Supply Chain Tribe magazine by Celerity November - December 2020

SUPPLYCHAINTRIBE.COM November - December 2020 Volume 4 Issue 6 For private circulation only

THE NEXT NORMAL IS NOW

As economy is slowly coming around, experts address the changes required in our way of thinking and managing to rebuild supply chains for the future

THE BRIGHT SPARKS

Celerity 30-Under-30 & 40-Under-40 Supply Chain Awards 2020 honored the future SCM leaders to spearhead the NEXT NORMAL

Consumer Electronics: The FESTIVE FERVOR Special Report tracks the supply chain strategies consumer electronics companies are adopting to sustain and grow in the NEXT NORMAL

WHAT MAKES A WINNER A WINNER? Dear Readers, The past few months have seen a flurry of activities due to an upsurge in demand that Festive season always generates. India’s economy has picked up speed. India’s factory activity too hit a decade high in October as demand and output continued to recover strongly from coronavirus-related disruptions. GST collections too crossed the Rs 1 Lakh Crore mark. So, let us all just keep up the great work done over the course of last six months and move towards a stronger economy.

At Celerity too, the months have been action packed. We successfully organized our annual Celerity 30-under-30 and 40-under-40 Supply Chain Awards on a world-class web-based platform. Our Cover Story includes the Grand Jury panel discussion on ‘Taking Value Chain forward through Innovation’. Read it to get implementable ideas and interesting examples. We also showcase 19 of the total 34 winners and what makes them a Celerity winner!

This issue is packed as usual with multiple interviews, Opinions and Focus articles across topics, making it a holistic read.

As we move to a new decade in 2021, ignore the naysayers and make India the fastest growing emerging economy again.

Charulata Bansal Publisher Charulata.bansal@celerityin.com www.supplychaintribe.com

Published by Charulata Bansal on behalf of Celerity India Marketing Services Edited by: Prerna Lodaya • e-mail: prerna.lodaya@celerityin.com Designed by: Lakshminarayanan G • e-mail: lakshdesign@gmail.com Printed by: Xposures, A 210, Byculla Service Industrial Estate, D K Cross Road, Byculla, Mumbai- 400027.

Logistics Partner: Blue Dart Express Limited

supplychaintribe.com

3

CONTENTS

November - December 2020 Volume 4 Issue 6

19

COVER STORY

THE NEXT NORMAL IS NOW Celerity 40-Under-40 and 30-Under-30 have become the most sought-after awards among the supply chain fraternity in just two years of its inception. While these awards acknowledge and honor the innovative streaks of the new age supply chain managers, the platform also serves as the congregation of the best of the brains in the domain with the leaders spearheading with their expert insights.

This year’s awards ceremony in an online format, was once again successful with enriching thoughts from the Jury panels and a whole-hearted participation from nominees and final award winners.

5 OPINION

34 PERSPECTIVE

Global Corona Pandemic: A Double-Edged Sword for Businesses

Harnessing the Power of Digitalization

The current time taught us to be prepared for any future eventualities on the back of smart technology solutions and out-of-the-box thinking, writes Anish Tripathi.

9 SPECIAL REPORT Consumer Electronics: The FESTIVE FERVOR

This special story tracks the supply chain strategies consumer electronics companies are adopting to sustain and grow in the NEXT NORMAL.

INTERVIEWS

6 Timeless Efforts

“We are beginning to see a new era for the tyre industry,” shares Vinay S. Chauhan, Head – Logistics and Supply Chain, Bridgestone India.

Industry views on the future of procurement and how can companies align their strategic objectives with Digital Procurement at fore…

37 FOCUS Exporting Opportunities for the Indian PPE Industry

According to Rohit Kulkarni, Principal Consultant and Yamini Vivek, Consulting Analyst, Visionary Science Practice, Frost & Sullivan, short-term supply disruptions from China in the chemical sector created an opportunity for Indian companies.

40 DRIVERS DUNIYA Ramesh Kumar, Editor, DRIVERS DUNIYA and co-promoter of TransportMitra Services, gives his interesting and thoughtprovoking take in two articles.

15 Cementing Success

“Supply chain management has shifted its goals from volume maximization and cost minimization to optimum operations and sustainability of operations and profits,” envisages JVB Sastry, independent consultant.

Editor: Prerna Lodaya DISCLAIMER: This magazine is being published on the condition and understanding that the information, comments and views it contains are merely for guidance and reference and must not be taken as having the authority of, or being binding in any way on, the author, editors, publishers who do not take any responsibility whatsoever for any loss, damage or distress to any person on account of any action taken or not taken on the basis of this publication. Despite all the care taken, errors or omissions may have crept inadvertently into this publication. The publisher shall be obliged if any such error or omission is brought to her notice for possible correction in the next edition.

The views expressed here are solely those of the author in his private/professional capacity and do not in any way represent the views of the publisher. All trademarks, products, pictures, copyrights, registered marks, patents, logos, holograms and names belong to the respective owners. The publication will entertain no claims on the above.

No part of this publication can be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, without prior permission of the publisher. All disputes are subject to the exclusive jurisdiction of competent courts and forums in Mumbai only.

4 CELERITY November - December 2020

OPINION

Global Corona pandemic

A DOUBLE-EDGED SWORD FOR BUSINESSES

Necessity and tough times breed innovation. This statement couldn’t hold more value and worth than the present times when the most successful business models earlier also faced major headwinds with the economy coming to standstill for almost 80 days in the country.

What the current time taught us is to be prepared for any future eventualities on the back of smart technology solutions and out-of-the-box thinking, writes Anish Tripathi.

T

HOSE of us who think that the major impact of the pandemiccreated lockdown is over, are probably in for a rude shock. In as much as the economy is recovering, and the jury is out on whether it is as per expectations or not, we need to prepare for what can only be called the “New Normal”.

My initial fear that not enough investment would be made in new technology during this downturn, has turned out to be unfounded.

Many leading companies – both in the logistics space, as well as general manufacturing, have utilized this lull period to make investments in technology and automation. The biggest investments have been made in warehouse automation and transportation / package tracking. Many companies have become so emaciated that they will not be able to survive – i.e. either shut down or be taken over. This is the law of nature – that defines the theory of evolution. Those that evolve will survive, and those that don’t, will die out. In as much as we ostensibly abhor violence, we don’t realize that “constructive violence” is the reason humans / companies survive and evolve. Interfering in the process of

supplychaintribe.com

evolution (as governments get tempted to do or get bullied into doing) does not really help free markets and optimum allocation of capital.

Many people have lost jobs, which is sad. Many skills will become redundant – which is even sadder. However, people will survive and new jobs will emerge.

We just need to reskill ourselves. A case in point is the best knife-manufacturing companies in the world are Japanese, and they have morphed from being manufacturers of Samurai swords! If they had asked the Government of Japan to help protect them, they would have remained small manufacturers of ceremonial swords. But they changed themselves when the world changed – i.e. no more Samurai swords were required for fighting wars – and repurposed their skills for making the best knives in the world.

The pandemic has forced companies to adopt technologies that they knew were required but were avoiding for some reason or the other. “Work-fromHome” technologies have been available for ages, but have only now been adopted with a vengeance, when we had no other option. Labor shortage is also forcing companies to make investments in automation. Smarter companies are

Anish Tripathi is a Mechanical Engineer (OU, Hyderabad) by qualification, with nearly 30 years of experience cutting across multiple sectors and geographies. He is currently triple-hatting as a Management Advisor (Ethican Advisors), and with a gene-tech and diagnostic healthcare start-up (Epigeneres Biotech) and an M&E start-up to productionize the awesome content created by my brother and famous author, Amish Tripathi (Immortal Studios). Anish possesses great understanding of the Goods & Services Tax (GST) and has explored areas it impacts at the intersections of law, tax, operations, technology, and finance.

now asking fundamental questions – meet only when you absolutely must, come to office only when needed, etc.

The disruptive forces based on technologies that have already been developed are only picking up steam now. There is a lot of money “sloshing around” in the world, looking to fund disruptive ideas. Massive paradigm changes are upon us. If you have survived the pandemic, that means your business model is valid, and is serving a purpose. You can be proud about yourself.

Having said that, don’t become complacent, as the disruptive forces you could face, would not come from traditional competition. Keep on asking yourself, what Joel Barker calls the paradigm change question – “What, which is considered impossible today, but were it to happen, would fundamentally change the nature of your business”. Mull over this question.

Agonize over it. Become paranoid about what could come at you, and from where. Because it is the answers to these questions that will provide you with the ability to be relevant in the markets of tomorrow.

All the best. Happy survival!

5

INTERVIEW

TIMELESS

EFFORTS “We are beginning to see the new era for the tyre industry where we move beyond the core product and get into how it will enhance the end user experience.

There are multiple facets of looking at TaaS Tyre as a Service. The Pay per Kilometer model allows buyers to be relieved of all maintenance hassles and would allow them to only pay for how much they use. The upkeep and maintenance stays with us – the tyre experts. In addition, we will also see Smart tyres make way in the future, which can share important data in real time – resulting in lesser damage and longevity of the tyres, thus, enabling customers to derive more value in the long run,” shares Vinay S. Chauhan, Head – Logistics and Supply Chain, Bridgestone India, during an exclusive interview…

I am sure the past six months must be harsh for the tyre industry in the wake of Covid pandemic. How did you survive and sustain the catastrophe?

With parts of the world being majorly affected, it was apparent that this is going to be a major disruptor globally.

With this, some of Bridgestone operations in different parts of the world were also affected. However, through our global network, we were able to adapt their learnings in the Indian context and take necessary actions right from the start. The interesting part of handling the end-toend supply chain is that you have the visibility of any issue from the start to the end. And this was a rare occasion where we were pressure tested at each & every link of the supply chain. For us, it was an opportunity to put to the test the 4S Framework (Secure, Streamline, Sustain and Shift) that we quickly adopted to navigate through this challenging situation as it evolved.

It was about securing the Resources, Streamlining the chain, Sustain the

supply chain so that once operations resume how do we manage and Shift to the new normal ways of work. As we worked towards streamlining and sustaining our operations, we still faced multiple challenges as certain parts of the country still remained under lockdown. This 4S approach however, had been critical in our ramp up and safeguarding our operations. It not only enabled a seamless collaboration within the team but also helped us to support our CNFs and suppliers during these tough times.

What were the challenges faced, and how did you address them?

The biggest challenge that we faced was the closure of shipping for some time. This resulted in some of the imports being delayed. The agility of the team and our global footprint enabled us to ensure the delays do not breach our production operations.

During the lockdown, we quickly realized that though tyres are not under essential commodities, commercial tyres would be required for vehicles

6 CELERITY November - December 2020

Vinay S. Chauhan has been with the company for over 18 years and has an overall experience of 21 Years in the Manufacturing Sector. He is well versed in creating innovative strategies to improve functional capabilities and increasing profit margins for the company. Skilled in building high performing teams, establishing strong distribution networks, strengthening logistics operations and streamlining inventory management, he is also an expert in driving change management for sustainable growth developing frameworks to optimize costs, and handling C&F agents, dealers and OEM Relationships.

plying under essential commodity movement. Therefore, the team geared up for supply arrangement beyond our traditional method of delivery. Pune and Indore are where our manufacturing facilities are located. The pandemic had severely hit both these locations.

Hence ramping up plant operations was a challenge. Our HR team and plant managers did a fantastic job to gradually ramp up operations while securing the safety of employees and partners. For Bridgestone, safety is at the core of everything we do, and this step was no different. Once the markets opened, we observed volatile forecasts and unpredictable demand situation and to manage this, our team started the weekly review of the demand & supply situation and ensured a closure connect with market to plan the logistics better.

How did you align your supply chain to cater to the changing dynamics?

The situation is still very fluid & dynamic and hence alignments if any cannot be done on a long-term basis. Our sourcing strategy, inventory

INTERVIEW strategy and delivery strategy are all undergoing review & constant change.

How did you work towards enhancing connect with the distributors and after-sales service requirements?

Our supply chain team work closely with our sales team to know the market insights as well as the sentiments of our channel partners and we have been working towards translating this knowledge into action plans best suited as per the situation.

How did you work with your 3PL service providers in such tough times? How do you see the wheels of the game-changing?

Our prime concern was to sustain the safety of our employees. During the pandemic, we did not lose focus on communicating with all teams as learnings from the field, and other locations were also being shared. OEMs too had issued strict safety norms, and as responsible suppliers, we did abided by them. We also initiated contactless solutions to prevent the spread of infection to 3PL members. I would like to appreciate the way the 3PL partners rose to the occasion, evolved, adopted & ensured that we have seamless supply operations. It definitely helped us

supplychaintribe.com

Bridgestone Group has set a goal to reduce its absolute volume of CO2 emissions from its own immediate production activities. In addition, the Group will accelerate its contribution to the reduction of CO2 emissions through products and solutions. In this way, the Bridgestone Group will pursue CO2 reductions throughout its product lifecycle and entire value chain. convert this crisis into an opportunity.

What are the five supply chain change points that you have worked upon to work towards the New Normal?

The five change points are: 1) Great focus on Security & safety 2) Going contactless and leveraging the power of Digital 3) Handling work with increased worklife balance 4) Agility to respond 5) More Proactive approach to possible eventualities.

What are the global best practices you have emulated from the parent company?

The focus on employee safety, adherence to compliance, and culture to serve society with superior quality are the philosophies, which are deeply ingrained in Bridgestone culture.

How has been the digital transformation taking place at Bridgestone over the years?

At Bridgestone, digitization has been a strong enabler for us and it has gained more traction in the new normal. The

7

INTERVIEW

The interesting part of handling the end-to-end supply chain is that you have the visibility of any issue from the start to the end. And this was a rare occasion where we were pressure tested at each & every link of the supply chain. For us, it was an opportunity to put to the test the 4S Framework (Secure, Streamline, Sustain and Shift) that we quickly adopted to navigate through this challenging situation as it evolved. It was about securing the Resources, Streamlining the chain, Sustain the supply chain so that once operations resume how do we manage and Shift to the new normal ways of work.

360 degree application of digital has allowed us to not only manage the operations well, but also create smarter solutions for our channel partners and consumers at large.

How is technology deployment taking shape to prepare for the post Covid era?

Technology is an extremely broad term.

Its application starts with raw material tracking to the connected solutions to the customers. Without a doubt, the post COVID era will see an impetus to the rate of technology growth, which is already at the forefront for increasing efficiency & effectiveness.

How can the tyre industry work towards the sustainable expanse?

As the social and environmental impact of climate change, resource depletion and biodiversity loss has become more pronounced. Bridgestone Group established a framework for Sustainable Business, in harmony with nature. And this focus is seen throughout our value chain right from the way we source raw materials to creating sustainable products and solutions. Bridgestone Group has set a goal to reduce its absolute volume of CO2 emissions from its own immediate production activities.

In addition, the Group will accelerate its contribution to the reduction of CO2 emissions through products and solutions. In this way, the Bridgestone Group will pursue CO2 reductions throughout its product lifecycle and entire value chain.

Where do you see the tyre industry

going from here on?

We are already beginning to see the new era for the tyre industry where we move beyond the core product and get into how it will enhance the end user experience. There are multiple facets of looking at TaaS Tyre as a Service. The Pay per Kilometer model allows buyers to be relieved of all maintenance hassles and would allow them to only pay for how much they use. The upkeep and maintenance stays with us – the tyre experts. In addition, we will also see Smart tyres make way in the future, which can share important data in real time – resulting in lesser damage and longevity of the tyres, thus, enabling customers to derive more value in the long run. Overall, it's an exciting space to be present in.

What are the policy imperatives you seek from the government?

As long as we have a level playing field, government's best job is of governance.

The government is taking the right steps in the aspect of governance and being an agent of change. Making custom faceless, encouraging DPD, focus on infrastructure, an aspiration to reduce the logistics cost in line with the global norms are some of the key areas of the work by the government.

How upbeat are you with the supply chain policy developments happening in the country? Your quick tips for the supply chain reset.

As explained above the policy developments are in the right direction.

However, with digitalization, I see a lot of opportunities to improve

8 CELERITY November - December 2020

the efficiency in the operations.

