Demonetization in Manufacturing = IoT
India woke up to 2 new words “Surgical strike” & “Demonetization”! These words became the buzz word across social media and other media platforms making its way to Corporate presentations as well.
These phenomena will be witnessed in manufacturing sector as well, the emergence of modern manufacturing processes powered with simulation solutions brought revolution in the way products are getting designed and manufactured. During this cusp transition consumers are seen showing “intolerance” towards any deviation in promised quality or delivery. In manufacturing processes, many product organizations became vocal about the quality issues and more receptive to any internal or external complaints which have led to high recall of the products, irrespective of the cost implications. Manufacturing industry experienced the surgical strike of “being environmental friendly” tag line and adheres to many emission norms by design.
The rapid changes in the consumer behavior and technology is evident in buying and selling patterns across every manufactured goods(s), the word “connected” brought about a big race to connect every device across the network or over the internet, from home refrigerator to air conditioners. The amount of lines of software code in any manufactured good now exceeds the lines of code in any major software application itself, the emergence of “mobile apps” have made the products to be connected or option to stay connected with internet 24/7. The need to stay connected is bringing in a complete shift in the way products are getting designed and manufactured. Whether it is mechanical or non mechanical, a device having an antenna is becoming a necessity than a choice.
Manufacturing industry now designs the products keeping reactive support as barometer but IoT will be based on the proactive support as more & more products are going for replacement/refurbished parts than repair. Customers expect service as part of the deal than a fall back option. The entire supply chain model is undergoing evolutionary change as customer feedbacks are visible on social media than on CRM, this is going to influence the prospective customers and hence the importance linked to it. Like incase of a fountain pen not writing well after few days, ink maker nor the nib maker can push responsibility to each other as customer will declare the problem at social media not just CRM of the seller or manufacturer.
“Demonetization” factor in manufacturing industry is going to be IoT, wherein all old methods of addressing customer aspirations will not hold good. As per many industry surveys more than 60% discrete manufactured products will be under IoT regime in 2 years time.
Curtain raiser effects are visible in the market engineering to PLM company acquiring EDA solutions company and renowned brand in mobile handsets buying automotive tier 1 supplier.
India will leapfrog to IoT era in the commercial vehicles segment as many steps pursued viz RFID based toll collection to GPS based goods delivery acknowledgment and GST.
Following are some of the effects of Demonetization ie IoT
Quality: how products gets rated on mobile apps and how products are serviced take precedence over warranty or guarantee. Manufactured products will not only interact with each other; they will also provide insight into “how customers view quality”. From NPD stage itself products will be simulated for different experiences, this will lead to the complete supply chain to enter the simulated product development regime.
Service: This was one of the value addition most of the manufactures and sellers pitched to customers, post IoT the service becomes denominator, anticipated service takes precedence. More the connectivity between manufactures and customer; the seller and manufacture become equally responsible to respect the SLA. One of the example happens in daily life, when seller becomes buyer expects taxi driver to arrive on time, even delay of few minutes looks unacceptable and rates the driver/service provider every ride, irrespective of the car brand and the history of the driver/service provider.
Manufacturing supply chain: Minimum of 2-3 various suppliers or manufactures get involved before product reaches the customer. Most of them had option to act in isolation as the seller faced the customer more than the manufacturer, IoT will connect the complete supply chain with real time data than just a feedback of the customer which was a long process earlier for NPD or manufacturer.
IoT products will be designed under multi-physics environment at concept stage itself, irrespective of the geographies where the products will be used. Example may be person in NCR may spend more than 1 hour in a car driven by driver, while person in Bangalore spend the same amount of time in self driven car. The same car, same amount of time in the car, but the experience and expectation will be totally different.
NPD: Effects in manufacturing will be experienced once the majority of discrete parts are designed on the IoT manufacturing platforms (like cashless economy); The concepts will get tested using 3Dprinting and the complete supply chain will shift to simulation powered design, multiphysics simulation will set to become norm as product(s) not only had to coexist with other they
also exchange the data with ease (like ewallets), every physical identity may get digital identity, not just as design or simulation file but as identifiable identity (like bio metric); in the hands of customer.
IoT will be an undeclared death knell for non genuine parts manufacturer, they will cease to exist like demonetized currency as OEM manufactures will commit the service agreement based on timeline than on time line of warranty, this will be a geography agnostic.
Customer driving on rent self driving SUV on serene environment of Tibet, in demontized era SUV should communicate to nearest service center about any issue before hitting Khardung La road. Customer will expect service specialist at earliest possible, the new normal in IoT era.
Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author. You may connect Janardhan Pranesh for further discussions.
