News – Page 20 – STIMS Institute

Optimising Complex Manufacturing

Every aspect of our economy is now undergoing a transformation, leading to the evolution of a broadening gap between modes for

Replication Solutions for cost reduction where minimum skills are required along with minimum of wages and a mode for creating and
New Solutions, where high skills and ability to integrate knowledge from all sources is the need. This New Solution mode is also the opportunity for the few – companies, employers and workers – to gain high wages and high rewards in terms of growth and profitability.

Binary Economy

These two modes are also leaving behind a widening gap – a chasm – and if you are trapped in this middle, you are part of the growing middle class (of companies, workers and professionals) where the floor is collapsing under your feet. Of course if you are the investor – the rich – you make money off both these economic modes and hence the rich getting richer, the poor getting poorer and the middle left clueless. This is not the issue for the left vs. right or progressives vs. conservatives. WE ARE ALL IN THE SAME BOAT, with cracks developing in the middle.

We have described this evolving economic model as the Binary Economy and how to get a handle on this through a set of Transformational Skills in our New Book.

The challenges of doing well in the cost reduction mode, while creating opportunities through New Products and Services is the new complexity in the manufacturing. Dr. Subramanian, President, STIMS Institute was interviewed along with a panel of experts. This panel discussion is published in the Efficient Manufacturing Magazine

Round Table EM India 2015

The draft of the Q &A with Dr. Subramanian is presented below.

For more details and for any services we can help you with in your manufacturing and innovation efforts Contact US.

What are the various ways through which one can take advantage of advanced technologies and at the same time avoid complexity in manufacturing processes? Worldwide there is a plateau – point of diminishing return – being reached in cost reduction and continuous improvement. Supply Chain, Lean and such practices are slowly running out of steam. What is needed is a step change or radical departure in terms of new processes leading to new products. Companies like Apple are setting this new vision by introducing totally new products every six months, backed up by manufacturing processes that allow them to offer over ten million units within the first quarter of product release.

In India, manufacturing seems to be facing the same head wind as well. Instead of toll manufacturing based on what is already well established, manufacturers are required to design new products and adapt new processes to produce them. The complexities in such manufacturing increase largely because of a lack of knowledge and inability to perceive the value added through the physical processes imbedded in manufacturing. Education and training of the work force on the knowledge and methods to exploit value through physical processes across the entire supply chain would be required as the first step. Developing an eco-system of suppliers and manufacturers working as a team for such value addition through the physical processes in manufacturing could be another step.

Currently, manufacturing enterprises have been increasingly focusing on optimising performance, productivity and asset management. What are your recommendations for such approaches? It is imperative that these steps are pursued relentlessly. But, are they happening in the real world and what is their effectiveness? Consider this case for example: A senior manufacturing executive wanted to improve line productivity and asset utilization. Expert resource was used to achieve cycle time reduction in the bottle neck operation which resulted in throughput increase by about 40%. No additional investment was required. Higher productivity and better asset utilization was demonstrated. But these results could not be sustained after a short period of two weeks. The exercise revealed that the process know-how in this plant was very limited. The process was restored to the original – longer – cycle time due to a perceived fear the machine tool may wear out! This situation clearly illustrates the need for better education of the engineers and managers already in the work force. Incentives are required for changing their attitude to gain the most value out of the assets used in the manufacturing operations.

There is also a need to get over the “frog in the well” mind set. Even the most efficient manufacturing operations in India have tremendous scope for improvement in quality, productivity and cost. I can personally attest to the fact that the cycle times and machine capacity used for precision grinding processes are well below the industrial practice in the manufacturing plants in USA and Germany. Also many of the advanced tooling available for several processes may not be accessible inside of India due to very small usage and the supply chain issues faced in handling such small volume of consumables.

How to overcome the challenges of complexities arising out of collaborative manufacturing, outsourcing, innovation compulsion, flexibility and risk management? Complexity in any situation is a matter of two issues: (a) lack of clear goals agreed upon by everyone and (b) lack of specific knowledge required for achieving such goals.

