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SAURABH SHIVNEKAR(PUNE)
SMARTMARK
FEBRUARY 4, 2022
Example is leadership
It’s not a regular sight that we come across any marvelous achievements amongst the people we know.
But when we do, it becomes our prime responsibility to share them with the world and highlight the unique values we learn from those people and their feats.
Something similar and extraordinary happened in our organization.
Our CMD booked his seat in the prestigious row of record holding dignitaries honored by the ‘India Book of Records‘.
Mr. Saurabh Shivnekar (Pune) 4th February, 2022
DHIREN GUPTE (PUNE)
SMARTMARK
JANUARY 15, 2022
Trans Sahyadri Expedition 2021
Something different, Something challenging, Something courageous…..!
Why, What, When and How –
A dream becomes a goal when a primary action is taken toward its achievement. So
true…. the journey of ‘Dream to Reality’; right from the initiation of that very first action &
the whole process thereafter is an experience by itself. It is my firmly held belief that the
‘Master Key’ to achieve any goal, (irrespective of its size and nature) is the intense and
pure desire backed by a high degree of self-commitment.
For me personally, there wasn’t any specific reason to take up such a task of this
expedition. However, the paramount motive was to genuinely assess the mental,
emotional and physical attributes at this stage of life. The appropriate timing to take up
such a challenge was ‘now’, simply because in the process of reclaiming the potential of
youth and exploring various themes of transformation during the last couple of years;
the current timing, I thought was just right….
Dhiren Gupte (Pune) 15th January, 2022
DHIREN GUPTE (PUNE)
SMARTMARK
MAY 10, 2020
Disruption is inevitable
Pain due to Disruption is inevitable but suffering is optional and therefore Innovation is imperative
Productivity will matter and any kind of historical inefficiencies cannot be carried from now on, in the cost structure of any business model specially in the event where the Top Line is extremely uncertain due to disruptions.
Emergence of new business models would be a dire necessity for majority of industry segments. Be it Retail- shopping malls, Film Industry – cinema theatres, hotels, restaurants & resorts, travel & tourism, sports etc, and many more of such kind.
Identifying ‘ what NOT to DO ‘ will matter the most in challenging times. Redesigning the coping mechanisms coupled with innovation & adaptive mindset and high degree of agility, at all levels will be the key & solution for today’s challenges.
Innovation is the change of form in the mindset. Real task lies in upgrading the mindset of the workforce from “किती काम करतो” to “काय काम करतो” and further extended to “कुठून काम करतो “. “किती” Or “कुठून” needs to be replaced by “काय”…! In other words, a paradigm shift from “time bound input” to “focussed output” will matter the most, at the end of the day.
Disruptions occur with abundant Opportunities that need to be sensed & recognized with the forthcoming ‘New Normals’..!
Dhiren Gupte (Pune) 10th May, 2020
PRAMOD BHANDARI
SMARTMARK
DECEMBER 11, 2020
Tooling Industry
By Pramod Bhandari
Tata Motors Ltd, Pune
The article covers the mass production toolings & not the typical cutting tools.
There are basically 5 types of tools –
- Stamping dies,
- Welding fixtures,
- Foundry tools,
- Jigs & fixtures
- Moulds,
All the products those we use, needs some or the other type of these toolings for production.
- Stamping dies – required for giving specific shape to sheet metal parts.
- Welding fixtures – required for joining different sheet metal parts.
- Foundry tools – required for manufacturing cast parts.
- Jigs & fixtures – these are work holding devices used for machining or processing the parts on machine or equipment.
- Moulds – required for manufacturing of rubber, plastic, glass components.
In absence of technology, in old days all carving type activity for manufacturing the tools & proving of those was largely dependent on personal skills. Now-a-days lots of software with AI are available to predict the issues in the parts well before it gets manufactured & person based dependency is getting reduced drastically. Well predictable software like AutoForm, Pamstamp, Magma, MoldFlow etc are available for tooling development enabling early resolution of the probable defects.
There is substantial development in sheet metal specs as depicted below. This helps in building the car of more safe with less weight.
Tooling Sources & type of tools distribution –
- Captive tool room
- Commercial tool room
- Import (overseas tool room)
Over 50% of this demand is from the automotive & the auto components industry, while the
balance is from the electrical, consumer durable, electronics and packaging sectors. Indian auto industry expected to reach 16~18 Tn INR (250 Bn USD from 118 Bn USD) by 2026.
