tomas rais
H
ow are you reacting and responding to the pandemic? The current situation faced by the world has almost no equivalent. Of course, there have been unwanted events witnessed in the past, but the current level of measures to control the spread of the disease is unprecedented. With the relaxation offered for industries to operate, we have to cautiously weigh our options to continue with prolonged pause, or to step in and set new standards of operations where life and livelihood have equal priorities. Together
with our medical team, we have setup a 60 point detailed SOP which defines our new way of operations - with built in social distancing, hygiene measures and a strict protocol to keep track of anyone who might display any symptoms of the disease. We are also ensuring there is lot of awareness that is communicated to everyone we are working with including the employees of our suppliers as that is the key to a rapid reset. Not only auto industry but other business ventures too are still holding on to see what will be the long-term repercussions of this pandemic. One cannot just assume that things will get back to normal suddenly in 2021. The auto industry had started witnessing a decline since 2018, and over the next few months, we have to continue to watch out for signs of recovery.
What are the practical challenges you are facing with right now and what have you adopted as the correct solutions to keep sales strong during tough times? Challenges like business continuity, liquidity, cost overruns, shrinking market demand are putting pressure on revenue. From a logistics perspective, we cannot permit interruption of supplies to ensure continuity of production. This means planning mater ia l dispatc hes with suppliers in advance to take into account delays that may be faced due to en-route checks or interstate travel restrictions.
Working to get better visibility to supplier performance can be very beneficial to predicting potential supply disruptions and working proactively to alleviate the impact. Companies that aren’t electronically connected to key direct suppliers and don’t have real time data on the inbound flow of products and materials, should move quickly to implement programs to access data and enhance management and decision making capabilities. Tomas Rais, Head of Logistics, Škoda Auto Volkswagen India in an exclusive interview with Ritika Arora Bhola, talks about reorienting programming to rapidly support firm capacity, supply chain linkages, and ensure production continuity. As an industry, the only way to stay relevant in the business is to be agile to the changes and be prepared to be flexible in response to whatever new situation that we may come to face. We also had to review investment decision, redrafted contracts with providers, prioritised spending, and checked the entire value chain and costs to look for optimisation.
What do you make of the stimulus package announced by the government? Any other measures you think the government should implement to strengthen the Indian auto industry?
Supply chain design has measures in place to keep business afloat 58 |
september 2020