Consider for example a manufacturer who sees a new opportunity to produce a new component to meet the requirements of an export customer or a large new market inside of India. How does it translate into new opportunities for every one required in the development of the solution? The manufacturer may require collaboration with machine tool builders, raw material supplier and several tooling manufacturers. These are all the stake holders in the new solution. Unless the benefits for all these stake holders are agreed upon and clarified upfront, the risk will be too high and the collaboration may be limited or constrained. To avoid this pitfall we encourage the senior managers to actively promote the concept of Emotional Intelligence for Innovation. It implies that you seek out collaboration with a mind-set “I seek your help for my success, but I am also committed to make sure that you succeed as well in the end”. When the second half of the above equation is ignored or left unspecified, then the eco-system does not evolve. Leaving the benefit sharing to the people at lower levels, who have little influence, vision or authority also increases the complexities in collaboration many fold.

Even with good intent, knowledge specific to the solution is vital. A supplier who undertakes a new project may not have adequate knowledge to arrive at the final solution. It may require several iterations. Are these iterations carried out before the solution is approved? Frequently such learning steps are postponed for reasons of cost or lack of collaborative mind-set between the supplier and the manufacturer. Such learning steps may not be scientific with due emphasis on in-process data and their analysis. Documentation of such results and a system approach for problem solving may be missing. Lack of data driven problem solving also leads to trial and error where each step is seen as new, even though the same path might have been crossed many times. All of these result in a partially cooked solution implemented on the shop floor.

When the knowledge and communication methods are not institutionalized, mobility and changes in the people involved leads to complexity in the solution development effort. There are efforts in India to foster common knowledge pool through collaboration across the universities and the industry. Trade associations and government bodies such as the Department of Science and Technology also have a role to bring the industries and research institutions into a consortium. Recently collaboration between a CEO with long term vision, a research team from one of the IITs together with our worldwide expertise has resulted in some unique results. While the nature and magnitude of the collaboration is small, it shows the potential for new a vision for “Make in India”!

Can you brief on the major manufacturing trends which can be expected in the next 5 years? Thanks to higher level of automation in the shop floor, in the years to come there will be less competitive advantage due to low cost labour. This will put manufacturers in India competing for the export markets at a serious dis-advantage. They need to overcome this challenge through advanced manufacturing solutions, higher productivity in current manufacturing and introduction of unique new manufacturing solutions. On the other hand the prospects for a growing demand in the domestic market will provide added opportunities for suppliers and manufacturers for this market segment. Collaboration between like-minded companies for mutual and long term growth and shared knowledge base will be the key to success here.

What is common between Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump?

There has been huge attendance in the recent Democratic rallies featuring the Vermont Senator Mr. Bernie Sanders. On the other hand Mr. Donald Trump has been sucking up all the oxygen and attention with his harsh language against immigrants and his fellow presidential candidates in the Republican primaries. The popular support for these candidates may be seen as the pent up anger in the population against the Wall Street and the perceived syphoning of jobs and economic opportunities by the illegal immigrants from the south of the border respectively. This kind of anecdotal explanations by the reporters and political pundits may not serve the nation well for the long term.

In a recent article published in the Washington Post titled: Sorry, but the jobless future isn’t a luddite fallacy the author makes the point: Policy makers have a big new problem to deal with: the disappearance of human jobs. Not only will there be fewer jobs for people doing manual work, the jobs of knowledge workers will also be replaced by computers. Almost every industry and profession will be impacted and this will create a new set of social problems — because most people can’t adapt to such dramatic change.

The author makes it look like it might be a problem developing into the future. But, reality suggests that the problem started a decade before Regan years, got established through the Clinton years. When the very survival of the economic order was in question due to the financial crisis along with protracted engagements in wars, when Mr. Obama took office, gradual erosion of employable opportunities for the large cross sections of the society has continued but seen merely a side issue. Now as these two national concerns are addressed to some extent, the pent up fear and anger and despair in the population is finding its voice through the emotional appeals of Mr. Sanders and Mr. Trump, even if their tones are completely different.

We have documented this erosion in the meaningful opportunities for employment and economic well being as the Binary Economy well documented in our recent book. Instead of waiting for some one else to fix the problem we have suggested that technical professionals, students and others should systematically cultivate specific skills – Transformational Skills – to enhance their job and career opportunities. These individual centered initiatives will go only so far. It requires national leaders to comprehend the evolving Binary Economy and develop policies and national consensus for coping with its impact. Merely cloaking the Digital Technology as “high tech” and glorifying the thief using DT tools as “hackers” does not do well for societies that have succeeded through the use of all sorts of technologies as the backbone for their success.