Collaboration with the right partner is the way forward. We look forward to businesses engaging with us to explore Win-Win propositions by collaborations.

SPECIAL REPORT

CONSUMER ELECTRONICS

THE FESTIVE FERVOR

With the positive sentiments towards Indian economy growing slowly and the festive season round the corner, consumer electronics companies are going all out to make the most of the opportunities in disguise. Yes, the past six months were hardest times for one and all and mere thought of economic revival at a fast pace seemed like a distant dream, yet it appears that Indians’ inherent resilience has outnumbered the helluva associated with the Covid pandemic. Though the recovery isn’t sharp, the slow growth spike can’t be ignored. Buoyed by the growing consumer sentiments and the fervor towards ‘Make in India’ movement, consumer electronics companies are putting their best foot forward to lure customers on the back of innovative quality offerings rather than the deep discounting strategy. This special story tracks the supply chain strategies consumer electronics companies are adopting to sustain and grow in the NEXT NORMAL.

L

ET us get to the NEWSMAKERS first before… Tech giant Samsung expects its online business in India to grow 35% in 2020 over the last year, driven by strong overall demand and success of its M series of devices.

According to the Samsung India Senior Vice President Asim Warsi, business, on the other side of lockdown, has been rapid and resurgent and that's an ode to the fact that mobile phones are a huge part of consumers' lives and there was a pent-up demand. He added that the company has had a slew of launches - eight smartphones straddling across different price points, tablets, and wearables in the post-lockdown period. Warsi said the company sees its online business in India to be more than double in the second half of 2020 versus the year-ago period.

As per the recent statement from the Ministry of Commerce and Industry, Apple has started manufacturing its highest-selling model iPhone 11 in India, which is a significant boost to the Make in India initiative. In a tweet, Piyush Goyal, Minister of Commerce & Industry, said, “Significant boost to Make in India!

supplychaintribe.com

Apple has started manufacturing iPhone 11 in India, bringing a top-of-the-line model for the first time in the country.”

Currently, iPhone XR and iPhone 11 are being assembled by Foxconn at its Chennai manufacturing plant while iPhone 7 is being assembled by Wistron in Bengaluru. Original iPhone SE and iPhone 6s were assembled by Wistron but those were discontinued in 2019.

Apple is also reportedly planning to assemble its new iPhone SE in India.

The iPhone maker has already asked one of its suppliers in China to start shipping components for the iPhone SE 2020 to its manufacturing partner Wistron in India.

Similarly, South Korean electronics major LG is planning to use the “window of opportunity” provided by the anti-China mood in India to stage a comeback in smartphones, targeting the sub-Rs 15,000 segment to claw back its way back in an industry now dominated by brands from across the Great Wall.

The company is seeking to scale up local manufacturing by 15 times until Diwali and expand distribution. Diverging from its global portfolio, this year, LG

is building an ‘India specific and India first’ product portfolio to cater to unique consumer demands here. The company is also targeting corporate sales and foraying into the tablet market by year end.

All these recent developments reflect the buoyant sentiments that consumer electronics majors have on the Indian economy, which are strongly aided by the upbeat consumer sentiments. The appliances and consumer electronics industry is expecting double-digit growth in sales in the upcoming festive season, which will be further supported by absence of domestic helps and people working from home, according to industry body Consumer Electronics and Appliances Manufacturers Association (CEAMA). The consumer electronics and appliances sector, which has already started on a positive note with Onam in August, saw sales growth in last couple of months owing to pent-up demand, but there is another element playing a role of a key driver, i.e. consumers are looking for a substitute for domestic help amid health safety concerns due to COVID-19. This has already led

9

SPECIAL REPORT

Deepak Sharma, Executive Vice President & Head – Supply Chain Management (Consumer Products), Bajaj Electricals Ltd.

Sourabh Raghuvanshi, Vice President & Head - Supply Chain, Lava International Ltd.

Ravindra M, Associate Director – Logistics, Panasonic India Pvt Ltd.

To elevate the role of supply chain as a strategic enabler in the business operations, it is imperative to amalgamate the latest technology in the supply chain.

These technological enablers will allow access to real-time information digitally with optimum accuracy to establish improved supply chain designs in place, for efficient planning and operations.

This will minimize the costs & errors and enhance the overall supply chain value.

The two major factors that influence the entire supply chain performance and costs are product quality and crossfunctional drivers. Across the supply chain, the major focus is on creating an ecosystem that allows a constant flow of information and makes the complete chain more efficient. Hence, the key enablers will be a collaborative approach, people-centric strategy and technological advances.

Such challenging times actually are testimony of true character of a brand and how a trustworthy relationship with partners unfold in these times matters in the long run. We try to ensure complete transparency with our partners over demand fluctuations so that they can plan properly. We have ensured that vendor payments are done even in the most chronic scenarios so that working capital woes of our partners don’t aggravate. Thirdly, we try to replicate our best practices and capabilities in our partners’ ecosystems so that gradually yet continuously we keep on strengthening our entire value chain.

Consumer electronics industry has been able to regain the momentum during the ongoing pandemic. There is a huge demand for large size LEDs considering the number of people working from home is considerably higher v/s office attendance. Demand for home appliances also has gone up with families wanting to upgrade their refrigerators and buying additional air conditioner for the spare / guest room also as work from home has become the new norm for majority of the work force.

to a higher demand for appliances such as washing machine, microwave, dishwasher, refrigerators, etc.

Makers such as Panasonic, LG, Samsung, Sony, Voltas and BSH Home Appliances are expecting a higher demand of new-age premium products such as large screen TV and big size refrigerators besides dishwasher, microwave ovens and washing machine, which have proved their worth during the lockdown. CEAMA said that the industry has overall witnessed a growth in sales of consumer electronics and

appliances in August. In July, the growth was only in the consumer electronics.

Since unlocking of markets, there has been an increased demand among consumers to equip their homes with the latest technology while they stay and work from home.

According to a joint report by CEAMA and Frost & Sullivan, the appliance and consumer electronic industry had a total market size of Rs 76,400 crore in 2018-19. Around 95% of consumer electronics and appliances sold in India are produced

locally, although dependence on China for components still ranges between 25-70%, which will be difficult to reduce overnight, according to industry body CEAMA. “We as an industry have done a lot of work (all brands) in creating capacity in the last two-three years by putting new plants to start manufacturing of finished products across categories. We are now in a very good position across all categories in the finished goods segment,” stated CEAMA President Kamal Nandi in a release.

Let us hear what the industry

10 CELERITY November - December 2020

SPECIAL REPORT

Towards attaining ‘Aatmanirbhar Bharat’ tag With global supply chain for electronic goods witnessing a restructuring as companies look to reduce dependency on China, India’s domestic electronic goods industry is staring at a potential windfall. Estimates by Electronics and Computer Software Export Promotion Council (ESC) suggest electronics exports from India may potentially hit $180 billion by 2025 from just $11.28 billion in 2019-20. To achieve that however, the industry believes it needs proper long-term policy support from the government. ESC has submitted a charter to the government that proposes expanding the existing production linked incentive scheme beyond just mobile and smartphones to the entire electronic manufacturing sector. “We have created a roadmap for taking India’s electronics exports, which includes mobile phones and accessories, components and other electronics and hardware items to $180 billion by 2025 to bring exports from the segment more or less at par with software exports,” says Mr. Sandeep Narula, Chairman, ESC. “Bold decisions are needed to create an enabling ecosystem for the sector to strengthen its manufacturing base and exports.” India’s domestic production in the sector at $70 billion accounts for just 3.3% of the global electronics market estimated at $2.1 trillion giving it significant headroom for growth. The domestic industry however suffers from disabilities like higher taxation, cost of finance and power which make it uncompetitive against China, Taiwan, Korea, Vietnam or Japan.

ELCINA (Electronic Industries Association of India)

leaders have to say on the shifting dynamics of the consumer electronics in the country and their preparedness to cater to the festive season ahead:

With the onset of festive season, how are you prepping up the supply chain specially at a time when Covid pandemic has completely dismantled the business ecosystem for far too long?

Deepak Sharma, Executive Vice President & Head – Supply Chain Management (Consumer Products), Bajaj Electricals Ltd.: The COVID-19 global pandemic followed by the subsequent nationwide lockdown has impacted industries and specifically disrupted the overall supply chain, affecting the availability of products across the country. We too are

supplychaintribe.com

facing supply side issues owing to the lockdown. Most of our manufacturing units, Tier 1 & Tier 2 supply partners are currently in the containment zones facing severe labor shortage which has affected our production and might act as a challenge for us to fulfil the demand. However, with the subsequent phase-wise unlock, we are trying to get our supply in line with the expectations set internally. With the onset of the festive season, we have enhanced our sourcing capacity to cater to the uptake in the expected demand. Favorably, the industry has shown an excellent resilience w.r.t meeting the demand.

Kitchen appliances such as Mixer Grinders, OTGs, Induction Cooktops, etc., have registered significant growth on a YoY basis, which is quite encouraging.

We, at Bajaj Electricals, follow the TOC (Theory of Constraints) model which compels us to stock our products with channel partners as per the buffer norms. Considering the current scenario, this came as an immediate relief to us.

Visibility and availability of stocks at the distributors’ end ensured that we get the necessary head start in terms of aligning the supply.

During the lockdown phase, we have worked towards capacity enhancement through structured initiatives.

Collaboration with internal and external stakeholders has helped us with rapid flow of real-time information across the channels. At Bajaj Electricals, our topmost priority and commitment is to reach out to the maximum possible consumers and serve them with our

11

SPECIAL REPORT entrenched distribution and bestin-class service. We are confident to navigate through these challenging times with our integrated supply chain.

Ravindra M, Associate Director – Logistics, Panasonic India Pvt Ltd.: We have successfully managed even during May to Sep’20 and ensured there is no disruption of supplies to the market.

We are fully geared to fulfil the festive season and geared up line haul as well as the last mile delivery network.

Panasonic is ensuring that all the touch points in the supply chain are following all safety and hygiene protocols. We had a successful Onam and are looking forward to fantastic festive season ahead.

Sourabh Raghuvanshi, Vice President & Head - Supply Chain, Lava International Ltd.: Definitely Covid has disrupted business ecosystems immensely and there are a plethora of challenges even today but by and large supply chains in most organizations have adapted to deal with this new normal. In my view, success mantra is to have a de-risking strategy as well as a Plan B ready as these are uncertain times. In order to de-risk ourselves, we have decentralized our operations and increased our partner base so that we don’t put all eggs in the same basket. We are working with a micro market approach and identifying local players who know and serve a particular region quite well both in depth and width even in the prevailing logistical challenges around the country. Secondly, we have more than one partner on most of our critical routes to further de-risk ourselves.

Thirdly, we have strengthened our multi modal capabilities to have flexibility to toggle modes between courier, surface, rail and air as the case may be. Having said these, we anticipate good surge in demand during the upcoming festival period and are gearing up to handle higher inventory levels as well as increasing manpower in our warehouses to meet the festive need.

What are the consumers’ immediate demands, and how are you planning to attend to them? How have consumer demands changed in the recent past?

Deepak Sharma: There has been a significant change in consumers’ buying

behavior and expect it to remain the same for some time post-pandemic as well. With people spending maximum time at home managing household chores, there has been an accelerated demand for kitchen appliances and breakfast essentials.

To address the growth in demand, we are strengthening our supply partners and are also amplifying their capacity through various initiatives.

Considering the COVID-19 situation, we have witnessed a surge in orders being placed through e-commerce platforms.

Apart from our traditional trade distribution model, we have focused on strengthening our e-commerce portal and omni-channel distribution, we expect this channel to contribute significantly to our revenue in the coming quarters. Our focus is to create digital applications that will facilitate contact-less sales operations and services.

– work from home, online schooling / booming Ed-Tech sector, increased digital media consumption. Apart from this, there is pent up demand from lockdown months when consumer couldn’t purchase and/or brands couldn’t supply. This spike in demand is likely to be there for at least a quarter more.

Ravindra M: Consumers’ immediate demand is that the product should be delivered to them in the shortest possible timeframe. Consumers, during the ongoing pandemic, prefer to shop online more and expect stocks to reach them at the earliest.

How do you view the New Normal for the Consumer Electronics segment?

We have heard that the consumer electronics industry is one of the bright sectors to bring back growth in such trying times. What’s your take on this?

Deepak Sharma: With the lockdown enforced, people are compelled to spend more time at home, resulting in increased usage of household products.

Small appliances categorized as essential household items have witnessed significant growth. Lower affordability aspects have provided an impetus to demand w.r.t. this segment. We anticipate this trend to continue even during the upcoming festive season and are geared up to cater to the surge in demand.

Sourabh Raghuvanshi: Most people have been confined to their homes during lockdown and Work from Home is there to stay for quite some time for many sectors. Hence, it is quite natural that demand for consumer electronics goods has gone up. If I talk about mobile handsets industry, then there are 3 factors boosting up the demand

12 CELERITY November - December 2020

Ravindra M: Yes, consumer electronics industry has been able to regain the momentum during the ongoing pandemic. There is a huge demand for large size LEDs, considering the number of people working from home is considerably higher v/s office attendance. Demand for home appliances also has gone up with families wanting to upgrade their refrigerators and buying additional air conditioner for the spare / guest room also as work from home has become the new norm for majority of the work force.

Deepak Sharma: The new normal has transcended now into an adapted notion by most of the brands. We have been agile in adapting to fastevolving consumer demands and habits, especially in terms of quicker and safer doorstep deliveries. The supply chain has become a critical factor in ensuring normalcy of business and provide a seamless experience to the consumers.

The consumer durables industry is expected to show a steep growth with the organized players regaining the market share owing to consumers relying on brands for trust and quality.

‘Atmanirbhar Bharat’ initiative will play a significant part in creating an ecosystem that will make the industry more self-reliant and self-sufficient.

Sourabh Raghuvanshi: Two evident changes: Daily dependence and quantum of usage of electronic gadgets and appliances have gone up. Hence, there is shift in demand towards high specification-high feature portfolio.

So, a set of consumers are upgrading themselves to a better spec. On the other hand, there is a new set of consumers too for whom this pandemic has necessitated purchase of certain categories for first time. Such consumer segment is mostly adopting newer gadgets at the entry level segment,

SPECIAL REPORT hence there is some degree of market size expansion happening here too. Also, a lot of local brands made fray due to supply shortages during lockdown. As bigger players have sorted out their supply issues more or less, next couple of months will see consumers moving back to their favorite brands.

Ravindra M: We have adapted very well to the New Normal considering there is a huge onus on us to maintain safety and social distancing within the office/ warehouse as well as at home.

We have adopted various mediums to communicate and hold virtual meetings to overcome travel restrictions.

SUPPLY CHAIN SHIFTING GEARS? As per the recent Cognizant research, when it comes to the impact on supply chains, organizations must consider operational continuity from two perspectives: Demand side: Consumers are reacting emotionally. Grocery and other consumer goods retailers are seeing increases in demand of upwards of 25% as many people self-isolate or stockpile goods to hunker down for the immediate to long term. Many retailers are experiencing a surge in demand unlike anything before experienced, even during the Christmas holiday season. Retailers typically begin demand planning three or more quarters in advance. With COVID-19, they have had minimal time to plan and execute.

Supply side: Fulfillment is an equally important issue. China was not only at the epicenter of the crisis, but it is also the largest supplier of components and goods to the global supply chain. This has created significant supply chain instability.

ACHIEVING SUPPLY CHAIN RESILIENCE Given the increasing global interdependence, today’s supply chains are increasingly volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous (VUCA). In fact, Cognizant analysts’ discussions with supply chain leaders reveal that roughly one-third of the goods sold by businesses to consumers cross at least one international border. In its multiple supply chain engagements globally, analysts find that VUCA is increasingly

supplychaintribe.com

becoming more relevant. For example, in a food and grocery supply chain, fresh produce is the most complex, with a long production cycle and short shelf life. However, supply chain visibility is rarely holistic and lacks systems thinking.

