INDUSTRIAL VISIT - JSPL

Industrial visits provide a welcome opportunity for us management students away from the gruelling academic sessions and rushing deadlines to gain a hands on experience of a plant functioning.

Continuing the tradition, the OPEP club organized the industrial visit for the current academic sessions for the whole 2013-15 PGP and 2013 FPM Batch at Jindal Steel & Power Limited Raipur Plant. The visit was scheduled from 9th Dec to 11th Dec 2013. Due to the large number of participants this year, the visit was conducted in three batches to facilitate the smooth conduct of the visit.

JSPL Raipur Plant is located 13 km from Raipur and operates as the machinery division. The plant is spread over an area of around 162000 m2 and manufactures critical equipment such as cranes, pressure vessels, ladles, and other steel castings used in steel, power, cement, and mining industries. The facilities available at the plant are steel foundry, centrifugal casting, machine shop with latest CNC machines, fabrication & assembly shops, shot-blasting, paint booth, heat treatment furnaces, etc.

The visiting batches of the students were given a brief introduction about JSPL and the machinery division by a panel of marketing, operations and safety managers of the plant. This was followed by a guided tour of the facility in small groups. The plant is divided in four units based on the processes such as casting, forging, machining and assembly. 

TRENDS IN THE AUTOMOTIVE INDUSTRY

The Journey of Automotive Industry with Information Technology

In the Indian context, while computers made their mark in operations as much as half a century ago, there has been a profound shift in their role in business. Earlier they were confined largely to processing data in commercial areas such as payroll and purchase where their utility was seen in number crunching operations. On the other hand, today they are integrated to such an extent into the operation that the line separating business and Information Technology, is fast disappearing.

If we were to broadly analyze the impact of Information Technology on business in the automotive industry, we would see the following phases. In the opening phase, the role of IT was almost exclusively to save clerical effort. This was marked by applications such as payroll and billing in large organisations, where large mainframe systems could compress the time for such documentation and bring high levels of accuracy in mass scale work. The style of doing business was however, completely unaffected. Next, with the advent of desktop systems in the eighties, the emphasis shifted to empowering individual users to create their own local applications, which would bring relief to the user. This was based more on individual creativity and hence users developed applications more from the viewpoints of their interest and ability. Typical applications revolved around information that had to be submitted periodically to some authority such as daily material receipt or cash collection data. Some relief was available to individual users but again, these were in pockets and did not materially alter the business scenario or the overall working environment in any significant way.

"Information Technology is a very powerful tool and the ultimate benefit can be extracted only when the application directly impacts business"

In the nineties, the emphasis shifted to the use of IT over a wider horizon, marked by the introduction of larger applications such as Enterprise Resource Planning and the use of advanced software in technical areas such as planning, design, quality and manufacturing. These helped to tackle some of the chronic issues such as, suboptimal decision through the use of inappropriate local applications, or, difficulty in churning out drawings and developments expeditiously, with changing customer requirements. In addition, with the shift to larger servers with wide area connectivity, it became possible to give access to large number of users at different locations and all could share information from the same database. Real time systems became the norm and across the organization, the integrity and consistency of information were enhanced substantially. 

EQUINOX 4.0 Presents E-Compete

OPEP –The Operations and Supply Chain Club of IIM Raipur proudly presents E-Compete, a simulation game that touches reality.

The game is based on the e-tailing business model wherein the objective is to maximize profit by managing the virtual retail environment. The contestants will unlock orders by solving Operations related problems and get the orders delivered to their respective destinations.

A simulation game of this magnitude that test your theoretical know how and applies it to real life scenarios where demand and supply forecast fluctuate, transportation goes hand in hand with cost management, minimizing inventory is key and time is of the essence. Use your gadgets, solve problems on your laptops, get excel to work your gray cells.

Having your fundamentals clear and being technically sound is great. Furthermore, being able to come up with concrete solutions, alternatives and quick assessments of the situation under pressure and time constraints makes you invaluable. If you think you fit the category, prove it!

The primary motive of any business is to reduce cost and maximize profit!!!

EQUINOX 4.0 Presents Cogitate

Cogitate is a case study event. The competition will be conducted online where the contestants apply their knowledge to provide practical solution to tackle Industrial problems. It will provide a platform to experience real time industry situations involving operations and supply chain. 

The event will be conducted in two stages.

Prelims: Online crossword competition (20*20) Duration 30 minutes

Finals: Case study, Cases will be mailed to the contestants who clear the prelims

Rules of the Game

1. The event is open to B – school students only
2. A team should comprise of two members from the same B-School
3. No changes in the team will be allowed after the registration
4. A participant can be a part of one team only
5. If any conflict arises, the decision of the organizing committee shall remain final and binding
6. In case of any query please contact the event coordinators.

Deadline for Registration - 8th December 2013

Cogitate - Register here
Contact
Vana - +91 8349501058

SUPPLY CHAIN MANAGEMENT - WHIRLPOOL

1. INTRODUCTION

“Logistics is the most challenging of all business processes due to its extreme cross-functional, nature and this challenge increases exponentially in a global environment.”

                                    -J. Paul Dittmannn, Vice-President, Whirlpool 1997 

Whirlpool was founded in 1911 by three brothers - Frederick, Louis and Emory Upton. Their company, then called Upton Machine Corporation (Upton), was set up at St. Josephs, Michigan, USA. In the 1980s, Whirlpool expanded into markets in Europe, Mexico, India, Canada, China, South Africa, Argentina, and Brazil. In 1987, Whirlpool and Sundaram-Clayton of India formed TVS Whirlpool Limited to make compact washers for the Indian market (Whirlpool Corporation acquired majority ownership in 1994). 