Absent such policies we see continued isolation and layering of job opportunities. This leaves people in the lower levels of jobs (largely involving physical work or information tasks) with a sense of despair that unless you are born in a well to do family and go to school in a better neighborhood, your opportunities are permanently shut off. The knowledge economy and the skill based economy have become code words for the success of a few while others stagnate. These issues may be the under currents supporting the fan base for Mr. Sanders and Mr. Trump.

Clearly the answer is not the anger and abuse against the immigrants unleashed by Mr. Trump. Raising minimum wage and such social policies for re-distribution of wealth by Mr. Sanders may be temporary fix. But they may not be the sufficient or sustainable long term answers as well. As noted in the Washington Post article: If we can develop the economic structures necessary to distribute the prosperity we are creating, most people will no longer have to work to sustain themselves. They will be free to pursue other creative endeavors. The problem, however, is that without jobs, they will not have the dignity, social engagement, and sense of fulfillment that comes from work. The life, liberty and pursuit of happiness that the constitution entitles us to won’t be through labor, it will have to be through other means. Is this the way of life we want?

What are the other means for such living, where anything a human can do – read, write, think, analyze, infer, conclude, decide and control – can all be done by computers and IT solutions? Mr. Steven Hawkins has raised this specter and fear one can envision due to irrational deployment of Artificial Intelligence in the future. But, the irrational deployment of digital technology for incremental gains in cost reduction and elimination of human employment has started at least four decades ago. This has been happening in parallel with unprecedented gains in many new areas thanks to advancements in Digital Technology. Are these two sides of the lever balanced? If not how to maintain the balance? These are the questions that have not been addressed for the past four decades.

There is also a need for discussion on another balancing act: Investors – those with capital or money – can work and use all resources across the globe and we call that as global capitalism. Yet national economic policies – of the countries in which the same investors live – are constrained by what the government can do within its shores. When human beings as employable resource migrate from rural areas of China and India to the urban centers it is considered legal. The same migration of people for the same reasons from poor countries to more affluent regions in their neighborhoods we decry them as illegal labor.

Such balancing act in several fronts are entirely new. This is an open space for any national leader from either party to develop a dialogue and national mandate for future actions. Whoever fills this void may emerge as our next President. Or we may go through another election without any consensus and more shouting and name calling. After all any social system under great stress needs to find the vent to release its anger and frustration. We see this release of frustration as the common outcome of the campaigns of Mr. Sanders and Mr. Trump at this time.

Some might say “the train has already left the station and it is too late to do anything”. Such pessimism and acceptance of systematic loss of opportunity for large segments of work force and relegate them as un-employable will only fuel the pent up anger. Then we can expect to see even larger crowds at Bernie Sanders rallies or higher poll numbers for Mr. Trump, even though neither of them may win the presidency. But it will also weaken any future president without a mandate to strike the right balance required, as mentioned above.

Are you a good plumber? Then you may be OK as a professional!

Recently, I had a leak in the hot water tank in our house. Fortunately the hot water tank in my house is located on the basement floor. So, the damage was only modest. As one would in a situation like this I called the plumber. The company I contract with is a one man operation. he was away on vacation. But, he had arranged one of his fellow plumbers – another one man operation – to follow up on the calls. The back up plumber came to my house, checked my hot water tank, followed up with my primary contact, got all the paper work, figured out that the tank can be replaced on warranty. He had used the camera in his phone – mobile diagnostic tool – to take pictures and document the details to communicate with the manufacturer. When he informed me of all this it was time for me to travel. He said not to worry. He offered me a suggestion to turn off the water, while I was away and scheduled the hot water tank replacement work, as soon as I returned. No sooner had I returned the plumber was at my home with the replacement tank, which he had arranged to secure while I was on travel. He did all the work a plumber does – drain the system, disconnect pipes, connect where needed, solder the and seal the joints as needed, refill and test the system. He could have left right away after that. Instead he asked me to put the system to full duty cycle for nearly thirty minutes. Much to his surprise one of the solder joints, which he had not touched started leaking! As you might know a leaking solder joint can not be fixed with out starting all over again, draining the water in the system. The plumber went through the steps diligently and ensured that I had a fully functioning system – a system that met all my requirements as a user.

