My first interaction with the foundry production on the shop floor was way back in 1996, as a team member of my father’s project during my 12th Class summer vacation. Post my graduation in 1991, Foundry has been my “karmabhoomi”, an industry that has given me knowledge, opportunities to practice and experiment, and gain experience to become an able contributor to the foundry industry. I am reproducing the article from 2016, which may have been written after our government’s Make in India / Made in India clarion call.
The Indian market has changed since the impetus of “Make in India” and “Made in India” under the leadership of Shri Narendra Modiji. The entire government machinery has synced to popularise the same, easing the business scenario and removing the glitches. Thus, we are looking at a huge opportunity to become a direct or indirect global supplier and take the Indian manufacturing industry to another paradigm.
Some recent interactions with top corporates such as Mahindra & Mahindra revealed that even for their capital goods purchase, the Top Management has mandated to have products falling into the “Made in India” as a preferred supplier and given the first chance. This is a complete 180-degree turn from the earlier scenario where an “Imported” product was preferred.
The second example is the growing public focus on the product being Made in India. After more than 60 years of independence, the nationalistic fervor has been rekindled. At least in my lifetime, this is the first time such a feeling has been seen nationwide.
China Plus One for India: Challenges!
Every opportunity places some challenges before us, which need to be recognised, evaluated and addressed.
- Attitude—the first and foremost challenge is our attitude towards quality…”Chalega” is a word that has to be thrown out of the manufacturing dictionary. However, the core strength of the Indian attitude of accepting and adapting to situations has to be balanced without affecting the quality and time criteria.
- Quality Standards—ISO has been played around with, and the ISI Mark has also been played around with. The authenticity of the QS norms has been so distorted in India that it is impossible for somebody to really assess and believe in the certifications. There is an urgent need to restore the sanctity of the QS to rebuild lost confidence in Indian “Certificates.”
- Skilled Workforce – the country has a huge shortage of trained, skilled workforce. Instead, we have more “unemployable” engineers, who are totally disconnected from the real industry world. Typically, Indian manufacturing needs a hierarchy approach – A supervisor to watch over technicians’ work. The remuneration of the real worker is, therefore, transferred to the supervisor, creating a huge imbalance in the socio-economic structure. Secondly, the output per person, or in other words, productivity, is very poor.
- Reliability – This is related to the “Zero Defect” term used by the PM. The produce of each stage of manufacturing, be it component, assembly, machine, or project, has to be of the right quality and right specifications. The buyers, OEM, intermediate, or end users are all unsure of the reliability of the product in India. In addition, the cost of Reliability due to the time lost in inspection and verification also increases the cost of manufacturing. Recently, during our garment manufacturing, we changed the policy of inspection at the vendor end, which created direct accountability for the vendor and, at the same time, increased production twofold with the same manpower.
- Value Stream Mapping or Lean Manufacturing Practices – to compete in the global supply chain, it is essential to recognise, identify and eliminate non-productive costs in the manufacturing processes. This has to be embedded in the core business values and documented.
Whether it is a domestic supply or an export supply – the quality of goods and the standards need to be uniform. We have to start treating our own country on equal platform, imbibe the quality of goods, importance of time and embrace systems to capture this huge Opportunity.
China Plus One for India: Ways Ahead!
Every Opportunity has a challenge, and every challenge should have a way out…it is a continuous process. Looking at the major challenges, here are some suggestions from our own experiences and interactions with several industries.
- Quality – The final quality of the product comes from the bottommost working hand in the manufacturing process. It is important to engage at all levels of the organisation collectively and inject quality into their blood. This will require not only QMS tools, but equally important to change their personal habits and align them to the system needs. Recognise the need for the right tools, instruments, and working environment for the working team to ensure the quality of the product. Lack of resources is a common issue faced in the Indian environment.
- Cost & Time management – What cannot be measured cannot be control. Embracing and understanding of solutions to map the costs, time and means of optimising shall ensure timely delivery, at lower costs, making the organisations more competitive. The issues are always resolved on a long term & short term basis. Here are some long term solutions which need to be addressed.
- Sharing of Information – the market is huge, and sharing information with competitors should be encouraged at all levels to embrace best practices. They industries must change the mind set and interact with similar producers and improve their quality.
