urge to get to the next level will start. 

05.  Have Targets for progress: Motivate the team and set targets for Reducing Breakdowns as well as expanding the Predictive Maintenance! Please ensure your team continuously visits companies that are doing better on Maintenance. Whether in India or outside!! Seeing is believing!!

II.            Where you are dealing with Automated Factories: Many Indian Companies have introduced Automated Machines. Some Companies have set up Plants that are predominantly automated. 

Current Status

The Companies that have some Automated Machines or one/two Totally Automated Plants deal with issues like this:

-      In many Cases, the Breakdowns are higher than the Manual machines! 

-      The Plant is not giving designed output. Sometimes the output is 60-70% of the Standard output! 

-      There are higher Quality Problems in these Automated machines.

-      The Maintenance practices recommended by the Manufacturer of the Machine / Plant are not followed as they are ‘too costly’. 

-      The Maintenance team is not fully conversant with the Machine/Plant. 

This status is not universal. There may be some Companies who are doing well in Automated Plants. But, a great majority of Indian Manufacturing is not in good shape.

Mindset of the Maintenance Team: The Maintenance team is still in awe of the Automated machine. They approach it in the traditional manner i.e Wait till it Breaks down and then attend to it. But, as this is an Automated machine with high output, the losses are higher! The Maintenance team finds out many short cuts with which they can manage the machine. Read it as ‘By passing most of the controls on the Automated machines’. 

We keep approaching the Modern Machine with Traditional Mindset. The mis match can not give good result! 

Lift the Game

01.  Train the Team / Introduce young blood: You need to train your team immediately in Modern Maintenance practices. It would be very useful to introduce Fresh Engineers in to the System and give them bigger role in the Modern Maintenance. They don’t have ‘Experience’. So the acceptance is much easier. 

02.  Work on the System:  In a highly Automated Environment the thin line between Maintenance Engineers and Production Engineers should be wiped out. Both skills are needed in the same Engineer. The Engineer should look at the machine as something that he has to maintain as per some Guidelines. Earlier he only had to ‘push’ the people in the less automated environment to get Production. Now, he has to deal with some disciplined way of maintaining the Machine. His attitude has to become more disciplined! 

03.  Use the Machine features: Most of the Automated Machines have a number of features that can be used to Maintain the machine. Collaborate with the Machine Manufacturer and use all these facilities. 

There can be a number of outputs in the PLC that you can use for a Visual Management of the Machine. 

The Predictive Maintenance can be introduced with a combination of Man and Machine. 

04.  Beats in the Shop: The Engineers should have a ‘Beat’ (Or Route)  just like a Sales person in the field. During this ‘Beat’ the Engineer should check various features of the Automated Plant and ensure things are working as they should. The work of the Engineers should comprise of several ‘Beats’. 

In a Traditional environment the work of the Engineer is predominantly dealing with the People. 

05.  Understand the Machine deeply: The Automation and the Automated Machine/Plant has to be understood deeply. How the machine works and what are the indications of the Machine asking for attention. 

A Lot of Data has to be collected and the patterns have to be understood. 

06.  Digital Twins: When you understand your Machine / Plant, then you can take the help of the Industry 4.0 elements and take it to the next level of making a Digital Twin of the Machine. Then, you can predict failures and prevent them much more effectively. 

The approaches can differ from company to company. But, some of the fundamentals will remain same for everyone. 

We need to find a way to lift our game and graduate to Industry 4.0. 

Will your Company rediscover itself during this Industrial Revolution OR are you going to miss it out totally?

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!! 

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 .?