Effective systems thinking allows the supply chain to be viewed as a whole rather than as the different components that underlie it. Systems thinking considers challenges within the entirety of the system and not just the section of the system where the challenge resides. By zooming out on the supply chain, an increasingly holistic view emerges. In contrast to traditional approaches where separate parts of a supply chain are understood and individually managed, systems thinking delivers a view of supply chain behavior over time and as part of a wider set of networks.

This approach means organizations must gather data over a time series and use these inputs to predict supply chain movements — for example, looking at safety stock versus wastage figures as a time series over many months rather than for a particular period.

This model can be used to rethink the enterprise-wide supply chain key performance indicators (KPIs) that measure performance over time and accept disruption as reality rather than a mere risk at the register. An inability to manage the supply chain results in siloed processes and a “command and control” culture.

Today’s digitally integrated supply chain allows organizations to create shared KPIs across different nodes (i.e., organizations) of the supply chain over a time series, which will help protect the supply chain from vulnerabilities caused by political, social and environmental factors. For example, “customer satisfaction” can be measured at every node of the supply chain over a time series to understand the value each node creates rather than merely measuring throughput at a given point in time.

How are you aligning your supply chain vis-à-vis the market dynamics?

What about an ideal mix of online & offline retail experience?

Deepak Sharma: We are currently working on capacity enhancement and strengthening the ecosystem across

mediums possible, which will allow us to cut down the operational costs as well as the lead time to serve the consumers. To gratify the surge and demand variations, we have in place the TOC model with a buffer management system and replenishment module. In the FMEG industry, we are one of the leading players who are placed perfectly with the best mix in terms of offline and online retail channel placements.

A healthy ratio of 70:30 (offline to online) provides us with the right balance between pan-India coverage and emerging channels. Offline retail has always been a substantial market segment for us over the years. However, during the lockdown, we have observed a spike in orders through online platforms, and it will continue to grow owing to the current scenario.

Sourabh Raghuvanshi: There is lot of dynamism today and a number of variables are acting in parallel. For example, labor migration from metros has led to change in demand patterns, which were unlikely before. As a result, market size for regions such as Bihar and part of Uttar Pradesh is higher now than it was pre-Covid specially for entry level products. Secondly, on retail mix, while there has been a transition towards online shopping, offline retail is regaining traction and retail markets are likely to see higher footfalls as we approach festive season.

Ravindra M: We are fully equipped to overcome the market dynamics and ensure network optimization to fulfil customer/ consumer orders in the shortest possible time. We operate in both spaces online as well as offline.

The consumer buying online has increased during this Pandemic and we have been successful in fulfilling the consumer orders.

What importance does a healthy partnership between you and your supply chain partner hold to harness a stronger value chain?

Deepak Sharma: At Bajaj Electricals, we have embodied the philosophy of “Coming together is a beginning, keeping together is progress and working together is success” with our supply chain partners. Most of our partners have been associated with us for decades and in some cases over

13

SPECIAL REPORT generations. Transparency w.r.t our core beliefs and strategic choices have further bolstered their confidence in this prolonged partnership. All this has been possible because of the cordial relationships nurtured with external partners over the years.

We have pioneered the concept of ‘Availability’ in FMEG space with our presence in more than 25 categories range. A larger portfolio poses a unique challenge in maintaining an adequate supply of products. However, the company has been able to conquer these twin challenges and come out with flying colors over the past few years with the help of our supply chain partners. Their constant trust and commitment towards our goals have helped us grow ahead of the industry on a sustainable basis.

Sourabh Raghuvanshi: Such challenging times actually are testimony of true character of a brand and how a trustworthy relationship with partners unfold in these times matters in the long run. We try to ensure complete transparency with our partners over demand fluctuations so that they can plan properly. We have ensured that vendor payments are done even in the most chronic scenarios so that working capital woes of our partners don’t aggravate. Thirdly, we try to replicate our best practices and capabilities in our partners’ ecosystems so that gradually yet continuously we keep on strengthening our entire value chain.

Ravindra M: There is certainly a huge importance of a healthy partnership between the principal and the supply chain partner as the supply chain partner plays a major role in fulfilling customer orders in the committed timeframe.

How is Make in India initiative slated to boost the growth of your company, and how are you prepping your supply chain to cater to the growing demands?

Deepak Sharma: Currently, around 85% of our products are made in India. With the Central Government’s thrust on ‘Atmanirbhar Bharat’ initiative, we look forward to aligning our manufacturing capabilities to support the movement and encouraging to produce highquality products within the country. At

Bajaj Electricals, we are already geared up to meet the anticipated upsurge through capacity enhancement and superior production efficiency.

Ravindra M: We already have a factory establishment in India and fulfilling the domestic as well as export sales from the local factory in India. Our supply chain is fully equipped to cater to the growing demands of the consumer.

What are the supply chain innovations we will see in the near future to serve to changing consumer demands?

Deepak Sharma: The evolving ecosystem of the industry clubbed with the changing buying behavior of consumer has called for innovations in the supply chain, which can contribute to make the consumers’ purchase experience hassle-free and on time.

Precision in the supply chain is crucial to prevent errors that can have a negative impact, especially during this new normal. The three most peculiar innovations that would be seen soon are: Seamless integration to the origin (Tier Nth); Quick adaptation of digital mediums; and Real-time information gathering and having a quick response to it.

Sourabh Raghuvanshi: Basics of supply chain remain same whatever be the scenario. Effective supply chain systems are quick to react, are efficient and have visibility across the value chain. Current challenges have accelerated the journey of supply chains in most companies towards digital transformation and related innovations, which will help them become more effective on these seemingly simple yet complex basics.

How is supply chain slated to take the role of an enabler in these times?

What emphasis has been laid on developing an efficient supply chain?

Deepak Sharma: To elevate the role of supply chain as a strategic enabler in the business operations, it is imperative to amalgamate the latest technology in the supply chain. These technological enablers will allow access to real-time information digitally with optimum accuracy to establish improved supply chain designs in place, for efficient planning and operations. This will minimize the costs & errors and

14 CELERITY November - December 2020

enhance the overall supply chain value.

The two major factors that influence the entire supply chain performance and costs are product quality and crossfunctional drivers. Across the supply chain, the major focus is on creating an ecosystem that allows a constant flow of information and makes the complete chain more efficient. Hence, the key enablers will be a collaborative approach, people-centric strategy and technological advances.

Sourabh Raghuvanshi: Demand is fluctuating these days due to various issues ranging from local lockdowns, containment zones and related factors.

Similar variability exists on supply side too with factory shutdowns, manpower shortage, raw material availability, etc.

Key role of supply chain today is to be more agile and adaptive than ever before in balancing supply and demand.

It would require daily monitoring and shifting of decision making to ground level.

Ravindra M: Companies have to take decisions in real time and take action to mitigate impact on supply chain.

Conduct an analysis on warehouse and front-end operations, foresee and understand any material flow disruption situation beforehand. Emphasis on developing an efficient supply chain is more relevant as the new practices adopted during this pandemic can be the norm in the future.

INTERVIEW

CEMENTING

SUCCESS “Supply chain management has shifted its goals from volume maximization and cost minimization to optimum operations and sustainability of operations and profits. Supply chain is more and more looking at improving efficiencies, customer needs, goals of multiple stakeholders, green technologies, sustainability thru alternate fuels or recycling and making the cement industry future ready,” envisages JVB Sastry, independent consultant, in an interview…

How has the cement industry performed in the recent past given the Covid pandemic scenario and how do you see the dynamics shaping up from here on?

The installed capacity of the Indian cement industry is close to 545 million tons and is the second largest in the world after China. The utilization share of cement production capacity in India at the end of fiscal year 2019 was just over 70%. This was the highest utilization share during the observed timeframe. The production volume in that year was over 330 million metric tons. After seeing modest growth in demand between 4-6% y-o-y, the industry has witnessed a steep growth of more than 13% in the year 2019.

There has been a renewed push in many sectors including Infrastructure and Housing. All this has come to a standstill in the year 2020 due to Covid.

The lockdown across the country has halted the supply chain and sales even though some of the units continued with minimum production levels, considering that it is a process industry.

From the month of May, there is resumption of economic activity and the industry has recovered due to pent up demand and good rural demand.

Demand recovered quickly to 79% of last year's volumes in May and 93% in June led by a strong rural demand aided by three consecutive good monsoons, adequate availability of local labor and lower spread of Covid-19 than in urban

supplychaintribe.com

areas.

The industry took a big hit on volumes and profitability in Quarter I and II of this fiscal but with demand revival, higher utilization and stable prices, the operating profits for most of the firms is expected around 20%.

However, there are headwinds in the environment in terms of rising costs of raw materials and fuel/pet coke, which may erode the profitability to some extent.

However, the Covid impact is expected to be on more systemic and structural issues such as how the industry adapts to the post-Covid digitization and changes in business trends. That will be a challenge to both the business and supply chain leaders of the industry to adapt to the new normal and bring in a few desired changes in the vintage systems and processes that the industry follows in supply chain and sales. Hopefully, there will be positive changes in adapting newer technology to connect with suppliers and customers and bring in synergies in supply chains so as to optimize physical movement and save costs and improve efficiencies.

Much depends upon the revival and sustaining demand and creative and matured responses of the industry to the changing demand and customer expectations.

What are the unique characteristics of SCM in the cement industry?

Simply put, supply chain management

JVB Sastry is ex Senior Vice President – National Category Management, ACC & Ambuja Cement.

He possesses over 30 years’ experience in sales, marketing, logistics and procurement in the cement & fertilizer industries. Currently he is an independent consultant based out of Pune.

is the handling of the entire production flow of a good or service — starting from the raw components all the way to delivering the final product to the consumer. Given this framework, SCM in cement Industry is evolving from a distribution, volume game to that of market /demand linked to meet customer expectations. Some of the unique characteristics of SCM are: Supply chain management in the cement industry is moving away from supply centric to demand centric.

Planning for operations and strategic planning of manufacturing and distribution footprints is happening more and more based on understanding the markets & customer needs and using the decision-making tools such as optimizers and simulation tools.

Supply chain management has shifted its goals from volume maximization and cost minimization to optimum operations and sustainability of operations and profits. Supply chain is more and more looking at improving efficiencies, customer needs, goals of multiple stakeholders, green technologies, sustainability thru alternate fuels or recycling and making the cement industry future ready.

In the recent decades, the Industry has made remarkable progress in the manufacturing front by adopting energy efficiency, reduction in CO2, using AFR, achieving zero/negative water utilization rates and many other technological improvements/innovations.

15

INTERVIEW On the business side, the industry has focused mostly on volume peaking and distribution. However, now the change in this sphere too is happening thru customer focus, efficiencies, cost optimization, adopting technology in logistics, using environment-friendly products like blended cements, direct to market sales reducing the physical travel and multiple handling of a cement bag, encouraging more and more bulk cement in place of bag cement, thereby cutting back use of Polypropylene and saving environment. All these changes have come about due to the industry adopting the sound principles of a good supply chain management and aligning its business operations thru a cross functional collaboration and planning.

Some of the other characteristics are as follows: ♦ The Cement industry is a freight and raw material intensive industry.

Supply chain management needed to be accorded a strategic role & position. However, only lately, this function is getting its due place and that too mainly with an objective to reduce costs or tide over temporary shortages in input materials. ♦ Further, seamless integration of business processes is important and is recognized by many cement companies, still functional dominance especially that of primary functions like manufacturing and sales is prevalent, often resulting in sub-optimal outcomes. ♦ The industry faces twin challenges of demand and supply volatility both in availability and prices. ♦ The production and distribution planning are centralized given the commodity nature of the business. ♦ The industry has recently adopted optimization tools for operations planning and resource allocation, which is a good sign. However, the industry suffers from volume centric approach giving undue emphasis upon cost reduction as opposed to cost optimization. ♦ Cement is sold to both B2B and B2C markets. However, the central supply chain approach of the industry is to achieve efficiency, cost reduction often ignoring the customer service level optimization/cost-service tradeoffs which are essential in a customer facing /retail market.

The Covid impact is expected to be on more systemic and structural issues such as how theindustry adapts to the postCovid digitization and changes in business trends. That will be a challenge to both the business and supply chain leaders of the industry to adapt to the new normal and bring in a few desired changes in the vintage systems and processes that the industry follows in supply chain and sales.

This poses a unique challenge to its supply chain management to balance conflicting goals such as cost and service. ♦ Another characteristic of the supply chain is the high local sourcing quotient in the overall procurement spend. This limits the scope for global sourcing strategies except in high value /global commodities like coal/pet coke. ♦ The cement industry uses high quantities of flyash/slag as blending materials in the production of PPC and PSC. However. the industry has failed to upgrade its storage/ transport infrastructure for these important raw materials resulting in high logistics costs in sourcing these. Many-a-times, this JIT approach to important raw materials also disrupts production due to sudden shortages /non availability.

How complex is the Cement supply chain and how do you manage these complexities?

Logistics safety is an all Important and critical complex issue facing all supply chains. This aspect is not given much importance in India compared to cost and other supply chain issues.

However, the human cost of injuries and fatalities cannot be measured in terms of lives, impact on morale and business disruptions. Many progressive cement companies in India are focusing on this aspect and working on this thru Driver safety/training programs, vehicle fitness checks, in-plant layouts and design, which are oriented for better safety, GPS monitored vehicle movement, rewarding

16 CELERITY November - December 2020

and punishing driver safety records and many other measures. This is most welcome and must be fully encouraged.

Demand volatility is a complexity.

Seasonality, festivals, and other local disruptions cause sudden dips and peaks in demand. The industry tries to overcome this thru better production planning, field/intermediate warehousing, split manufacturing facilities by keeping grinding units close to the markets so that clinker is produced and stored in the GU for cement manufacturing as per demand levels.

Another complexity is its high cost of logistics, both on inbound and outbound side. Many steps are taken to optimize sourcing and logistics thru multi modal transport, use of large fleet and freight rationalization, return loads and other tactical steps. The industry has also embarked upon SWAP operations with competitors thru legal processes so that leads are reduced for moving inputs and at times finished goods too. This has reduced the cost complexity for the Industry to some extent.

Talking about the supply side, volatile costs of pet coke, flyash, slag put a huge cost and availability risk to the industry. Increased use of AFR, long term contracts, hedging, use of pod ash or pond slag are some of the mitigating steps taken by the industry. Fuel cost and its impact on freight is another complexity and the industry will do well to study switching to CNG or alternate fuels where available. Lighter aluminum boded trucks are also being tried out by a few leading cement companies to

INTERVIEW reduce fuel consumption and thereby the freights. In the long run, using Sea/ river logistics will help the industry reduce logistics costs to a greater extent, besides it helping to reduce motor pollution. The industry is working on many fronts to mitigate supply chain complexity by keeping the chain lean, reduce the intermediaries thru direct sales to markets from the plants and focus on customer, profitability and sustainability.

What steps should companies take to circumvent the Covid pandemic and keep the wheels of growth moving through efficient supply chain?

The Industry will do well to adopt online marketing/selling and digitize loading/ storage and dispatch information.

The Industry needs to help its dealers to adopt these technologies and help reduce the transactions costs.

Similarly, as is being done in a few Asian countries, fast setting concrete might help reduce the time taken for construction and this would help tide over shortage of construction labor at sites. Demand stimulation is being attempted by the government thru various schemes. The industry may tie up with banks and other institutions and improve target delivery of cement and products to customers with help of credit /loan facilities extended by these institutions. In the same way, the cement companies can work closely with infrastructure projects to make cement/

concrete as per requirements and help in faster delivery and improve ease of transactions.

What are the approaches to innovative supply chain strategies in cement industry?

