DRIVING VALUE-BASED TRANSFORMATIONS

IN AN INTERVIEW WITH MANUFACTURING TODAY, GURU ANANTHANARAYANAN, COUNTRY HEAD –INDIA, BLUE YONDER, SHARES HOW THEY ARE HELPING MANUFACTURERS DRIVE END-TO-END VISIBILITY, ORCHESTRATION AND CONTROL POWERED BY AI/ML.

Are you seeing manufacturing firms that lagged behind on the technology front are now fast-tracking their digital integration/automation journey?

It is incorrect to assume that the global crisis is over. While manufacturing across regions with the aid from respective government have started rebooting to normal operations but overall, the manufacturing output is yet to hit the 2019 levels. Indicators like PMI, Capacity utilizations and factory output across regions are still recuperating and is on a ramp up curve.

To the question of technology leverage and organizations effort to fast tracking the digital automation investment, it is apt to believe that most of the organizations have deferred their capex investments from current half of the year on account of cash flow pressure. Only and only core and must have upgrades/ capex investments are being made to stay abreast with the demand and competition.

What are the major challenges that supply chains and manufacturers facing as they look to maintain a balance between cost, quality and delivery?

The trade-off discussion between quality, cost of manufacturing and delivery and delivery SLA/ compliance has been there for time immemorial. However, it is pertinent to mention that quality precedes other indicators for any manufacturer under any given circumstance. It is thus critical to change the mindset here a bit and not use quality as a pivot at all alongside cost and delivery.