Vipul Anand, Group Chief Information Officer Jindal Steel and Power Limited
The manufacturing sector has adopted ICT solutions such as industrial internet of things (IoT), as well as social media, mobile, cloud and analytics in a big way to integrate various stages of the production value chain and gain real-time insight into market trends and customer preferences. However, changing business needs and upcoming data security threats hamper the adoption of such solutions by the sector. Going forward, artificial intelligence and robotics will find many takers amongst manufacturing enterprises. IT heads of leading manufacturing enterprises comment on the key technology trends in this space, their IT strategies, and plans for upgrading their ICT infrastructure…
What are the key benefits and drivers of digital transformation for the manufacturing sector?
The key benefits and drivers of digital transformation in the manufacturing sector, including Jindal Steel and Power Limited (JSPL), are:
- A seamless connect with business stakeholders.
- The ability to optimise processes and deliver quickly at a low cost with high productivity.
- Ensure that automation and process-based working and technology enablement of manufacturing enterprises benefits the entire value chain.
What are the telecom, enterprise and mobility solutions used by your organisation? How have they helped in enhancing business performance and efficiency?
At JSPL, we are proud to have the best of technology solutions, which include having a process-driven business computing platform on SAP coupled with integrated portals. We also use mobility solutions through which our customers can access the systems anytime, anywhere. Further, our key business decision-makers are able to view and take decisions using online dashboards and mobile platforms. This has helped us to have a seamless connect with stakeholders across geographies.
What is the scope of big data analytics and IoT in the manufacturing industry? Is your company using or planning to deploy these?
Earlier, we used to talk about social, mobile, analytics and cloud (SMAC) and its timely adoption in the business ecosystem. Organisations that have successfully adopted these have already reaped the benefits. JSPL has also adopted the SMAC platform.
It has also been a pioneer in IoT adoption. We ensure that at each stage of power generation and distribution, we capture data and publish it on the mobile applications for faster decision-making. At our Angul steel plant in Odisha, we have implemented IoT solutions to better manage our production and inventories.
Moreover, big data analytics is adopted by JSPL, which uses integrated analytics along with our SAP systems for faster decision-making.
What are the challenges faced in managing the existing IT and telecom infrastructure, and deploying new technologies?
The manufacturing sector continues to face numerous challenges when it comes to managing its IT infrastructure or deploying technologies. Some of the challenges are:
- Handling the analogue mindset of stakeholders while deploying digital solutions.
- Changing business needs and urgency to implement solutions.
- Complex and geographically spread business locations, which need to be seamlessly connected.
- Maintaining a low cost for our IT solutions.
- Adopting new technologies while disrupting the existing ones.
- Having the right set of people to manage technologies.
- Ensuring a secure platform.
What is your company’s IT and digital roadmap?
We have an IT roadmap, which is linked to our business plan and growth. This roadmap is prepared based on inputs from our business stakeholders.
Which technological trends are likely to drive growth in the manufacturing industry going forward?
We just concluded Vision 2020, which aims at working on our technology needs. The following trends will impact the manufacturing sector:
- Speedy adoption of SMAC.
- Having intelligent algorithms and machine learning embedded into processes along with a strong artificial intelligence platform.
- Having common business processes and creating a shared service approach.
- Inducting robotics and optimising on manual data inputs.