You might think that is what the plumber is supposed to do. But the plumber is also rated and the rating is uploaded on to a on-line data base like the Angie’s list. Only those with good ratings get calls from the tech savvy social media dominated population.

What does this have to do with you as a professional? How often do you take on an assignment where the problem is clear, well defined and the user needs clarified up front? Do you then systematically and methodically follow up on all aspects of your work and rely on all your core capabilities: your knowledge, information work and physical labor? Do you check and re-check your work so that the person who relies on your work – like the home owner reliant on the plumber – is fully satisfied with your solution. Do you operate as a single owner company whose livelihood and success are entirely of his own making? Do you have people as back ups in your work that you can rely on, when you have to be away? Do you subject yourself for constant scrutiny and review so that you have a constant pulse on user satisfaction of your work? If you do all of these you will be a successful professional, no matter where you work – may be it is a small start up, a medium sized company or a large enterprise.

We call these collection of skills as Transformational Skills. For more details Contact us.

End to End Innovation – Challenges!

Recently it was brought to our attention that a veteran in the work force – a technical professional – had five of his patent applications approved by the US patent department in the past eighteen months! To make it more interesting, these patents covered four different areas of focus for the employer. All these patents have been issued after this employee chose to retire, couple of years ago.. What was interesting was that the company did not make any effort to retain the services of the employee to gain commercial benefits from these patents. It is not clear if everyone in the company hierarchy were even aware of all these patents being processed through the work of this single employee. It is obvious that there was no well-established link between the output of this highly talented employee and the perceived value of the outputs!

How is the above scenario possible in a day and age, where everyone at every level are clamoring for innovation? Aren’t patents a well-established metric for the level of innovation? Companies have programs to measure, monitor and promote the number of invention disclosures filed within a company. They in turn lead to patents. Invention disclosure is a reflection of the creativity of the work force. Typically every ten invention disclosures lead to one patent. On this basis alone the five patents are worth fifty invention disclosures! Perhaps it is time for the R&D departments and the company management to start reshaping their metrics for measures of innovation?

In our recent book we refer to the concept of “End to End innovation”. Here are a few passages from our book:

Innovation starts with an “idea” to address a need. “Necessity is the mother of invention,” as the saying goes. The seed for generating such an idea is “creativity.” Once an idea is generated, it will require validation. Then it will require demonstration of its “use” to address the need. Even after the use is demonstrated, the utility has to be of some consequence (to those with the need). Thus, innovation may be thought of as a three-layered process consisting of “idea,” “use,” and “impact.” Now we come upon a very critical question: Can we innovate in any one of these three layers or do we need to innovate across all three? Much to our surprise, readers may find that most technical professionals rarely address this simple question directly. As an example, an R&D team may feel that coming up with ideas and documenting them as “invention disclosures” might be “adequate.” “Think tanks” or “consulting” projects do exactly that: document and catalog a set of new ideas. Most R&D teams will also carry the idea through experimentation, simulation, and validation, and then demonstrate its effectiveness. Where possible the idea may be pushed as far as patents and/or to the development stage. Later, they are released to the development section for a new-product launch. Finally, marketing and sales departments may also develop new ideas to gain the most revenue, impact, or value out of the new products launched. Among all these layers, the role of the technical professional may be defined in a limited context and his/her role in innovation will be perceived in that limited context. Rare indeed are the cases of technical professionals who stay with the idea through all its stages of innovation: discovery, development, validation, commercial development, as well as contribution to technical marketing efforts. Engagement in all these stages is needed to ensure that the new product is not only production-viable but also a commercial success. Thus, we can define End-to-End Innovation as follows: E-to-E Innovation = Idea X Use X Impact

Expanding the role of innovation from discovery to development to launch to use with identifiable impact.

Our book is written for technical professionals to take charge of their jobs, career and professional success. But success in innovation is not a one sided street. It also requires employers to take full advantage of the creative skills of their work force and foster a climate necessary for end-to-end innovation. To this end, we offer a scale of 1 to 125 for end to end innovation as opposed to a scale of 1 to 5 , for segmented innovation in each of the three phases. At a time, when there is preponderant emphasis on Digital Technology enabled capabilities, there are serious impediments for end to end innovation in physical technology enabled products and services, even though ultimately the later are the true sources of revenue. The positive note on this matter is a letter offering congratulations received by the employee after each patent was issued! But the letter was not from the employer. Instead it was a letter from a company offering to sell plaque and other items to recognize the patent!! With little research one could see that their automated CRM tool is linked to the US patent department data base. Within a day after the patent is issued the automated congratulatory letter with a sales offer is mailed out. There is a need for the employer and the employee to move with such speed in their end to end innovation efforts. Few can operate at that speed, but those few will survive and succeed in the current Binary Economy.