The Industry has taken several innovative steps to improve efficiencies, reduce cost and improve service. Some of the major ideas have been: ♦ Splitting clinkering and grinding units so as to reduce the cost of raw material logistics in making clinker and at the same time grinding cement closer to markets to reduce the last mile cost and achieve ontime-in-full deliveries to customers. ♦ Demand based end-to-end optimization of production and distribution has helped the industry to optimize volumes & cost and reduce lock in working capital. ♦ The other innovation is One Horse and two trailer transport model which helps improve truck turnaround and also helps the trailer to act as a mobile warehouse for small lot sales in semi urban and rural markets has been a success. ♦ Constant innovations in packaging both in type of packing materials and its denier has been a silent improvement, which has contributed to cost reductions. ♦ Use of Red mud, Bauxite rejects, coal tailings and many other such cheaper options have helped the industry reduce costs and sourcing

The new paradigm is about how efficient you are in supply chain and the real competition that a winner has to fight, and win is thru its supply chain operations and not so much in the marketplace. This is so true to an industry like the cement industry where the product differentiation is less, and the differentiation comes thru mostly efficiency, cost and value leadership and customer service. In short what an ‘Agile, Adaptive and Aligned’ supply chain is all about. supplychaintribe.com

risks. ♦ The Industry is also working on facility sharing and integration of inbound and outbound supply chains to improve availability and reduce costs. ♦ Leveraging mobile technology for printing invoices at mobile warehouses to sending delivery SMS alerts has been a low-cost innovation that the industry has adopted many years ago. ♦ The supply chains in some of the cement companies have tried semi-mechanization in unloading and loading of cement bags at warehouses and railheads. This has helped improve productivity and reduce the physical stress on labor.

This needs to be improved and adopted on a wider scale. ♦ The Cement industry has still a long way to go in innovating the way cement is packed, stored, handled sold and delivered. The industry has to leverage technology, AI and other tools. The market side supply chain is still vintage with lack of transparency and high transaction cost.

What are the technological advancements you have implemented in supply chain?

This is work in progress. To recount some of the important ones in the recent past: ♦ Auto packers which helped faster and accurate loading ♦ Online Bag printing that helps MRP printing before loading, thereby eliminating large pre-loading MRP based bag inventory ♦ RFID at Plants and reduced the Driver/Plant touch points, paperbased operations and improved Gate In gate Out ♦ GPS for all trucks on main routes, which helped improve truck safety, reduce accidents, improve TAT and helped share transit information with customers ♦ Mobile app-based logistics training to logistics team members is another area, which helped learning at convenience and reduced cost.

The industry will do well to try many such technology tools that aid in handling, storage/retrieval of cement and increase online sales.

17

INTERVIEW

The industry incurs more than 70% of its costs on logistics and sourcing. Supply chain management’s contribution to optimize/reduce this cost even by 3-5% will boost the bottom line of the industry. This is critical as the industry often suffers from price erosion for its finished products due to volatile demand and competition. Supply chain in the cement industry generates both tangible value in terms of improvement in EBITDA thru cost reduction and in many intangible areas such as customer satisfaction, loyalty, brand equity and long-term business growth.

What is the right supply chain for cement?

On the demand side, the two main streams of sales for the cement industry are Bag cement sales and BULK/RMC sales. The first one is to retail customers and the second one is largely to Institutional and Infrastructure project customers. Supply chain strategies, tools and processes need to be adopted suitable for these major segments.

Efficiency and cost reduction are primary with service in case of B2B segment. In case of bag cement sales to retail customers, service, ease of delivery with cost optimization are important.

On the supply side, the right supply chain is to work on cost, sustainability, and risk mitigation.

How can SCM generate value in the cement industry?

SCM in cement industry has immense contribution. some of the important deliverables are: ♦ End-to-end cost optimization ♦ Securing volatile supplies to the plants ♦ Planning for a volatile demand market and mitigate stock outs and /or stock gluts ♦ Help optimize inventory & reduce lock up of working capital thru better planning and improved efficiencies.

The industry incurs more than 70% of its costs on logistics and sourcing. Supply chain management's contribution to optimize/reduce this cost even by 3-5% will boost the bottom line of the industry. This is critical as the industry often suffers from price erosion for its finished products due

to volatile demand and competition.

Supply chain in the cement industry generates both tangible value in terms of improvement in EBITDA thru cost reduction and in many intangible areas such as customer satisfaction, loyalty, brand equity and long-term business growth.

How can we work towards developing sustainable supply chain for cement sector?

The country at large can make its contribution for a sustainable supply chain by ♦ Using more and more bulk cement and reduce packaging waste ♦ Using more blended cements, thereby reducing clinker percentage, Co2 and help increase use of flyash and slag, which are byproducts of power and Steel industries. ♦ Other Industries should help share costs in delivery of waste materials for use in the Industry as Alternate fuel required delivery platforms in handling these AFR materials, which are often hazardous and expensive.

What does the future hold for supply chain?

The future augurs very well for the cement industry's supply chain, both for its strategic/critical role it plays and for its contribution. There are many headwinds in the business environment like: ♦ Global trade is increasingly becoming uncertain with many embargos, unrests, and epidemics.

This will impact sourcing of pet coke/imported coal. Similarly, import/export of clinker /gypsum

18 CELERITY November - December 2020

can also come under stress for similar reasons. Supply chain needs to work towards alternatives/fall back options to overcome these uncertainties. ♦ Logistics safety is also coming under scrutiny as the country becomes more stringent with road safety rules including ban on overloading of trucks. Supply chain has to find ways to ensure high safety standards and also optimize fleet size and freights.

The supply chain has to adopt many new technologies and bring in change. It has to foster a culture of seamless integrations thru transparent communications and collaboration.

It has to train and develop cement business managers to know all aspects of the business and work for long-term sustainability and growth. Supply chain needs to engage with all internal and external stakeholders to understand and bring in changes the way backend and front-end of the business works.

Limestone quarries, coal mines, raw material sourcing will remain a challenge in operations and cost & supply chain needs to bring in required changes for better efficiencies here.

Online sales are ushering in a revolution in Indian business and cement industry supply chain needs to adapt new processes and tools to manage this transition.

Supplier partnering and codevelopment has to be ushered in so that there is enough for all stakeholders. otherwise the Sea-Saw game of' I winYou-lose 'way of transacting business will continue with its many problems and toxic business culture.

COVER STORY

THE

NEXT NORMAL IS

NOW Celerity 40-Under-40 and 30-Under-30 have become the most sought-after awards among the supply chain fraternity in just two years of its inception. While these awards acknowledge and honor the innovative streaks of the new age supply chain managers, the platform also serves as the congregation of the best of the brains in the domain with the leaders leading the pack with their expert insights through thoughtprovoking panel discussions and guiding the generation next to follow the trail. This year’s e-awards ceremony was once again successful in presenting pearls of wisdom from the illustrious panel on SUPPLY CHAIN in the NEXT NORMAL and addressed the changes required to rebuild supply chains for the future‌

supplychaintribe.com

19

COVER STORY How can individuals and teams within an organization help foster supply chain innovation? Any experience that you would like to share…

Tough times really teach us to think beyond the NORMAL and create the NEW NORMAL for growth.

Prof. Ashok Pundir, NITIE: The year 2020 has been challenging from all the fronts and the challenges seem to be surmounting every passing day. Hats off to all the supply chain professionals even though productions were not going on and transportation was at bare minimum and vehicles weren’t plying as they used to, supply chain professionals managed to deliver goods & services to ultimate consumers. Rather than going for big bang innovation, they relied on smaller innovations to get the supplies to the end consumers so that the people do not starve for essential supplies. Covid period defined essential and non-essential goods & services for us, which were never given due cognizance in the pre-Covid era. It was a big challenge because consumers were not venturing out of their homes due to lockdowns and supply chain professionals were also operating out of their home spaces rather than being on the field. They had to ensure that the drivers are provided enough

& more support to be back on the road with their own food supplies as the highway food joints were completely shut down for months. Before Covid, we also didn’t realize that we can actually deliver everything at home. Many consumer goods companies also joined hands to reach to their consumers in the wake of short supply of vehicles and manpower. This is how companies started looking for new business alternatives as this was the time for survival and sustenance. Collaboration with small kirana stores in the neighborhood areas of consumers made sure that consumers get the convenience of ordering their essential supplies through WhatsApp. Tough times really teach us to think beyond the NORMAL and create the NEW NORMAL for growth. I am happy to witness the resilience shown by Indian companies in such tough times and 7 months into the Covid era, we are still learning newer ways of operating and doing business. These crucial times only tell us how to convert challenges into opportunities and seek for newer avenues of growth to keep the wheels moving. Things are going to look up from hereon.

Our Objective function should be to Improve Resilience.

Raviraj Rodrigues, Director Supply Chain-India, Alstom Transport India Ltd.: I would like to answer the question in two parts – Where should be direct our Innovation focus to and How to do it.

Where to Focus – Our thought process as Supply Chain leaders would be essentially to build resilience in our supply chain and when I say resilience, I mean that our Objective Function would be to Improve Resilience and factors like time to market, Cost would be constraints. This would be different from the way we have looked at our business and supply chains in the past. Why do I say this, it is that our situation is and will continue to remain complicated and ambiguous for a fairly long period of time. We have seen a drop in both demand and supply at the same time, something that has not been witnessed for the last 100 years. We have also seen significant involvement of the State in managing the business flow such as Lockdowns, Phased Unlock, georestrictions for certain items, etc. Such State Controls are usually seen during war. Also, we are not out of the woods as yet. There is always a possibility of relapse soon. Then there is this big debate on the direction the recovery path will take: Will it be a V Curve, U Curve, or something else. Finally, when will

20 CELERITY November - December 2020

life and demand return to normal? I see too many variables at play even now and I would call it a perfect example of a VUCA event in all its extremes. In such a situation, building resilience would be the best approach to de-risk our supply chain. It’s here that we will need to be innovative in rebuilding our supply chains as no templates exist for this. Areas that I would like to focus on in the next 6 months would be to: • Build redundancy in capacities • Build Diversity in Fulfilment – Do not stick to one or two modes, so that we switch over in terms of crisis-For e.g. Food Business - Companies that had Cloud Kitchens and delivery service aligned, had a small blip during the lockdown unlike the big fine dining restaurants • Build Diverse teams – The core Crisis management team should be truly cross-functional, so that we can have more ideas about potential solutions & not treating the crisis in one-dimensional manner — as a financial or logistical problem only.

• Build Modularity – Highly integrated systems were efficient, but vulnerable. If the manufacturing lines, supply sources or even teams are modular, one can combine them in different ways to handle crisis.

• Drive Digitalization – Now is the time to drive Digitalization. Digital Pioneers can get 5% cost benefits through Digitalization within 2 years. Also, one should treat the digitalization as journey of Perpetual Beta and not try

COVER STORY and get it right the first time.

Coming to the How, my belief is that we can foster supply chain innovation in our teams through two distinct actions: • Create an environment for innovation – An example that I can quote is the “I Nouve You Program” of Alstom,

which encourages Individuals and groups to bring together implementable innovations.

• Recognize the contribution of such talent through National and International Forums. A perfect example being this awards program.

The key opportunity for companies lies in making breakthrough and Disruptive Innovations to make a new industry and create their own niche.

Akhil Srivastava, Director BU South Asia, AB InBev: Basically, I sense it as opportunity. Yes, Covid has been an issue and the demand as well as the supply side both were triggered and impacted significantly.

This period also gave us an opportunity as it opened the soft underbelly of the business models. It’s an opportunity because supply chain which was always taken as granted has today become the value driver and the profit driver for the company. Eventually the essentiality, which has changed in the consumers’ mind moving to convenience, efficiency, and economics. That is what supply chain takes care of. An FMCG product must be visible through advertisements and promotion, but if it is not available on the shelf, the ultimate value and the brand equity is lost. The basic premise of an exceptional supply chain network rests only on these critical pillars – convenience to consumers; efficient handling of goods during transport; and economics of scale. I believe innovations can be classified in four buckets which are as follows:

There is fundamental research & development from the academia who can help undertake fundamental scientific concepts like Make to Order and Made to Stock.

Then there are sustainable innovations, which companies keep on doing to reduce cost escalations, improving mix, and delivering value.

The key opportunity for companies lies in making breakthrough and disruptive innovations to make a new industry and create their own niche through long term comparative advantage through differentiated and unique product and services offerings.

We as an industry needs to move from a shared economy to a customized co-created economy and supply chain will play the role of a catalyst in attaining the desired objectives.

I would also like to bring to your attention a very critical aspect of job creation – on one hand, we would be seeing job cuts in all the other sectors, people in the supply chain will be in the highest demand going forward and we can definitely see that happening with the festive season coming and the e-commerce companies on a hiring spree. In short, the landscape for knowledge workers will be very favorable for those who keep on innovating, executing and delivering value for consumers in fields of supply chain.

Companies must need to give points for unsuccessful attempts as well, rather than just recognizing the successful innovations.

Ravikant Parvataneni, India CEO, Argon & Co.: When you talk about fostering innovations, one of the things which is commonly done is to incentivize innovations.

However, NOT penalizing unsuccessful innovations is an equally important point. Only then people will leave aside the fear that if an innovation fails what will happen. Companies must need to give points for unsuccessful attempts as well, rather than just recognizing the successful innovations. This I believe will be a gamechanger in bringing that culture of innovation and it is

supplychaintribe.com

incumbent upon us as leaders to inculcate this culture. These innovations could be small. I always used to say that MAGIC doesn’t happen in supply chain overnight, but then MAGIC can happen over a period…say one year. People do 10 things which will bring just about .5% process improvements but over a period of time, these will become significant. Companies need to build a culture to listen to such ideas and grow step by step rather than waiting for a big bang innovation. An employee’s performance shouldn’t just be limited to KRAs, they should be judged on the basis of out-of-the-box ideas however small they are.

21

COVER STORY This pandemic has laid bare our ability to handle massive disruptions. What according to you is that one single idea that should be implemented by all supply chain operations in India?

Supply chain professionals have truly stood the test of times and have emerged even more stronger.

Prof. Ashok Pundir: Building trust has been one of the most important aspect that we have seen growing during pandemic. Earlier we used to check all the stuff which used to get delivered to us but today the delivery person just drops it off at the society gate. Though it’s a very small change but if you look at it from a business standpoint, people have started placing immense trust on the e-commerce companies who have been with them through such tough times when people weren’t able to move outside their houses. The visibility factor into the entire supply chain has only strengthened this relationship and this is only going to grow from hereon. In fact, return deliveries were also managed quite seamlessly during this pandemic. Supply chain professionals have truly stood the test of times and have emerged even more stronger.

The utilization of local kirana stores has finally seen the light of the day. Though it happened late, my question is why we waited for the pandemic to hit us for this incredible opportunity to connect. Rather than companies going doorto-door or house-to-house, these kirana stores may be utilized as the ultimate customer traction point as these neighborhood shops know their customers and requirements more than anyone else. Second aspect that I would like to bring to your notice is the bullwhip effect. There is a lot of pent-up demand. It’s very difficult to predict demand for products. My hunch is that companies shouldn’t end up producing so much that they are unable to sell in short run. Look at the increasing sales of two wheelers and four wheelers in the month of September, there is likely to be increase in demand due to need to own a vehicle to meet social distancing norms. However, companies need to be watchful as there may be lot many demand variations in the foreseeable future before we see normalization in the economy.

Expectation management is especially important for the industry to deliver products using supply chain.

Akhil Srivastava: We all in supply chain are hardcore execution specialists. We know how to create and build value for consumers and corporations. Supply chain professionals

22 CELERITY November - December 2020

need to work on 3Ps – Passion, Purpose and Profit wherein professionals need to have the right passion to be in this industry. They need to be aligned with the purpose that the organization has. Lastly, supply chain innovation helps in enhancing profitability. I would like to give you 60:30:10 formula, which implies that there needs to be 60% Change Management, 30% Process Improvement; and 10% on Tools & Technologies.

The consumer landscape is fast changing while the Gen X started with digital pioneering to Gen Z are in the era of digital natives. Today’s consumers do not just accept innovation, rather they expect that companies will come up with something extraordinary. Expectation management is particularly important for the industry to deliver products using supply chain.

Drive digitalization to maximize remote working opportunities.

Raviraj Rodrigues: I would not call as this innovative idea but a pragmatic approach for all supply chain practitioners – To define what can be done remotely and what needs physical contact. Drive digitalization to maximize remote working opportunities. This will ensure that we minimize risks of disruptions to the supply chain when someone falls ill needs to be quarantined.

Innovation has become more critical than ever to unlock post corona growth. How can executives support innovation-led growth given that costcutting while maintaining business would be priority? Are you encouraged by the talent while judging the entries? What do you see as lacking in them?