Today Whirlpool Corporation is headquartered in Michigan, United States and is the world's leading manufacturer and marketer of major home appliances having an annual sale of more than $19 billion in 2011. There are 68,000 employees and 66 manufacturing and technology research centres around the world. Whirlpool was ranked as No. 1 in Fortune Magazine’s 2011 World’s Most Admired Companies list in the Home Equipment, Furnishings industry. It was also named as 2009 Top Companies for Leaders list, becoming ninth in North America and 15th globally.

2.SUPPLY CHAIN ISSUES AT WHIRPOOL

Whirlpool’s supply chain encompasses more than 40 manufacturing facilities supplied from 7,000 different suppliers from every corner of the world. These facilities import as well as export products to separate regions and delivered to about 30,000 retailers worldwide. Besides retailers, the company also delivers products to builders and directly to consumers’ houses. Whirlpool has 2.2 to 2.5 million units in inventory at any given time.

While the Whirlpool brand has long been associated with reliable household appliances, its supply and delivery performance in 2000 was far from being reliable. The unfortunate irony of the situation is that availability was low even while total inventory levels were often too high. These inconsistencies were frustrating to retail partners and customers. It was clear to executive leadership that these supply chain management issues had to be fixed.

Thus some of the issues can be short-listed as:

• Oversupply in distribution channel. 
• Slow response to non-standard orders (waiting time of 5 to 10 days for retailers.)
• Inadequate Inventory for some SKU’s leading to stock outs.
• Excess inventory which were transferred forcefully to distributors.(Almost 15 temporary buildings for stockpiles) 
• Lack of communication between ordering and manufacturing  units
• Large number of forecasting errors  led to increased storage cost (result = locking of working capital)
• The increasing paperwork caused increase in operational costs and issues with vendors
• Too many 3PL’s resulted in transactional and adversarial relationships. (Issues included contract variations with no common metric to measure and check distribution)
• Vendors started demanding to publish all trade item information to the global data pool for product information.

Launch of Strive V - Automobiles

The fifth edition of Strive, the biannual publication from OPEP (the Operations and Supply Chain Club of IIM Raipur), was launched on the 4th of October, 2013, by Prof. B S Sahay, Director, IIM Raipur together with Dr. Raghuram Rajan, Governor of the Reserve Bank of India.

Dr. Raghuram Rajan, Governer of RBI (left) and Dr. B.S Sahay, Director of IIM Raipur

This time around the central theme of the magazine is ‘Automobiles’. The main features of this publication include articles on Supply Chain Performance Measurement by Prof. Parikshit Charan (Prof.  IIM Raipur), Emergence of Supply Chain in Indian automotive industry by Dr. Tapan Sahoo (VP, Maruti Suzuki) and also an interview with Mr. Sanjeev Khapre (EVP, Exide Industries India Ltd.) The edition also features articles on the scenario of Hybrid Cars in the Indian context and reverse logistics in the Indian automotive industry. 

The publication presents articles written by students about some of the contemporary issues and trends in the automobile sector – ‘Green Revolution Part – III’ discusses the present trends in electric car industry in India and provides insights on the growth potential for these cars in the future. ‘Evolution of Supply Chain in Automotive Industry’ talks about the various stages of development in the concepts, philosophies and practices in the field of Supply Chain Management across the world in the automobile sector.

The ‘Regular’ section in the magazine covers Summer Internship experiences of students, Guru Mantra - which explains the concept of Car Sharing, Debate on Two Wheelers against Four Wheelers in India, Book Review – Lee Iacocca and a Crossword puzzle.

The magazine will now be available for students of all B-schools across India and abroad and also for industry-relevant professionals.

Click on the link below to read.
http://opepiimraipur.blogspot.in/p/e-magazines.html

Post by OPEP Club, IIM Raipur.

HOW E-MARKETPLACES HAVE HELPED IMPROVE SUPPLY CHAIN

Supply chain is the term used to define the system of organizations, assets and activities involved in the conversion of raw materials into finished products and moving the product or service from the supplier to the customer. Supply Chain Management (SCM) is defined as the efficient integration of warehousing, manufacturing, logistics and distribution. In lay mans’ terms, SCM is ensuring that materials are available at the correct point in the correct amount at the correct time.

The primary objective of SCM is to minimize the costs involved the sourcing, warehousing, logistics and distribution.

The major obstacles in SCM are:

• Purchasing
• Unstable volume requirements.
• Delivery schedule.
• Large volumes.
• Manufacturing
• Production cost.
• Quality requirements.
• High productivity.
• Warehousing
• Optimized inventory management.
• Transportation management.
• Quick replenishment capability.
• Customer delivery
• Diverse product portfolio.
• Reduced backorders and lead time.
• Bullwhip effect.

As understandable, traditional methods of demand forecasting, vendor rating, procurement ordering takes a lot of time and effort. In today’s proactive and competitive world and delay in demand orders are inventory management can add to the bullwhip effect resulting in loss of money and efficiency. In a cost sensitive market this difference can result in the final product cost thus making the product dearer to the customer and can therefore influence the profit margins.

One of the major advancements in terms of SCM is Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP). This automated software which helps in streamlining the supply chain operations and also holds the records and data at a central repository so as to ease retrieving the data. The limitation of ERP is the requirement of the software and the compatibility and hence it is used largely within an organization and does not link suppliers to the customers.