Need to make manufacturing [Nov 2011]

November 25, 2011 6:36 am

Need to make manufacturing
‘INDIANISED’
“The next generation manufacturing system should be about green manufacturing – our manufacturing and supply chain operations should have a large dose of green in them. We should not waste. If we do, we should recycle them,” said Shekar Viswanathan, Chairman, Manufacturing Competitiveness Sub-Committee, CII-Southern Region, and Deputy Managing Director (Commercial), Toyota Kirloskar Motor.
 
Delivering his address at the Conference on “Indian Production System: Next Generation Manufacturing Practices”, organised in Chennai recently by the CII,  Mr. Viswanathan said, “Indian automotive industry has established its credentials in eliminating waste especially with the active involvement of OEMs in training”. Citing the case of suppliers of Toyota Kirloskar, he said that the defects rate has come down from about 900 PPM to 20 PPM. For the past three years, the cars manufactured in India have been rated by Toyota’s audit team as the best among the 50-odd manufacturing locations Toyota has across the globe, he pointed out.
 
N Kumar, Past President, CII and Vice Chairman, The Sanmar Group, said, “The implementation of new manufacturing policy is key for Indian manufacturing sector to enhance its contribution to GDP from the current 16 per cent to 25per cent, and increase the number of its employees base from about 58 million today to 100 million by 2022”.
 
Mr. Kumar also said, “The National Manufacturing Policy should go a long way in resolving and tackling issues hindering manufacturing sector, leading to employment creation and enhancing global competitiveness of the Indian manufacturing sector”.
 
Sudhir Rao, Chief Operating Officer, Renault India, and Deputy Managing Director, Renault Group in India, said, “The next generation manufacturing practices should be customer centric. They should enable companies to respond to customer requirements fast and speed up order fulfilling cycle. India should make use of the fundamental strengths of manufacturing practices of countries like Germany and Japan. The Indian production and management system should not forget the role of unions”.
 
TT Ashok, Chairman, CII Southern Region and Managing Director, Taylor Rubber emphasised the need for changing the manufacturing processes to suit the India market that faces unique challenges in terms of poor port infrastructure, power shortage, rigid regulatory mechanisms related to labour, etc. Countries in Europe or Japan do not face these challenges.
 
He said, “Higher FDI into the manufacturing sector will be a critical contributor in helping India achieves higher export growth of 18-20 per cent. Creating a national manufacturing and investment zones, as envisaged by the government, will prove to be a major policy intervention to push the manufacturing share of GDP. These zones will act as a key enabler in driving the growth of MSMEs that provide employment to an estimated 60 million people”.
 
In his concluding remarks, V Narasimhan, Co-Chairman, Manufacturing Competitiveness Sub Committee and Executive Director, Brakes India (Foundry Division) said, “Greening of supply chain and having environmental analysis as the catalyst for innovation should be treated as the key components of the next generation manufacturing systems.”
 
He suggests, “The  industry should evolve new operational metrics that would reflect on the industry’s performance in the three important areas of enabling infrastructure in terms of physical and human capital; growth avenues in globalisation; and competitiveness involving green technologies.”
 
C Narasimhan, Adviser, Sundaram Clayton, said, “In the automobile sector, the three core and constant factors of manufacturing: quality, cost and delivery are increasingly being redefined by customers, rather than by the industry. Today customers are asking the industry to reduce waste by eliminating non-value adding processes that currently account for about 95 per cent of our manufacturing and service processes”.
 
Mr. Narasimhan urged the industry to evolve the Indian competing production system in the future which should aim at managing the 6Ms of men, material, machine, material handling, measuring equipment, and method the Indian way. “The manufacturing in India is not yet Indianised which is why it is not able to become a global leader. Health care, software and pharmaceuticals in India have become world class because they were developed in India by Indians,” he observed.