Don’t shy away from sharing the smallest every day innovations implemented by you in the organization because that will form the base for a big bang innovative approach.

Prof. Ashok Pundir: When we talk about innovation, they always think about a big innovation. I would like to emphasize here that don’t shy away from sharing the smallest every day innovations implemented by you in the organization because that will form the base for a big bang innovative approach. Like retailers’ theme of Everyday Low Pricing (EDLP), companies should harp on Everyday New Innovations (EDNI). Covid has taught us to go by the day as well and not only the long-term planning as it has

COVER STORY completely shaken the way we have been functioning for years and decades.

I envision unique and customer centric supply chains will rule the roost in purpose driven businesses for sustainable profits.

Akhil Srivastava: A big shout out to all the supply chain professionals who actually helped us wade through the never-seen-before pandemic by having supplied all the essential items at our doorsteps even during the lockdowns.

It’s because of supply chain professionals our Indian economy has been able to stay afloat during such tough times. I believe execution trunks Knowledge and Supply Chain Professionals today are both highly knowledgeable and perfect executionists, poised to transform outlook of the global economy.

As per me, supply chain is the best function to be in right now. I am super excited for the future journey. I would just like to point towards gender diversity that we really need to work on as it really brings a lever of focus in the working environment. It is equally important to market yourself and your brand. I am sure when we are past the pandemic, companies will realize the importance of a supply chain professional and we will soon see organizations promoting supply chain professionals to the ranks of the CEO like we have in Amazon and Apple as I envision unique and customer centric supply chains will rule the roost in purpose driven businesses for sustainable profits.

a Laksh and they are doing it well. Awards like this will go a long way in recognizing such talent.

Now is the right time to shift focus and be a part of this most promising domain to be the catalyst of change.

Ravikant Parvataneni: Supply chain is not a very glamorous profession. But the way these youngsters have projected themselves and their profession, I am sure that one day supply chain will also emerge as one of the most preferred domains to be in. Now is the right time to shift focus and be a part of this most promising domain to be the catalyst of change. Transportation has become the most important value chain in the current dynamic and I was amazed to see decent number of entries coming from this very sub-vertical of supply chain. If we can push people into transportation, our journey as leaders will be fulfilled. Times are changing and I am sure next year would be another year of greater innovations and greater opportunities.

Now is the best time for Innovation.

Raviraj Rodrigues: It is said that Necessity is the Mother of invention and this is true for Innovation too. Innovation and Frugality have for years co-existed in India…It’s also called Jugaad. It’s something we are good at and we must drive.

For e.g. at Alstom, someone came up with an idea of doing Remote First Article Inspection using “SMART Glass”. Now why did we not think of it before and spend Million Euros+ in a year on travel budget…we thought of this only when we could not travel due to safety restrictions.

I must admit I was quite impressed with the kind of talent we have in Supply Chain today. These youngsters are both skilled and determined to make an impactful change…I saw a lot good ideas spawned… Implementation of Vending Machine for Spares, 3D printing in Manufacturing, Mobile Collection Centres for Copra…even simple intuitive concepts like raw material specification, harmonization and unique raw material optimization can make a big impact. Then there was this creative (or I could call Jugaad) innovation of Tagging Cement bags with colored Flags for FIFO that I liked, besides the well-known concepts like RPA, Freight Management Systems, cross-utilization of resources across facilities, etc.

So yes, these people know what they are doing…They have

supplychaintribe.com

23

COVER STORY

The nominations we received for the Celerity 40-Under-40 and 30-Under-30 this year were high on innovative quotient.

Showcasing their winning streaks in their extensive submission forms, affirmed jury members’ confidence that the next generation of supply chain in the country is truly BEST IN CLASS exhibiting all the prerequisites of exceptional supply chain leaders of the future. In this part 1 we reveal the innovative might of 19 of 34 winners which led them to win the most coveted trophy of the year…

THE BRIGHT SPARKS 24 CELERITY November - December 2020

COVER STORY

The selection was based on meticulously crafted and developed grading system.

The responses of each nominee were graded based on their career growth, innovations implemented, projects done and their impact on their organization. We would like to take this opportunity to thank our Grand Jury members who painstakingly evaluated each entry and then deliberated on their decisions.

40-UNDER-40 SUPPLY CHAIN SUPER ACHIEVERS

Sarthak Prakash, Senior Commodity Manager, GE Gas Power, General Electric

Mayur Chhabra, Head –Warehousing, Distribution & Operational sourcing, Field Fresh Foods Pvt. Ltd. (Del Monte)

supplychaintribe.com

As the Regional Program Manager for GE‘s world class supply chain career accelerator program, I have had the unique opportunity to lead and coach high potential OMLP associates deputed across GE’s sites in India. Operations Management Leadership Program (OMLP) is designed for the development of entry-level talent hired from premier institutions and produce leaders capable of meeting the supply chain challenges facing GE. OMLP is a two-year program that allows members to build leadership and functional skills through challenging rotational assignments and world-class training. Through these job assignments and training, program members are involved in GE’s strategic initiatives, including the company-wide drive for Lean Six Sigma.

The current batches of OMLPs are working across the aviation, grid, healthcare, power, and renewable energy sites in India, across areas such as shop operations, process engineering, lean manufacturing, sourcing, materials management, environmental health and safety, and quality management. They are most often at the forefront of driving innovative breakthroughs as well as continuous improvement initiatives at their respective assignments, solving the challenges that matter most to GE businesses and to GE customers.

Organized trade servicing had been an area of interest since my stint with Nestle way back in 2008. At Del Monte, we had been struggling with our Fill Rates & OTIFs and as a result, not only we were losing revenues but also were not gaining any confidence from any e-commerce/modern trade chains. Therefore I identified organized retail recalibration as a Project & started working on it, deep diving and getting into thick of the things, wherein following actions were initiated and as a result today we are standing tall as an organization with most of the e-commerce/ modern trade partners. ♦ Moved away from Indirect (distributor mode) supplies to Direct DC supplies, thereby not only saving on distributor margins but also having complete clarity over order book ♦ Initiated scientific norms for each distribution Centre & thereafter started Reservation of SKUs basis Pareto analysis, A.B.C Classification ♦ Watertight process for monitoring on time supplies & adherence of bay bookings ♦ Customer collaboration – Initiated meetings with customers wherein SCM / Sales represented the organization jointly, thereby leaving no scope for any ambiguities.

As on date, our organized retail business is poised to generate double digit revenue growths for us, furthermore our OTIF scores had improved month on month, enabling us to gain market share especially during current pandemic wherein only the organizations with capabilities to ensure continuous supplies had an edge over the competition.

25

COVER STORY Cement being a dusty commodity, it becomes difficult to track the print on the bag.

Hence, we started tagging cement lots with colored flags, the color depending on the batch of the product. A simple but effective method helped us to maintain FIFO without much effort. Being a fan of Formula One racing, my pitstop strategy was implemented by us at our workshop for preventive maintenance of vehicles on longer routes. This ensured minimum down time and also enhanced the life of our vehicles.

Our innovative debagging solution of cutting a bag of 50 kgs cement and loading in bulker tanks was an absolute game changer for our clients who cater to Mumbai market from leads over 500 kms. These services were provided at a railhead and has helped our client companies to establish their presence in the largest demand centre of the country. We adopted cloud-based software back in 2014 when it was relatively unheard of for SMEs. This allowed us to operate with minimum paper records and also gave us easy access to relevant data at anytime from anywhere.

To play to our business strength in the construction as well as logistics industry, I am currently leading our group’s expansion into setting up an integrated logistics park in the Bhiwandi region under the MIDC policy. Phase 1 is proposed development of 1 million sqft grade A warehousing. Incorporating forward and backward integration has given me deep insights into the functioning of the industry, thereby enabling me to understand processes and problems better. Developing new markets for brands has helped me in fostering deep relationships with these companies and made us synonymous with bulk cement supply.

In automotive industry, aftermarket supply chain plays a stellar role to ensure maximum uptime of vehicles, for which spare parts availability at service network is the vital differentiator. Driven by the objective to improve availability of spare parts with channel parts, new project was initiated to transform aftermarket supply chain and move from “forecast based system” to “consumption-based system” by implementing "Theory of Constraints" and named as SPARKFlow.

Scope of this project covers parts complexity of nearly 100,000 SKUs, 600 supplier partners, 600 customers, entire product range covering BS I to BS VI parts, warehouse management and transportation. Entire process was automated from “order generation at customer end” to “schedule release at supplier end”.

Prior to SPARKFlow, owing to poor forecast accuracy, the warehouses and the channel partners held huge dead stocks, accompanied by loss of sales due to unavailability of moving stocks. The channel partners held smaller range of spares and this impacted timely availability of parts for vehicle repair.

In SPARKFlow, we worked on network designing, stocking norms, allocation & buffer management algorithm to improve availability. Tagging suppliers to the nearest warehouse, establishing inventory norms at every warehouse and channel partner outlet and automatic consumption-based ordering helped in streamlining the supply chain and preventing the creation of dead stocks.

Through a revamped network of 4 warehouses, we achieved replenishment time of 10 days throughout the network. Despite sales getting doubled over the past 3 years, channel inventory reduced by 25 days.

In years’ time, we achieved on-ground results with reduction of stock across supply chain framework from 42% to 15%, accompanied by reduction in warehouse stocks from 55 days to 20 days. This covers more than 35000 SKUs for service against legacy of 15000 SKUs (130% increase). Increasing range of parts covered under SPARKFlow is reducing the number of vehicle off road cases, thereby preventing the risk of production interruptions for emergency orders.

26 CELERITY November - December 2020

Mohit Nawany, Director, ASL Logistics Pvt Ltd. (Nawany Group)

Charish Puri, Assistant General Manager, Ashok Leyland Ltd.

COVER STORY

Dr Abhijit Singh, Executive Director, Indian Ports Association (IPA)

Ashish Bhatnagar, Senior Manager, Procurement, Nestle India

supplychaintribe.com

Bureaucracy inherently carries creative inertia for any change – big or small.

Weberian bureaucracy is best suited to perform routine work and not to think outside the box. Innovation and bureaucracy are supposedly mutually exclusive.

Growing inequalities pose a huge challenge to the change-resistant and status-quo bureaucracy. This reflects that policymaking, especially in the developing country like India, urgently needs innovation. However, bureaucracy is ill-equipped to usher in big reforms and innovate due to various reasons ranging from structural issues, vested interests of various elite stakeholders, absence of lateral entries from industry, negligible association with academia, improper framework and so on. Innovation in policymaking has not been much focused on in India. Policymaking as an exercise exhibits incrementalism. However, big changes happen now and then, which are termed as policy innovations.

In capacity of Executive Director at Indian Ports Association(IPA), an apex body of Major Ports under the administrative control of Ministry of Shipping, the role of a change agent, he is acting as a catalyst to push innovative ideas and usher in reforms into the heart of top-level in the government. He is closely involved in the policy decision-making process to bring sectoral reforms by making ports as drivers of economic change, saving logistic cost & time, easing port congestion, enhancing employability, capacity building and modernizing of ports. He is also regarded as an ambassador for Indian maritime sector, representing IPA, Major Ports of India and Ministry of Shipping at a various national and international forum like ASSOCHAM, FICCI, UN-IMO, BIMSTEC, SASEC etc. He has made many noteworthy contributions in matters and professional work pertaining to MoS particularly for PSC, Parliament questions, Ease of Doing Business (EoDB), various Committees on maritime reforms, Prime Minister Office directions, Ministry of Commerce initiatives, NITI Aayog reforms and various allied Indian government agencies queries. He was instrumental in drafting Maritime Indian Vision Document-2030 consisting of revolutionary ideas and innovative approaches to transforming maritime India. He encouraged innovation in the sector by providing intellectual contributions to the Entrepreneurship Development Program for coastal community and framed concept on Sagarmala Startup and Innovation Initiative (S2I2) for flagship programs like the multi-billiondollar Sagarmala program. He also outlined innovative measures, in line with UNIMO Sustainable Development Goals, for Corporate Social Responsibility guidelines of Major Ports with a potential direct and indirect impact on 7.65 Billion lives of coastal community and environment. He continuously tries to strive and identify the key areas for change strategies and opportunities that might impact the Indian maritime sector growth, by providing innovative ideas, input to final and key decisions. He is regarded as ‘Youth Icon’ and followed by approx. 10 lakh direct-indirect maritime professionals’ in various social media platforms.

I am an Agri Business professional with hands on experience in handling huge volumes of commodities trade and procurement for Brands like Maggi, Cerelac and Aashirvaad.

I was instrumental in designing and initiating new models of procurement for grains at Nestle, which led to strategic advantage in sourcing. In addition, I was the RM procurement lead for Organic launch of Nestle Nutrition, which was one of the first launches of its kind for the organization, wherein, our team was instrumental in charting out the sourcing strategy and network from scratch for organic raw materials. At Nestle, I have also led my team in the initiatives like Responsible sourcing, e-invoicing proactively and contributed beyond my immediate sphere of influence.

I was Procurement lead for SAP implementation Project at ITC and helped in development of new tools including optimizer for Wheat Business. An optimizer is a tool, which recommends best cost buying source for each of the factories considering supply, price, quality and other constraints. I was also a part of team, which identified and implemented railway incentive schemes across the locations providing saving of 10% to 30% in incremental freight cost. This gave direct competitive advantage vs competitors in both trade as well as sourcing.

27

COVER STORY At Raymond, we implemented FMS (Freight Management System) successfully, which helped ease operations and optimized costs. Levers of FMS are: ♦ End to End Visibility – Visibility across supply chain partners, including suppliers, contract manufacturers, transportation carriers, third-party logistics, distributors, and dealers ♦ Real-time Tracking – through collaborative & real time information sharing ♦ Early warning alerts and exception management – to resolve supply chain disruptions before they disrupt the business ♦ Predictive and prescriptive decision-support – using predictive and prescriptive analytics  Cost Optimization Ensured - In deciding Full Truck Load (FTL) or Part Truck Load (PTL) will be economical  Speed or Cost – In comparing and finalizing the most economical or fastest

LSP  Optimize Route – In deciding a smart route after considering all practical constraints across all Supply Chain Partners  Optimize Space – In optimizing the space by maximizing the truck fill rate, prescribing the right mix of items that needs to be picked for optimum truck

fill rate ♦ Autonomous decision making and control – to take the robot out of the human and boost productivity & self-correcting supply chain with decision making and machine learning.

Jitender Lalit, GM – Warehouse & Dispatch, Welspun Limited

NCR had to work in collaboration with Strategic Partner Trizma to create Centre of Excellence at a low-cost location - Serbia. NCR's Customer Care Centre (CCC) was distributed across 135 locations. There was not a unified process that could support all the staff, and customers across mentioned locations. Our key objective was to consolidate the Customer Care Centre in one location to improve quality and consistency. Procurement, Services Organization and Strategic Partner Trizma worked as a team for establishment of Centre of Excellence. This project was one of the two finalists at CIPS (Chartered Institute of Procurement and Supply Chain) Awards.

The CoE creation key objectives were to: ♦ Support NCR's services portfolio across 160 countries with employees who could speak 17 languages ♦ Introduce a scalable services model, where the CoE can support NCR's end retail, and financial customers that contribute to $6 billion in revenue per year ♦ Bring together all supporting functions - service operations and service desks, intelligent dispatch team (logistic coordinators, parts planning, dispatch teams) to reduce machine downtime and to improve customer experience ♦ Facilitate knowledge sharing between all CoE team members and retain regional knowledge in relevant regions ♦ Introduce new market trends (Robotics/Omnichannel Strategies), and scale if the pilot proved successful ♦ Redesign processes to deliver consistent and exceptional customer experience.

The CoE saved business significant amount of money over five years and became strongly integrated in the company culture so that NCR could maintain its low-cost operations, while delivering high value services to external and internal customers.

28 CELERITY November - December 2020

Prachi Misra, Senior Director, Refinitiv Ltd.

COVER STORY

Kumar Gaurav, Head - Supply Chain, Infiniti Retail Limited (Tata Croma)

I have worked on multiple projects with my team, which were based on process optimization as per business requirements (resolution of customer issues in B2C environment) and improved profitability.