- Private Cluster approach – instead of depending on the long process of govt support for clusters, industries should come together to invest collectively, allowing them to have access to sustainable manufacturing facilities, where they themselves cannot justify due to underutilisation. The industry has to come out of “secrecy” mind set, and move forward.
In June 2018, I put down another note on the role of MSMEs shared with UNIDO as my inputs towards the MSME Ministry call for documenting scope of MSMEs in 2030.
With 1000+ Foundry industry connect, we are able to understand the pain, the gaps and at the same time the huge opportunities lying with the MSME.
If we were to draw out a 10-year plan for MSMEs to move forward, they would primarily focus on:
- Quality, Reliability, Productivity, and Competitiveness – by investing time & money in Human Capital development.
- Future readiness – by investing in strong academic linkages for building Appropriate Solutions & Technologies aligned to our need
- Resource Management – benchmarking of consumptions, thereby reducing wastes of natural resources such as sand fuel ; waste recovery with source & sink marriage (the waste for one can be the raw material for another)
- Co-operative & Cluster working – information sharing, transparency & growing together cultural shift.
- Human Capital Building – industry engagement in education; rethinking the school education & vocational skill model
- Research & Development – promoting the R&D culture in supply chain e.g. machine manufacturer to be supported by Industry and so on, without forward & backward integrated stake holders helping each other R&D in India cannot grow.
Let’s now look at 2024, or the post COVID era, has again put forward another chance for India to UNLOCK its knowledge and values to be a global player, offering an alternative to China, a China+1 option.
What I have noticed is that we are missing something in all our ecosystem development, building consortiums of MSMEs and entering into developing countries or emerging regions for action, such as Africa and South America. These countries seek trusted partners for whom India’s value system, transparency and culture are highly regarded. We have an untapped asset of knowing what it takes to develop an MSME-driven business. Instead of looking ONLY at the export of parts or components, we may start to look at exporting knowledge and setting up joint ventures.
In 2018, during the UN House meeting, I also connected to UNCTAD’s Empretec program.
Empretec India Foundation (EIF) launched its flagship Programmes, HiEERA (High Impact Entrepreneurs from Emerging Regions of Action) in 2018 and DRIVE (Development through Re-Purposing Indian Village Enterprises), in 2018 to promote innovative, internationally competitive, sustainable small and medium enterprises in India and other forward-looking countries.
The HiEERA programme has been developed to cater to high-impact (high-potential and high-performance) entrepreneurs looking to scale up and integrate their enterprises into local, regional, national, and global industry value chains. The programme includes both culture and linkage-based interventions.
Culture Inputs are designed to provide insights to entrepreneurs with growth mindsets—those capable of initiating, strengthening, deepening, and extending industry value chains—urging them to identify and import the behaviours from Empretec’s competency framework into their personal and business situations through a process of deliberate habit-formation, encouraged through a range of coaching input.
Linkage Inputs include access to markets, technology, and finance, which are delivered using a catalogue of Business Development Services (BDS) involving a top-down approach. We start with interventions with the first few tiers of supply and distribution networks of larger and more developed enterprises and work our way down to smaller enterprises with potential for value chain integration. Specialized BDS may include developing business plans, valuation reports, helping meet governance and environmental standards, etc., for the curated list of HiEERAs based on the demand for such services.
Culture Inputs for the HiEERA programme help EIF identify aspiring, early-stage, and settled entrepreneurs and stakeholders with growth mindsets, who are then introduced to a series of interventions and activities designed to lead entrepreneurs and stakeholders towards a direct understanding of how business behaviours may shape business outcomes.
In my personal capacity, I have been a senior advisor to the program, which is slowly building momentum and an ecosystem with entrepreneurs who are committed to development and recognised as HiEERAs. As an enterprise, Rhino Machines is one of the MSMEs from manufacturing which has subscribed to the program since 2019, addressing the dilemma of capacity building, succession plan, corporate governance and reporting, leading to being one of the first whose business plan has been prepared, presented as one of the enterprises which can drive development.
I believe that if we really wish to see China+1 as an opportunity, we need to dig deep, collaborate, build an ecosystem with MSMEs, and unlock our untapped potential.
