Back End IT Systems

Data Analysis    

Upgrade & Refine

Technology changes very fast and the Software Product Life Cycle is reducing day by day. Organizations are highly impacted due to these changes and facing a challenging time to maintain the pace. Before investing in technologies, it is must for any manufacturing organization to ensure that IT strategies aligning with business strategies.  As the market is very dynamic and business strategies are bound to change, IT Strategies should be flexible enough to change as per business needs. “In Cosmo, we prefer to use the products v/s custom developments and we keep exploring the new technologies with start-ups. It helps us to explore more new technologies in less time and investment and security is one of the key criteria for technology selection,” says Kumar. Deciding when the business needs to make an upgrade depends on some signs, one of them is when there is a noticeable disconnect between technology practices at work and in employees’ own personal lives. “Another sign we take is whether IT operations are becoming increasingly inefficient, time consuming and costly. Most processes should be seamless, and when we notice this starting to change that is our biggest indicator for IT upgrade. If the upgrade will mean someone in the business will spend less time doing mundane tasks and more time on important customer-facing activities, then we look at this as a good reason for an upgrade,” avers Samant.

Innovation Matters

Innovation is the key to success for any industry. Traditionally manufacturing industry use to take the maximum advantage out of it, automotive industries use to be ahead of time in this race. Now other industries are in race to make the most of these innovations to be more competitive in market. There are several technology solutions in the market ranging from robotics, automation, IoT, AR-VR, machine learning, advance analytics and many times there is a confusion as to where to start, what technology to deploy and which will give best RoI. “At TechM, we have built an assessment toolkit to find gaps between existing factory landscape and compare with Industry 4.0 architecture. Second step is then we prioritize these gaps and provide solution based on business use cases. The third step is to draw reference architecture which can be used over a period of time to help clients achieve the full picture. We suggest our clients to take agile approach and use case driven approach to deploy the right technology and prioritize,” says Auti. “Cosmo Films has used the technology innovations in the area of Inventory Management with the help of Bar Code & RFID systems. It has helped us in inventory traceability, reduction in container loading time and ensuring no wrong dispatch which later on turns into a quality claims or sales return and increase the logistic cost. Cosmo Films is on the way to implement a fully automated system without manual inputs of the raw material consumption and production booking. We have digitally transformed our sales process successfully because our manufacturing processes are robust and reliable. Cosmo has a vision to become a paperless organization and to contribute towards go-green,” opines Kumar.

In Conclusion

In an industry that automates things, IT helps make the manufacturing process less cumbersome and more automated. It helps drastically in delivering just-in-time insights, swift visibility, and seamless innovation for implementing new age solutions. Intense competition is one of the key points of concern for the manufacturing industry. Manufacturers have to develop and deliver cost-effective decisions, which are sure to stand the test of time. “With IT increasing the flexibility in global operations, the manufacturing industry is ready to simplify and standardise their automation systems and support organisations. The latest trends also indicate various multi-dimensional services spanning IT that aim to transform businesses, change design, and boost value-added services including infrastructure management and the like,” concludes Samant.

This story appeared in the Oct-17 issue of Manufacturing Today here: MT_May 2017_Mfrg IT

The post Tech Push for the Manufacturing Industry appeared first on Bindu Gopal Rao, Freelance Writer, Travel, Lifestyle, Food, Fashion & More.