At Snapdeal, while analyzing customer complaints for Order Fulfilment process, we found that there were complaints in two major buckets – wrong product delivery and quality issues in delivered items.

When we did Root Cause Analysis of these issues in Fulfilment Center operations, we found that multiple touchpoints in Order Fulfilment Lifecycle were not synchronized and quality check of the product was missing at outbound before packaging. Work line balancing from order fulfilment required alignment to avoid interim bottlenecks. We carried out time motion study & VA-NVA Analysis to remove redundant steps from order fulfilment process.

To avoid working on multiple screens for order processing, we redesigned inhouse WMS UI. We analyzed count of scans and clicks for order processing and optimized as per inputs from the operator.

Packaging table was re-designed considering packaging operator’s ergonomics and packaging tools required by the operator for overall productivity improvement (Items packed per hour). In addition, we planned for arranging packaging SKUs on the newly designed packaging table at one-hand reach of the operator. Outbound processing area layout was re-designed across all fulfilment centres.

For quality check at outbound (prior to packaging of product in secondary container), system driven outbound QC with proper reason tagging was designed in WMS screen. These inputs helped in refining and strengthening our inbound QC. In addition, we tried to optimize on packaging and delivery cost by managing ship-together for items of same order with proper system-based packaging recommendation (basis volumetric dimensions of the product and standardization of packaging SKUs). This information was captured in WMS screen during packaging process.

We were able to bring considerable reduction in Wrong Product Delivery and improvement in manpower productivity. We achieved increased packaging compliance (packaging box suggested vs used), which helped in reduction of cost per delivered shipment.

Ergonomically designed packaging table was implemented in Fulfilment Center operations of Ajio and B2B e-commerce.

Innovations in Procurement space can be of varied types – process automation, redefining current procurement models, experimenting & introducing novel sourcing models, continuously innovating ways for strengthening SRM, enhancing productivity, etc. Two such key initiatives that we did in our domain:

Pradeep Ahuja, Head – Copra Procurement, Marico Ltd.

Process Automation – We pioneered work of automating Copra making process (currently 100% manual & solar energy depended across global geographies) and developed pilot automated machine, reducing labor need & conversion time. Team worked around multiple challenges like replicating manual skills into machine motion, developing commercially viable rugged design leading to an automated solution. In shorts, an efficient drying mechanism enabled a scalable model.

Novel Sourcing Model – Basis need identification of small farmers in remote locations, we launched Mobile Collection Centres (CC) based upon farm gate buying/ collection concept. This eliminates constraint/need of the farmer bringing material to our collection centres and also enables a deeper Penetration for us in remote geographies, enhancing sourcing capability & supply assurance.

supplychaintribe.com

29

COVER STORY When I was working on a pilot project ‘abrogation of the process of reserving merchandise by channels for future demand’, there were myriad challenges along the way. This included: Analysis of demand correctly: The first step was to analyze the available inventory and checked the cut sizes of an article if any and we observed that ~55% of the available articles were in cut sizes. These stocks were lying in respective bins. If we merge the inventory, then the cut sizes would drop to ~35% and that would help in further movement of inventory to the channels. Also, if we bring the articles under single umbrella, then the remaining cut size articles could be replenished to any channel as per the actual sale.

Alignment with the stakeholders: Secondly, Channels’ Business Heads were not interested to let go their reserved stocks as that would have meant the sale loss of their channel (in case a demand came in the near future). So, alignment with the Channels’ Business Heads became important for me to make this project a success.

To overcome the challenge, I aligned with Brand Heads (they do the buying in the organization) first and showed them the analysis and convinced them on the serviceability to the channels. Invariably, channels were bound to get benefited if we unreserved the inventory, which Channel heads were reluctant to accept. After aligning with the brand heads, I gathered much weight behind me to re-discuss with channels heads and showed them, this time, they all agreed, though reluctantly.

With the success of this project, now everyone is convinced to abrogate after a month into the season and allocate/replenish the inventory, basis sales & there won’t be any reservation of stocks for any channels. This will also help in reducing the inventory level at the company level by min ~10%. We buy stocks for Rs250 crore and this will help in saving Rs25 crore.

Myself with the support of my team & cross-functional teams like IT, QA & RA had developed “IMPACT online” Report. This report has the following advantages: ♦ Seamlessly Connected with the SAP ERP (single source of truth across Organization- Business to Production to logistics) ♦ It gives end to end visibility of each stage to all cross-functions & most importantly to the business team. ♦ It applies multiple checks & balance on availability of manufacturing records (BMR/ BPR) & Regulatory approvals – Gives an alert if not already done. ♦ Procurement Report gives date of material availability for the last available material. Hence, you know when the last material is available so as to accordingly plan the production. ♦ Last but not the least, Back calculates basis ETDs and highlights the risks in achieving OTIF, with Red, Black, Yellow, Green colors status and defining the status for the same.

Orders & respective actions can then be prioritized basis the above status, with complete end to end visibility available in front of supply chain. It helped to bring “ARV” in the entire supply chain organization: ♦ A - Agility ♦ R – Reliability / Resilience ♦ V - Visibility / Velocity In short, companies can become trusted business partner by building a best-in class, customer focused, innovative, technology and data driven supply chain - built on the pillars of Agility, Reliability, Resilience and Velocity.

30 CELERITY November - December 2020

Rahul Bhimrajka, DGM – Customer Service & Distribution, Mohan Clothing Corporation Pvt. Ltd. (Blackberrys Menswear)

Gaurav Bhatia, Associate Director, Cipla

COVER STORY

30-UNDER-30 SUPPLY CHAIN SUPERSTARS

Spandan Rout, Analyst, Ford Motors – Global Data Insights & Analytics

Nitin Davessar, Manager - Supply Chain, Zed LifeStyle (Beardo)

As part of the New model parts identification & forecasting project, we had to identify the critical to stock parts during a new vehicle launch in the market, which will enable us to reduce back-orders as well as the cost of shock transportation and thereby enhancing customer satisfaction.

To begin with, we start characterizing or building parameters of various indicators in regions where the new model is to be launched, parameters such as geographical region, climatic trends, population behavior & demography. Experience with previous model launches is indispensable, thus making it the key parameter. The new model to-be launched is compared to the previous models based on various parameters mentioned above and finally top 3 matches are chosen for analysis. The top 3 models chosen are then analyzed for their parts sales pattern, driving pattern and historical vehicle sales pattern. Cumulative insights from the data are taken together to shape a forecast for the next 12 months involving various parts using various machine learning models.

Basis the ideation process, we developed an all-inclusive model, which only needs the input as New-Model-Parts list and would give the result of those CTS (Criticalto-stock) parts list and corresponding quantity. This is the first of its kind package, which forecasts the requirements for the next 12 months even before a model is launched owing to which it helped garner savings up to 54% of the cost and at the same time reap customer satisfaction by facilitating on time delivery of service parts.

Traditionally, majority of the New Product Development in Marico is done in-house, with R&D teams working on the formulations and packaging. The ambitious ask in front of us, however, was to significantly crunch the time to market while catering to multiple categories. Hence, a new model of innovation was required.

I took this opportunity to implement the "Connect & Develop" model of innovation, wherein we were able to match NPD requirements with the developed product & packaging formats available in both domestic and international markets.

With this, the company was able to strengthen its male grooming & skincare portfolios with multiple product launches. Within a year, we successfully launched 25 new products, yielding INR 3Cr+ in sales.

This time to market is being pushed even further with my current stint at Beardo where we constantly challenge industry norms to ensure that the brand is always relevant in solving ever-changing consumer needs.

“Amount of “Data” we captured in supply chain has grown exponentially in last decade, however retailers have not been able to leverage the same for true omnichannel supply chain transformation in line with the customer expectation. We have setup supply chain analytics functions to drive SC transformation journey across – Demand Planning, Supply Planning, Inventory Optimization & Segmentation, Markdown Optimization, Sell thru & OTIF Improvement, etc. Also, we are using this to bring innovation in fulfillment & last mile through automation to become globally competitive retailer.

Radharaman Jha, Head – Supply Chain, Chalhoub Group

supplychaintribe.com

31

COVER STORY Over the past few years, series of unfortunate macroeconomic events led to severe supply disruptions of refractory raw materials and related finished products. This imbalance in the market led to unforeseen price volatility and a reduced negotiation potential for prospective large scale buyers. Globally, buyers are looking out for is a checklist of mitigation measures for a similar scenario. As I track the category on a periodic basis, I understand the commodity, concern supply chain and the pricing mechanism. This helped me develop a white paper, ‘Supply and Pricing of Refractories: A Checklist’, enlisting certain proactive measures a buyer can consider before placing orders. The so developed whitepaper is made available, free of cost through #thinkfree campaign.

We innovatized SKUs by harmonizing the portfolio basis product specifications & monthly demand pattern, which resulted in the improvement in plant efficiency by less changeovers & Warehouse space utilization inventory optimization by setting safety stock norms for better customer service. We have developed detailed scheduling basis schedules (orders) & future plan as per forecast to follow the plan with factories. We did MPS process implementation for weekly checks on production and rough cut capacity planning for short term basis rolling demand/forecast.

For Exports, we developed the MTO model to optimize warehouse space & better inventory turns. It helped in maximizing plant efficiency with limited and longer runs with defined lead time to follow & setting right expectations with customers basis destination. For Imports, we initiated in-depth SKU wise PSI (Production, Sales & Inventory) analysis for in-transit & volume to order visibility basis reorder level.

Along with my team, I implemented OTM Platform: Customs Brokerage in line with E-Sanchit Program. As conventional process begins to shift towards the demands of internet age, companies/supply chain professionals alike should perceive the ways in which these technologies are beginning to transform the logistics ecosystem. In view of this objective, we have implemented our cloudbased solution, which helps in automating most processes by reducing manual interference and improves comprehensive efficiency in the total process flow while ensuring transparency into the system. The New Techo-Enabled Model has helped in identifying the horizons of smart working culture by keeping old conventional model into redundancy. Highlights include: ♦ System based LSP Selection ♦ System based data Repository ♦ System enabled 3 Hierarchy Level Rate Approval: Once Rate got approved, it will be directly sent to EBS for accounting purpose ♦ Audit department to spend less time on reviewing and documenting ♦ High Level of Transaction visibility till GRN (Good Received Note) 2. CFS Consolidation activity: In terms of imports, Vishakhapatnam is where we get most of our cargos.

In scope of that, we have developed a special contract with CFS/Terminal, which enabled savings of closely 30 Lakhs Annually. Earlier, this sum was given by CFSs to CHAs as an incentive in return for nominating respective CFSs. Although, we can’t use DPD Mode (Direct Port Delivery) all the time as our business strategy requires CFS support. But during this micro-project, we have identified the scopes of savings, which ultimately benefits our company.

32 CELERITY November - December 2020

Anjana Singh, Category Specialist, Beroe-Inc

Saket Srivastava, Supply Planning Manager, Roquette India Pvt Ltd

Jobin Joseph Zachariah, Logistics Analyst – API Division, Aurobindo Pharma Ltd, Hyderabad

COVER STORY In 2019, I got the opportunity to lead the Supply Chain Innovation Project “INSPIRE (Indenting and Stamping Process Improvement for Government Reimbursed Business)”. This was very exciting project with high business impact. We could bring out-of-box solution by conducting hackathon within cross-functional team.

Business Challenges: Government Reimbursed Business is growing well and due to unique customization needs for each order, complexity index for supply chain is very high. There was a need to optimize the supply chain to reduce lead time, reduce cost of customization and improving compliance by making product tamper-proof.

Nivedita Jha, Sr. Executive, Johnson and Johnson

Innovative solutions we delivered: ♦ Implemented Innovative Tamper-proof packaging solution at minimal extra-cost & convenience of implementation on shop floor.  Used Tamper proof stickers on the product (Industry benchmarking)  Smart-Artwork change (combination artworks / Printing Technology)  Implemented serialization with no extra cost ♦ Implemented Image Master – Online Image Master implementation helped in empowering Site Quality and hence reduced approval lead time by 1 day. ♦ Control Tower Implementation – To monitor the end to end re-packaging process, our supply chain implemented control tower (excel based on-line tool). This helped us in identifying the process gaps / constraints and reduced the lead time significantly.

In another project, we also implemented Quality Management Module to further strengthen quality standards and compliance. We used latest technology like Winshuttle in this project.

These simpler innovations are helping to add more value to business and at the same time, inspiring us to keep improving our skillsets.

This is the first part of the Celerity Supply Chain e-Conference and Awards event which happened virtually on 09th October 2020. Stay tuned for the January - February 2021 issue which will conclude with insights from one more panel discussion and profile of the rest of the winners.

supplychaintribe.com

33

PERSPECTIVE

PROCUREMENT TODAY & TOMORROW

Harnessing the Power of Digitization

In the next series of the web-exclusive event Procurement Today & Tomorrow organized

by Celerity and Quantic Media, we present to you views & expertise of CPOs. They deliberated upon the future of procurement and how can companies align their strategic objectives with Digital Procurement at fore…

Ashutosh Dhar, Supply Chain Director, Becton Dickinson India

Mohit Jauhari, Head – SCM, Shriram Pistons & Rings Ltd

How would you define the importance of digital procurement for companies? What are the value drivers?

Mohit Jauhari, Head – SCM, Shriram Pistons & Rings Ltd: Digitalization is one of the key priorities for CPOs around the world. Savings, quality, innovation, speed, and risk mitigation are 5 pointers which define value in

Sreenivas Rao Nandigam, Global Head – Supply Chain, Sun Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd.

the world of procurement digitalization.

Lot of innovation has happened in digitalization and now we are talking about procurement 4.0., which is set to make procurement and supply chains transparent across the value chain. It will enable holistic transformation based on IOT, big data, virtual reality, etc.

However, before adopting the digital procurement roadmap, companies need

34 CELERITY November - December 2020

Vishal Singh, Director – Procurement & Logistics, Texas Instruments India & Rest of Asia

to understand that it’s capital intensive & time consuming. Cost leadership, risk mitigation and process excellence are some of the main benefits of digitalization. Digital Procurement (DP) has become the buzzword these days especially post Covid as Companies have now realized the importance of remote management. Digital Procurement will help companies achieve Cost Leadership,

PERSPECTIVE Process Excellence & Risk Mitigation all at the same time. There are many companies who already have a headstart as they had initiated digital procurement almost 2 decades ago and they are the ones who will benefit the most - while the others take time to set-up the basic infra / paraphernalia in place. The key value drivers are: • Innovation management • Big data & analytics • Digital supply chain management • Strategically linked leadership • Automation & robotics • Digital supplier & category management • Agile organization Vishal Singh, Director – Procurement & Logistics, Texas Instruments India & Rest of Asia: Digitalization in procurement is inevitable and it will grow more and more as we continue to get more connected, more informed, and more disciplined. While the basics of procurement continue to be the same, what digitalization does is to bring more data to help informed decision making and equal participation of stakeholders.

More visibility in the process brings credence and accountability to both buyer and seller and reduces chances of fraud.

How do you integrate People, Process & Technology (PPT)?

Ashutosh Dhar, Supply Chain Director, Becton Dickinson India: If you look at the interplay of these factors, these all work in sync with each other for every organization on a regular basis. When three of them are put together, that is when the complexity starts building and one of the factors that binds these factors together is the rate of change. Technology is one of the fastest changing factors in any organization to keep pace with the shifting business dynamics. Then comes the business processes which take time to evolve as company’s SOPs are stringent and have been built over the years to garner efficiency and strategic objectives. Third one, which is the most difficult one is People and when we have to ask people to change is when you realize it takes the most time to change and adopt to a new situation.

Any successful business integration or any successful transformation has to ensure that the pace of change is

supplychaintribe.com

identified first and then the adoption of change for the organization is taken as a key factor of success for any of the projects. While we have been implementing technological changes in our organization from time to time, recently what we realized is that these transformations need to be linked with the SOPs of our organization to reap desired benefits and garner change sooner. It started with an idea of tracking & tracing of our shipments across the globe from suppliers to manufacturers to distributors and ultimately the end consumer. But then we realized that only having track & trace is not good enough. We integrated it with our forecasting process, which helped us in enhancing inventory management. Then came the third and last leg of aligning people with the integration of Process & Technology.