If you need support for fast response end to end innovation CONTACT US.

Make in India – Our views

Recently the Efficient Manufacturing magazine solicited views from their advisory panel on the Make in India policy promoted by the Modi Government.

Following are their questions and our answers:

How do you think the “Make in India” campaign will affect the Indian manufacturing sector, in short-term as well as long-term?

Today the manufacturing in India is focused on two end consumers: The well-established consumers in export markets as well as the economically well off citizens inside the country. The infrastructure developments such as the highways and airport facilities meet the needs of manufactured goods such as automobiles, the main sector of growth in India besides IT. While this has had spillover effect in terms of increase in domestic consumption and hence the better living opportunities for many, it still covers a small percentage of Indian population.

The “Make in India” campaign brings focus to the manufacturing sector as a whole and hence it is a very welcome initiative. The outcome of this program will depend on the answers to the questions of: “Make in India for whom?” and “Make in India of what?”

In order for a large and lasting impact, “Made in India for whom?” has to manifest itself into “made in India for the larger population of India and their mass consumption”. It also has to translate itself in terms of goods and services that will be consumed by the larger cross section of the society. This will include manufacture and production of goods and services that boost the production of energy, water supply, housing and mobility inside of rural India. Small roads and allys winding across the huts of India remain untouched, while the highways skirt around these impoverished villages connecting the few economically better off urban areas.
Similarly “Made in India of what?” has to translate into goods and services that enhance the efficiency and productivity of skilled workers in rural area. While large cranes and heavy earth moving equipment help to accelerate the building of highways and high rise buildings, the hand tools used by carpenters and masons and potters in rural India remain the same from over a century ago! Increasing the efficiency, productivity, quality and throughput are the primary goals of any manufacturing effort. The same goals can be set to achieve better outcomes in the output of millions of workers in rural India. Then the “Make in India of what?” will assume renewed focus and application of a wide range of hand tools and power tools and their use, which are taken for granted in many of the industrially advanced nations. Such increase in productivity and quality in the work output in the rural area could have a multiplier effect far larger than the current focus areas for manufacturing and their expected trickledown effect from the urban affluence to alleviate rural poverty.

It is important that the above two points are taken in context. I do not suggest the above at the exclusion of the current emphasis and advancement in manufacturing through automotive, aerospace and other sectors. Progress in these areas must be maintained and sustained, while casting a wider net for manufacturing that also addresses and meets the day to day needs of the larger population. It need not be either/or. It needs to be comprehensive, as a whole, as a system.

How can the government and the manufacturing industry collaborate to make this campaign a success? What are your recommendations?

Collaboration has to be at the heart of any future initiatives. The resources and investment required for manufacturing infra-structure are rather large. Hence it is imperative that all available assets are deployed to the maximum extent possible. This is analogous to maximizing the capacity utilization in any manufacturing endeavor. As a rapidly growing economy, India has a network of resources related to manufacturing in academia, government sector and industry. My personal experience in the past few years in an effort to bring these resources together has been very positive. But, it is not a natural anywhere in the world. But, “Make in India” initiative could be a catalyst to identify and foster such alliances for manufacturing eco-system development.

Do you think the “Make in India” campaign will help raise the share of manufacturing in the GDP, from the current 15% to 25%, by 2020?

There is also a worldwide effort to increase the role of equipment with programmable automation (such as robots, autonomous guided devices – such as drones) that can dramatically reduce the role of human labor in the manufacturing floor. This could have a distinct impact in terms of a decline in manufacturing using low cost labor resources. Indian manufacturing, especially for export markets may have to face this threat, while the manufacturing for domestic consumption could grow. The net effect of these two will also have an impact on the size of manufacturing activity inside of India as a % of GDP.

While that could be the goal, the outcome will largely depend on specific directions and initiatives as mentioned above and the emphasis on deliverables at all levels.