Achieving Customer Centricity in Manufacturing

In an interaction with Industry Outlook, Vinod Kumar Ramachandran, Partner and National Leader, Automobile and Industrial Manufacturing, KPMG India shares his thoughts on how manufacturers can enhance their operational efficiency.

The advent of Industry 4.0 has accelerated the business transformation for manufacturers, proposing to overhaul their operations for the better. How should manufacturers embrace it to achieve maximum ROI? 

4.0 brings together the different silos in a production system via a network, allowing real-time data sharing and facilitating machine-to-machine and human-to-machine interactions of unprecedented speed and scale.  

•  Advanced predictive analytics and trend data help manufacturers understand customers and suppliers’ behavior patterns and provide them with the flexibility to adjust their production lines

• Implementation of 4.0 can <b>reduce cost and improve operating efficiencies</b> by monitoring the factory processes, helping decentralized decisions and faster processing

•  Digital Manufacturing technologies like 3D printing, robotic technology allow manufacturing in small batches, thereby allowing for <b>better customization and higher quality</b>

•  By eliminating the need for human presence and intervention in certain high-risk tasks and environments, 4.0 can help manufacturers avoid exposing workers to health hazards and reduce fatalities on the factory floor.

Any disruption resulting from the adoption of new technology or a new business model brings along both opportunities and risks for manufacturers. How can manufacturers strike the right balance?

The pace of adoption of 4.0 should be customized to each company’s current digital maturity level and readiness for change. If a company is new to industry 4.0, it is better to focus on getting ready through pilot projects, capability building, building a digital roadmap before embarking on large-scale transformation.     

Manufacturers are looking for new ways to improve performance and manage their cost structures. However, optimizing the resources to improve the bottom line is a challenge for them. What should be their approach?

A staged investment will help manufacturers strike the right balance. The manufacturers should aim to invest in fewer solutions at first which has a big impact as well as quick wins. Big-ticket investment items should be funded basis savings generated through quick wins.

As customer demands are changing rapidly, product lifecycles are shrinking. How can manufacturers make their production customer-centric to meet the changing requirements?  

With investment in AI and IoT, manufacturers can make their production lines customer-centric. AI helps in augmenting human capabilities thereby helping in better decision making and IOT is used to analyze and optimize business data thereby improving business processes. <b>Advanced predictive analytics tools</b> are also applied to understand the customer and supplier behavior patterns allowing manufacturers the flexibility to plan their production lines. 

How should manufacturers devise their organization’s growth strategy to tap into the new opportunities emerging in their markets?

Manufacturers can make their products more connected, as well as enhance their reach through hybrid online-offline models. Many companies have augmented their e-commerce channel through the pandemic and now eCommerce is an additional established channel for these companies.