The sudden onset of Covid made us realize the importance of real-time information when all of us are working from home. I firmly believe that tough times make us tougher and these last five-six months have been great learning experience for all us.

Sreenivas Rao Nandigam, Global Head – Supply Chain, Sun Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd.: Interestingly all these factors – People, Processes and Technology are crucial for any change we make in the organization.

Neglecting any one of them results in suboptimal results. Get the buy-in you need by involving people outside of management in the decision-making processes and work towards continuous improvement. Many change efforts do not sustain themselves because they focus on short-term change instead of longer-term impacts. Look both at the framework and what you need to change, and then ask yourself what your organization’s biggest problem is. Below are some examples:  If you are not completing tasks quickly enough: Pay attention to the interaction of process and technology, and attempt to automate more.  If you are not efficient enough: Look at the interaction of people and processes and see what you might be failing to scale.  If you are not creating new value: See where people and technology interact and find out where you are

failing to innovate.

Also, take a critical look at the technology you already have and make sure you are using it to its fullest potential. You might discover that your existing solutions provide utility that you haven’t even tapped into yet.

And do not forget your company’s culture. Take a critical look at how you communicate decisions and changes within your organization. If training is necessary, train people to be successful and to communicate.

Keep in mind how the three components of PPT interact: The people do the work; technology often helps them innovate. Strong processes can help people increase efficiency; technology can help automate these processes

How can companies harness the power of technology, more so during current times?

Ashutosh Dhar: Currently, a lot of us are working from home and physical connection amongst employees has reduced drastically. There are multiple tools to empower employees to continue to remain connected to each other and to the information flow within the organization. Three things that companies can do: 1. Accept and embrace the new normal – A lot of companies are finding it difficult to adapt to the change that world has gone through in the last 6 months. The faster we adapt and adopt as employees and as an organization, the faster we will be able to deliver on our goals and perform as we were doing in the past.

2. Embrace technology with adequate training to users – One of the actions that is absolutely essential is to train the users of the technology/tool that is being implemented. A lot of times the tech is there but users are not familiar due to lack of training and are not able to make effective use of the power that they have in front of them.

3. Reimagine the impossible – All of us have an opportunity to look beyond the standard ways of working and include technologies related to AI and ML in the work that we do on a daily basis. Some of those ideas would have been trashed

35

PERSPECTIVE

Procurement 2025 looks MOST EXCITING. Digitalization is going to transform the way business is done. Procurement will make use of cognitive computing & AI. Predictive / Advanced Analytics will help companies take key decisions.

Pan-Globe Collaborations will be a reality. Crowd Sourcing & Blockchain will no longer remain buzzwords -and will become a way of life for a procurement professionals. in the past considering to be bizarre but with the use of latest tools, a lot of those would be possible in current scenario.

Sreenivas Rao Nandigam: I strongly feel that the power of technology is even more important during the current times. The amount of digitization, which has happened in the last six months, is much more than the whole decade. One of the key success factors in usage of technology is the level of adoption, and Pandemic is almost forcing the adoption of tech giving tail winds. I would strongly suggest to look for relevant technology and digitization rather than taking big bang projects but they should be scalable. The mantra I use is Start Small and Scale Fast. This allows space for failures as the cost of failure is not large.

I feel that India is the hub for technology support and now will be able to get some advantage of the geopolitical situation in manufacturing and will emerge stronger post pandemic.

One key factory for local vendors and for exports is the mindset change out of “Jugaad”. In my view, Jugaad had its own place in the 90s and has outlived its utility. We need to move on and create what I call as 100-year fixes.

Managing expectation of the customers, not just overseas but the domestic has also seen a big change in the last 1 decade and the businesses need to be customer centric in their approach.

There are of-course the PLI schemes the government has announced, which will automatically incentivize the investments in localization for specific sectors.

Mohit Jauhari: E-Procurement is a major tool for harnessing the power of digital procurement wherein entities / suppliers spread all over the globe can come

together at a pre-defined time and help the buyer conclude deals within hours.

Since this eliminates the need for any cross country / continent travel, the process saves a lot of time & effort on the part of the buyer & seller. These direct / indirect savings improve the efficiencies for both the buyer as well as the sellers. On top of this, the process is transparent and hence improves the credibility of such transactions.

Likewise, supplier portals with real-time exchange of data / information between the buyers & sellers will be an intrinsic feature of the New Normal.

Vishal Singh: Data forms the base of this era of digitalization. Big data, Fast data, Smart data and any kind of analytics leading all the way to predictive analytics, can offer much more certainty in purchasing & supply chain world. Something as simple as PO & invoice automation can deliver immense value to the operations management, reduce payment delay to suppliers and give predictability to business. Looking from a semiconductor standpoint, the operations has a global footprint with silicon produced in one country, assembled & tested in second country, and stored in third country, with distribution across the globe to all customers locations. In such an operating scenario, with right & sufficient data on supply & distribution side, company reduce cost, give realistic delivery times, and add competitive advantage. But investment in digital solution must be balanced and evaluated in line with companies’ vision.

Adding digital or technology solution in your procurement domain, without analyzing value generation, operational efficiency and return on investment, can create more challenges than doing good.

How will digitalization shape up

36 CELERITY November - December 2020

procurement in the years to come?

How does the procurement 2025 look like?

Mohit Jauhari: To me Procurement 2025 looks MOST EXCITING. Digitalization is going to transform the way business is done. Procurement will make use of cognitive computing & AI. Predictive / Advanced Analytics will help companies take key decisions.

Pan-Globe Collaborations will be a reality. Crowd Sourcing & Blockchain will no longer remain buzzwords and will become a way of life for a procurement professionals. All in all, DP will help companies become proactive & predictive on their end to end supply chains - especially on transactions with back-end suppliers. Automated transactions will help improve the overall efficiency & effectiveness.

Owing to systems & processes taking / supporting decisions, the possibility of human errors will also get eliminated.

Companies will be able to manage & mitigate risks much more effectively.

Procurement Teams will become leaner with data management experts ruling the roost. IT Savvy-ness will become the Quality # 1 for any procurement professional.

Vishal Singh: Technological evolution has been shaping up procurement at a much faster pace than before and it will continue to define new boundaries. Solution will get integrated and connected supply chain will be the driver of competitive advantage. We can see the glimpse of that in today’s times with impact of geo-political shifts making the flow of good more dynamic and complex. But the other factor would be evolution of corporate governance, audits and fraud prevention. The technology would also define new ways of supply chain transparency, data management & reporting.

FOCUS

Exporting Opportunities for the

INDIAN PPE INDUSTRY India realized the critical role of PPE in combating COVID-19 as early as March 2020, wherein the Ministry of Textiles stepped up to lead the assessment of the availability of protective wear/PPE for frontline health workers. As per reports, over 600 firms came together to produce PPE kits and, in 60 days, the PPE industry in India witnessed 56 times growth. As a result, the short-term supply disruptions from China in the chemical sector created an opportunity for Indian companies, and global players have reached out to India for alternative supply sources. Concentrating on strict environmental safety and adopting global best practices will enable Indian manufacturers to export to Europe and the United States of America, write Rohit Kulkarni, Principal Consultant and Yamini Vivek, Consulting Analyst, Visionary Science Practice, Frost & Sullivan.

MEDICAL PERSONNEL COVID-19

supplychaintribe.com

ICU PERSONNEL COVID-19

DISINFECTANT PERSONNEL COVID-19

37

FOCUS

T

HE chemical and petrochemical industry urged the Central Government to declare the entire value chain as “essential” during India’s COVID-19 lockdown period. The industry plays a major role in essential goods like food, edible oil, drugs, fertilizers, etc., and the Indian Chemical Council highlighted the importance of lifesaving drugs, which require a consistent supply of key chemicals. For example, a basic drug such as Paracetamol requires many chemicals, such as Benzene, Sulphur, Chlorine, Hydrogen, Nitric Acid, Sulphuric Acid, etc. Like chemicals, polymers derived from the petrochemical sector form an important component in medical devices like catheters, blood transfusion pipes, blood bags, and personal protective equipment (PPE). Hence, the plastic downstream industry was treated as essential due to its vast application in agriculture, potable water, food, process flow, etc.

However, the impact of the COVID-19 crisis on the petrochemicals and chemicals sector will differ across the value chain, with packaging industries experiencing a boost. The short-term supply disruptions from China in the chemical sector have created an opportunity for Indian companies, and global players have reached out to India for alternative supply sources.

MEASURES TO ATTAIN SELF SUFFICIENCY The government and industry players have implemented various measures to make India self-sufficient in PPE. India realized the critical role of PPE in combating COVID-19 as early as March, wherein the Ministry of Textiles stepped up to lead the assessment of the availability of protective wear/PPE for frontline health workers. Collaboration between governments at the central and state levels, industries, and workers are required to revamp existing production lines to manufacture a completely new product from scratch. According to the report, over 600 firms came together to produce PPE kits and, in 60 days, the PPE industry in India witnessed 56 times growth. PPE includes goggles, face shields, masks (surgical/N-95), gloves (surgical/examination), coverall/gowns (with or without aprons), head covers, and shoe covers. India now has over 600 companies certified to manufacture

PPE with over 110 governmentidentified companies. Domestic PPE kit manufacturers include Alok Industries, JCT Phagwara, Gokaldas Exports, and Aditya Birla.

The Union Health Ministry issued guidelines for the production and use of PPE. The Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) specifications have been set for virus-resistant and fluid-resistant PPE kits. The Health Ministry issues guidelines on reuse and disinfection of eye protection goggles and establishes rules to ensure proper disposal of PPE kits. State governments have asked the private sector to ramp up the production capacity of ventilators, gloves, and goggles. The Preventive

Wear Manufacturers Association of India (PWMAI) devised plans to bring PPE kits under a licensing framework to improve quality standards. Government initiatives such as cutting the cost for licensing facilities and products, accelerating the development of highspeed manufacturing lines, and assisting companies in overcoming barriers to production will allow local companies to shift production to PPE equipment.

Close collaboration between India’s Central Government, its various research institutions, the state governments, and the country’s highly fragmented textile industry helped create the world’s second-largest PPE industry. Multiple company mergers and acquisitions and

Improve local supply chains via more efficient planning to localize, regionalize, and secure shorter supply lines. There should be more focus on implementing new technology with highspeed manufacturing lines and reducing the cost of licensing facilities and products. Adopting new technologies such as 3D printing would greatly enhance the supply chain because 3D printing technology consolidates the number of components and processes required for manufacturing. This will significantly impact the global supply chain and reduce complexities, resulting in cost savings, enhanced lead times, and improved time-to-market. By adopting global safety standards, India can become an export-driven market. India can build analytics to create efficient PPE supply chain management mechanisms that keep track of the demand for critical products by leveraging technical knowhow. This will also enable demand forecasting, help estimate stock levels, and limit wastage.

38 CELERITY November - December 2020

FOCUS

India has shown leadership in being innovative and acting quickly by producing over 4.5 lakh PPE kits per day within the first three months of the COVID-19 outbreak. The country is taking steps to rise and provide the rest of the world with the necessary resources. According to the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, the “Make in India” spirit “embedded in the Atmanirbhar Bharat Abhiyaan has resulted in providing resilience and self-sufficiency” to the country to manufacture various medical equipment, including PPE.

joint ventures aided the production process. India’s automotive sector also started producing PPE kits.

STEPS TO ADDRESS BOTTLENECKS AND STRENGTHEN THE SUPPLY AND DISTRIBUTION OF PPE Technology Enhancement Improve local supply chains via more efficient planning to localize, regionalize, and secure shorter supply lines. There should be more focus on implementing new technology with high-speed manufacturing lines and reducing the cost of licensing facilities and products. Adopting new technologies such as 3D printing would greatly enhance the supply chain because 3D printing technology consolidates the number of components and processes required for manufacturing. This will significantly impact the global supply chain and reduce complexities, resulting in cost savings, enhanced lead times, and improved time-to-market. By adopting global safety standards, India can become an export-driven market. Concentrating on strict environmental safety and adopting global best practices will enable Indian manufacturers to export to Europe and

supplychaintribe.com

the United States of America. Disposal and processing of PPE suits damage the environment; hence sustainability is becoming an important criterion, with a preference for reusable PPE. Open Borders India is among the top countries in Asia with the maximum number of Free Trade Agreements (FTAs). Overall, except for a few agreements such as the South Asian Free Trade Area (SAFTA), India has been unable to fully leverage most of its FTAs. Post-COVID-19, the Indian Government must re-evaluate current bilateral and multilateral trade agreements and seek new ones that enable supplies of critical components and materials. Necessary measures must be implemented to remove obstacles such as high-cost compliance and strict regulations that hamper the overall competitiveness of exports in the country.

knowledge transfer at an international level can be achieved through research partnerships and building strategic alliances. India can build analytics to create efficient PPE supply chain management mechanisms that keep track of the demand for critical products by leveraging technical know-how. This will also enable demand forecasting, help estimate stock levels, and limit wastage.

Conclusion India has shown leadership in being innovative and acting quickly by producing over 4.5 lakh PPE kits per day within the first three months of the COVID-19 outbreak. The country is taking steps to rise and provide the rest of the world with the necessary resources. According to the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, the “Make in India” spirit "embedded in the Atmanirbhar Bharat Abhiyaan has resulted in providing resilience and self-sufficiency" to the country to manufacture various medical equipment, including PPE. With the boost in domestic production capacity and meeting the domestic requirements for PPE, the Director-General of Foreign Trade (DGFT)’s revised notification in July permitted the export of these kits.

With the ease in lockdown restrictions, India managed to export 23 lakh PPE to five countries, including the USA, the UK, the UAE, Senegal, and Slovenia, in July, according to the Health Ministry.

India has now positioned itself in the global PPE export market.

Leverage India’s Research & Development India’s ideas and innovations must be promoted with multiple options in terms of price, material, and types of PPE. By collaborating with countries that are innovators in this segment,

39

DRIVERS DUNIYA

DRIVER’S Duniya

Wayside amenities in the

GENGHIS KHAN ERA

An interesting perspective on logistics during the Genghis Khan era by Ramesh Kumar, Editor, DRIVERS DUNIYA and co-promoter of TransportMitra Services, reachable at ramesh@konsultramesh.com

F

IRST things, first. Genghis Khan is no Moslem, but a Mongol.

A follower of Tengrism, not Islam. A Mongol monarch whose suzerainty spread across Asia and beyond. Until today, none matched his caliber in capturing vast contiguous landmass and brought almost the entire living population under his rule (11621227 AD). Half a century later, Marco Polo would travel to the Mongol Empire when Genghis Khan’s grandson Kublai Khan was in the throne and spent close to two decades in his kingdom.

On March 4, 2012 Daniel Ackerman through an op-ed piece in The New York Times wrote:

“An international team of geneticists conducting a 10-year study of men living in what once was the Mongolian empire has discovered that a surprisingly large number share the identical Y chromosome, which is passed down only from father to son.

One individual's Y chromosome can be found in 16 million men in Asia, from Manchuria, near the Sea of Japan, to Uzbekistan and Afghanistan in Central Asia.

The likeliest candidate is Genghis Khan, a warlord who raped and pillaged one town after another, killing all the men and impregnating the women, sowing his seed from China to eastern Europe. Though legend credits Genghis Khan with many wives and offspring, he didn't need to do all the begetting himself to ensure that his genes would flourish. His sons inherited the identical Y chromosome from him, as did their sons and their sons' sons down a long, winding Silk Road of legitimate and illegitimate progeny.”

Well, that riveting piece rushed me order Amazon to deliver John Man’s Genghis Khan. Eight years later (2020), a friend advised me to buy Kindle when I discussed the storage challenge of physical books. In fact, he went a step

40 CELERITY November - December 2020

Ramesh Kumar has 43 years of publishing domain exposure across media with specialization in logistics and supply chain.

Since 2010, he has travelled 200,000 km on Indian highways to understand the challenges Indian industry faces on the Indian roads. He has written three books: 10,000KM on Indian Highways (2011), Naked Banana! (2012) & An Affair with Indian Highways (2013).

Launched DRIVERS DUNIYA, an English quarterly 2015. Currently, due to Covid suspended print publication, but launched the SUPPLY CHAIN INDIA tv program on Youtube.

ahead, bought one on my behalf, loaded almost 50 odd books and SpeedPosted. Believe it or not, the maiden book I accessed on my own Kindle was Harold Lamb’s Genghis Khan, The Emperor of All Men. One step led to another. The entire book was unputdownable given the rise of this nomad on the Mongolian landscape, his logistics or movement of troops – both foot soldiers and cavalry – interested me the most.

Especially Chapter 24 titled “The Road Makers” kept me hooked. I must have read this 10 pager multiple times.

Reason: the kind of wayside amenities he has established for his troop movement as well as booty collected after conquering kingdoms far and wide.

The chapter title is a bit misleading.

There were no roads per se since the world knew very little about the East, notwithstanding the valiant efforts of the proponents of Christianity and Islam braving the unpredictable weather and terrain exploring and succeeding partially in discovering the new world.

Fatigue and travel go together. Be it by air, road or sea, travel-related tiredness even in the most comfy mode is inevitable. Hence, imagine the plight of weary travelers on horse or foot on mud and slush or non-macadamized

DRIVERS DUNIYA thoroughfare. The Mongol Emperor was mindful of his army because the success of campaigns to annex the world west of his seat of power in the far east depended a great deal on the movement of troop and royal messengers. He was equally mindful of merchants from the west – Venice, Genoa, Constantinople (Istanbul), Mosul, Rome etc – who carried merchandise besides trying to proselytize the Mongols and others in the far east. They too travelled on foot mostly. Remember Rabbi Benjamin, Marco Polo, Prester John etc.?

Lamb’s “The Road Makers” thus drew my interest. More than construction of roads, Lamb describes the wayside amenities built linking the Mongol empire with the rest of the world. “Permanent camps or yams** were made at intervals along the line of march and a string of horses left at each with youths to tend them and a few warriors to keep off thieves.

Where the horde had once passed, no stronger guard was necessary,” writes the author in the first edition published in 1928. These camps, as he extended his conquest, consisted of a few yurts* erected a 100 miles apart on the caravan routes. Besides the army, others who utilized these wayside amenities include “”the treasure bearers, carrying back to Karakorum the jewels, the gold ornaments, the best of the jade and enamel ware and the great rubies of Badakshan.” Yams were part of the written regulation found in Yassa.@ What else? Yams at every 100 miles (160 km approx). Messages have to go up and down by road carried by royal messengers because the invention of telegraphy by Samuel Morse has to wait till 1830s-40s – 700 years after the birth of Temujin, the original name of Genghis Khan, in 1162 near Lake Baikal, Mongolia. Yams, in a nutshell, was telegraph, railroad and parcel post all rolled into one. Who were the beneficiaries of these yams? “… newcomers from unknown regions to seek the Mongols in the Gobi (desert).

Thin-faced Jews led along the post rode their laden donkeys and carts; sallow, square-chinned Armenians rode by with a curious glance at the silent Mongol soldiers sitting on their blankets by the fire or sleeping under an opened tent flap.” Just not horses but camels too.

These wayside yams were not built but left unattended. Lamb calls the

supplychaintribe.com

Mongol as “Masters of Roads” not for nothing. They paid full attention in maintaining these facilities. “In the large towns, there would be a Daroga, or road governor, with absolute authority in his district. With him would be one clerk to write down the personages who called at the station and the merchandise that went by.”

These yams were well attended and well provisioned. Royal messengers received the best care the world.

Hearken: “A Mongol had only to show himself on his long-haired pony with the slender lance slung over his shoulder and his lacquered armor peering from under his sable or deerskin coat for the bystanders to hasten to him submissively. The usual petty thieves of Asia did not put in appearance. (Highway looters existed from time immemorial!) .” Lamb goes on to wonder with raised eyebrows stating that none dare to plunder even a horse rope from a Mongol guard post” even if the guard at the post was “sleepy and indifferent!”

Look at who halted at these yams?

Bands of Mohammedan craftsmen, carpenters, musicians, brick makers, smiths, sword welders or rug weavers

- captives Karakorum-bound, shivering and stumbling as they crossed the waste lands of the inland seas; yellow hat Lamas, swinging their prayer wheels, their eyes fixed on remote snow summits black hats, from the barren slopes of Tibet - the smiling, slant-eyed Buddhist pilgrims …, long-haired fakirs indifferent to the world about them, and grey-garbed Nestorian priests”.

While these band of assorted travelers canter along, when a royal messenger riding a powerful, swearstreaked horse appears on the horizon, priests and mandarins scattered.

Sincethe royal messenger cover 150 miles a day with no rest, he need to be provided the best horse of the station to proceed further swiftly. Originally, these facilities were extended to travelling merchants free of cost. Later when it was found to be misused, the system of charging a fee for merchants began.

Lamb quotes Marco Polo who would capture his impressions of this road management system that he had witnessed during the reign of Genghis Khan’s grandson, Kublai Khan under whom the Venetian merchant-turnedchronicled spent 15-20 years: "Now

REFERENCES: https://archive.nytimes.com/query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage-9A01E4DB1739F937A35750C 0A9649D8B63.html http://bestlogisticsguide.com/basics/army-logistics/ FOOTNOTE: A traditional yurt (from the Turkic languages) or ger (Mongolian) is a portable, round tent covered with skins or felt and used as a dwelling by several distinct nomadic groups in the steppes of Central Asia. (source: Wikipedia) Yam (Mongolian: checkpoint) was a supply point route messenger system extensively used and expanded by Genghis Khan and also used by subsequent Great Khans and Khans.

[1] Relay stations provided food, shelter and spare horses for Mongol army messengers.

Genghis Khan gave special attention to Yam because Mongol armies travelled fast, so their messengers had to be even faster, covering 200–300 kilometres (120–190 mi) per day. The system was used to speed up the process of information and intelligence. he system was preserved in Tsarist Russia after the disintegration of the Golden Horde (source: Wikipedia) Yassa (alternatively: Yasa, Yasaq, Jazag, Zasag, Mongolian: Их засаг, Ikh Zasag) is/was the forty millenary oral law code of the Mongols declared in public in Bokhara by Genghis Khan de facto law of the Mongol Empire even though the "law" was kept secret and never made public. The Yassa seems to have its origin as decrees issued in war times. Later, these decrees were codified and expanded to include cultural and life-style conventions. By keeping the Yassa secret, the decrees could be modified and used selectively. It is believed that the Yassa was supervised by Genghis Khan himself and his stepbrother Shihihutag who was then high judge (in Mongolian: улсын их заргач) of the Mongol Empire. Genghis Khan appointed his second son Chagatai Khan to oversee the execution of the laws.

41

DRIVERS DUNIYA you know that the messengers of the Emperor travelling from Kambalu, the city of the Khans, find at every twenty five miles of the journey a station which they call the horse post house. And at each of these stations there is a large and handsome building for them to put up at. All the rooms are furnished with fine beds and rich silks. If even a king were to arrive at one of these houses, he would find himself well lodged.”

Approximately 300,000 horses were kept at such horse post houses and buildings numbered more than 10,000.

The system was so good that that 10 days’ normal journey is covered in

a single day and night non-stop. Or, Lamb says, “Many a time, fruit shall be gathered at Kambalu one morning and in the evening of the next day it shall reach the Grand Khan” Express service!

Rather super-express. In rare instances, horsemen ride 200-250 miles over a day and night. To distinguish them from the rest of messengers, they wear a wide belt with bells. On reaching the first horse post house, alerted by the jingling bells, the clerk keeps another best horse and rider ready to move forward. Rest and relay system were very much in practice even then. Not invented by Rivigo!

Day time travel is comparatively easy vis-à-vis at night. Obviously, the horse slows down due to darkness all around. Still the journey continues with footmen with torches leading the horse at night. These couriers were highly prized. These super-fit express messengers carry a Gerfalcon tablet which enables them to dismount any other horse rider on the road and take his horse. No questions asked and no complaints entertained.

TRUCK!

A thought-provoking travelogue by Ramesh Kumar, Editor, DRIVERS DUNIYA and co-promoter of TransportMitra Services, reachable at ramesh@konsultramesh.com “Can we approach that vehicle?" asked Selvan Dasaraj*,

Vice President, Mahindra Logistics, on a mid-April 2013 evening as we came out of a dhaba (roadside eatery) in Ranchi, Jharkhand, one of the most coal-enriched state in the eastern part of India and 110 km away from Jamshedpur or Tata Nagar – from where India’s most reputed Tata empire began its innings from this Godforsaken place once upon a time.

Our earlier attempt to engage Rajvinder Singh, the dhaba owner, and a few truck drivers sipping extrasugary tea in his spacious place did not bear fruit. Though the young Singh evinced interest to share inputs on the damaged truck hardly 200 metre near his business place in a casual mode, his attitude changed the moment we took out notepad and pencil. He must have mistaken us for some police investigating team. Bad luck. Instead he advised us to try our luck with trucks parked on the roadside.

Having finished the day's work, the Sun was gently climbing down on the

western horizon.

I was anxious to open the account without any loss of time.

What account?

Well, it is something like this.

Three years and three books (10,000 KM on Indian Highways, Naked Banana! and An Affair With Indian Highways) later, I felt just writing about the plight

42 CELERITY November - December 2020

of highway drivers alone will not do. It is time for action and as a corollary, set up KRK Foundation, registered Trust, with the focus on improving the living and working conditions of these hapless human beings and their families living in remote villages.

And, this was my maiden trip and the inclement weather delayed my Driver Anil Yadav

DRIVERS DUNIYA

A liquor vendor on the highway, against government regulations arrival in Ranchi by a day and thereby I had lost valuable time. Luckily, Mahindra Logistics CEO Pirojshaw Sarkari understood my zeal and decided to support the weeklong trip to Koderma, Barhi and Hazaribagh districts in northern Jharkhand because his company was equally passionate about the same cause.

Jharkhand, originally part of the state of Bihar, supplies the maximum number of highway truck drivers. Once upon a time, the states of Punjab and Haryana enjoyed this status this status.

Having unlocked their land value, Punjabi and Haryanvi truck drivers have decided to hang up their boots, thus creating a huge vacuum in the supply chain of truck driving.

With no industrial development, Jharkhand youngsters were forced to look out for a living and they chose 'drivery' - as is commonly known among drivers' community. Why? Primarily, it is felt that it does not need any special skills and lack of education is no bar. Right or wrong is debatable.

‘Be careful. Let's cross the road," said the late-fortyish Selvan, whom I had met few weeks ago in his Delhi office for the first time after Sarkari indicated that he would be my cotraveler in the maiden Jharkhand trip.

Such a senior officer ready to hotfoot with me in the company of truck drivers? I was skeptical which blew away subsequently.

Actually, I had mistaken him for "Sylvan" and therefore for Goan. The

supplychaintribe.com

only brief I had about him was that he has also spent a lot of time with the drivers' community across India during his tenure with various logistics companies.

Once I came face to face with him, this misconception evaporated.

Though he was born and brought up in Hyderabad, his roots were Tamil - like mine. Secondly, he actually did his Bachelors’ degree in mass communication - read journalism - but moved away from that discipline. What more can I ask for? We hit it off well right from the word, 'go'. Sel, as he is famously nicknamed, would say that both of us hit it of “like Rum and Coke’!

After that maiden meeting three weeks ago in Delhi, now I was crossing National Highway 23 in Jharkhand along with him for a possible interaction with a highway driver on the other side.

Will he open up? He may. He may not. Let's try.

We noticed two guys tinkering with some wiring inside the Leyland 3611 truck, parked on the roadside.

The vehicle looked new and whatever its content was tarpaulin-covered.

On noticing our presence - Selvan, myself and driver Bipin Singh with his trademark baseball cap - one of the elderly occupants jumped out with a curious look on his face.

"Where are you going?" Selvan began the conversation.

"Raipur".

"Are you the driver?"

"No, no. He is there," pointed the tall man to a lean, wiry framed young guy at the steering wheel.

We 'hello'ed him. Flashing a beaming smile, he jumped out. That was first exposure to Anil Yadav, in his early twenties. Hailing from Bagadu basti in Koderma district, Anil took to driving under the tutelage of his uncle.

"Papa kept insisting that I must take up electric wiring and not truck driving because according to him, this is 'bekaar' (good for nothing). But I have no patience for learning electric job," Anil reveals his past without any hint of hesitation and as if we know each other for long.

An extrovert. A charmer too, to the boot. Married recently, he is on his way to Raipur carrying carbon. Does he miss his wife?

"What are you asking, saab?," he giggles.

Does she not want him to be home every day and night? "Yeh poochne ki baat hai?... (Is it something to be asked?). Yes, she wants me home daily," adds he with a mischievous smile

43

DRIVERS DUNIYA

Selvan Dasraj at the dhaba on his lips.

We perhaps unnecessarily touched an emotional issue and he looks around to gather his spirits before picking up threads of his outpourings.

Newly married or otherwise, the physical intimacy between spouses in the initial days automatically leads to emotional understanding over the long run of the journey called ‘life’. Unlike the rest of us, who return home every evening from workplace to eat and sleep with our respective spouses to consummate and avail of conjugal bliss, truck drivers do not enjoy that privilege.

In a way, they consciously decided to stay away from their families for longer duration out of necessity: to eke out a living for the entire family. They suffer so that the parivar (family) is able to lead some ‘life’ in remote villages.

"Do you drink?" I ask the pencilthin Anil. He began to laugh. We could not fathom.

"Saab, more than me, this truck demands drinks!" What?

"Yeh sach hai (Yes, it is true).

Whenever this truck gives trouble, I

offer Rs.100 worth liquor to it. Yes, am not joking," tells Anil as Selvan and myself stand transfixed on hearing this explosive revelation.

Daaru (liquor)-demanding truck?

"Any trouble with the vehicle en route is sorted out quickly soon after I offer liquor to it ... Sometimes, I tell (this truck), 'arre bhai, mera manjil tak powncha do’ '(Help me reach my destination) and I will give you drinks' and saab, troubles vanish in no time," Anil elaborates.

Now that the vehicle is giving trouble and he is tinkering with wiring inside the cabin, is he readying for the liquor ceremony? Of course, pat comes the reply.

The class 8 Jharkhand driver will halt on the highway near some liquor vendor and buy Rs.100 worth liquor. For the vehicle or for himself?

He laughs away at our track of questioning.

Drunken driving on highways is very common. It is some excuse to buy liquor for his own consumption. Indian highways are dotted with liquor vends,

44 CELERITY November - December 2020

despite legal restrictions on setting up such joints on the highways.

Who takes care of his parents if they fall sick while he is away from home and on highways? Bagadu villagers, consisting of 120 homes, support each other in times of crisis.

"I wish to be there whenever anyone is sick. But if I go back home, who is there to earn money to support family?" he asks rhetorically.

What about his children's education?

It is his/her fate. What can I do?, asks he innocently. Does his income sufficient enough to support his family?

Anil, driving for his cousin, earns Rs.4,000 out of every trip and if he manages two trips per month, his take home pay doubles. His family has some arable lands where paddy and vegetables are grown – for captive consumption and the excess, for the local market.

Does he enjoy drivery?

"In Jharkhand, people like us (uneducated) have two options: you join the sena (army) or become a truck driver. Both these professions need no intelligence, but require hard physical work," responds he.

Selvan looks quizzically at me over the unusual linkage between intelligence and army/drivery career.

By now, the sun is nowhere to be seen. Darkness has set in. Our faces get lit up thanks to the powerful beams of passing vehicles on the highway.

We exchange mobile numbers and say 'goodbye'.

P.S: *Selvan Dasaraj has moved out in October 2014 to pursue new goals.

In 2015, he floated Transport Mitra Services Pvt Limited with the objective of improving the working and living conditions of long haul truck drivers.

Visit www.transportmitra.com

Celerity India Marketing Services Email: tech@celerityin.com | Mobile: 79771 05913 Website: www.supplychaintribe.com