Challenges in tooling industry –
- Non availability of competent tool rooms locally.
- Coping up with cyclic nature of load for captive tool rooms. Hence less ROI.
- More volume of electric cars in future resulting in much reduced demand of engine &
transmission related parts. - Higher lead time of tooling development wrt overseas tool makers.
- Cost effectiveness wrt overseas tool room & sustainability.
- Corona pandemic has large impact on business continuity including tooling sector.
Way forward –
- Captive tool room of OEM shall extend their expertise to others.
- Govt shall create more clusters for high tech services at affordable price.
- Indian tool room’s revised approach for collaboration with overseas.
- Investment in developing skilled labour force in long term.
Pramod Bhandari
SHRIKANT PANGARKAR
SMARTMARK
DECEMBER 7, 2020
Hurdles to reach the top !
By Shrikant Pangarkar
Aftermarket Manager
Atlas Copco Gas and Process Division
Atlas Copco Energas GmbH
Visitor Address: Schlehenweg 15
50999 Cologne
Atlas Copco Energas GmbH
Visitor Address: Schlehenweg 15
50999 Cologne
Most of all – it is what we think we want ….
A German will never accept the smallest dot of rust on anything. A French would never drink a wine unless it is matured and a Belgian would never start a project without a perfect process. An Italian will never overcook pasta. None of them would ever violate garbage disposal rules. A Chinese will never ever accept malfunctioning of what he buys or else he makes bad quality a national issue. This is discipline – which brings quality. Not to accept what must not be.
Working in various parts of the world helped me understand and compare with the homeland pragmatically. Let me come back to the direct solution here. Unless we accept that we have a lot to improve we will not be able make progress. Progress to me is Quality of life in the west ! Where most people prefer public transport to own cars and where one never dies due to lack of medical care. Rest is in between.
Quality is the key word here. Are we out of our mind set of “chalta hai? “ Do we insist real quality? Do we produce real quality ? Do we even think Quality?
Quality is not what we see – it is what we demand without compromising. It is about how we treat our customers. It is about how we react in odd situations. It is about how we produce” first time right”
Seldom I express my opinions on matters in country with millions of intellectuals ready to strip off your views. This is exactly the issue we need to get a formal training for . We judge our own grades and most often we are A++.
This is what our mindset has been and no offence but we have been born and brought up with that ego for decades. Especially after we received our freedom we flourished with our own principles of superiority. All of a sudden our culture , our heritage and our Ayurveda and Yoga became visible.
Is this exactly the problem why we as Indians are not able to move up. We are able to portrait our heritage and culture on the world map so well that we forget the long way to go and unless we change our mindset rest will be history soon.
So long as we in India will not consider Quality as our top priority we will not be able to move up. We need a BMW equivalent Indian Stamp !
It can start with a very simple slogan “ Chalta hai “→” yaha nahi chalta “….do not compromise in what we accept – products , services , infrastructure , process, politicians ……and we will see the difference. It is about totally changing our mind set and nothing else ! Quality is free of cost – Changing the mindset is the key
Shrikant Pangarkar
SANDIP DEVKAR
SMARTMARK
NOVEMBER 2, 2020
Think : WIN – WIN
By Sandip Devkar
General Manager – HR (Training & Development)
Fleetguard Filters Pvt Ltd, Pune
General Manager – HR (Training & Development)
Fleetguard Filters Pvt Ltd, Pune
The real challenge for the Management is alignment of thinking pattern to ensure achievement of short term and long term goals of the Organization. It is generally observed that there is a certain degree of conflict in the thinking approach.
Many a times, teams are expected & required to undertake cross functional tasks, which need to be accomplished either independently or with the due integration, dependability to make sure the smooth work flow of the next tasks. In the process, the resolution of conflicts by Management at a very early stage, is the key to make sure the optimum outcome & performance of each team.
Let’s have a look at a very common example that is generally observed in any Organization. The goal of any organization is to make money now & for the future. Taking this goal to the Marketing team which works at the forefront & deals with customers and importantly is primarily responsible for bringing in the required & budgeted top line for the Organization. Obviously, Marketing team comprising of various team members end up with the conflict for the achievement of targeted top line. Following is the conflict diagram.
How to read this conflict diagram :
Team A – In order to make money now and in future we must increase sales and in order to increase sales we must reduce prices.
Team B – In order to make money now and in future we must protect our margins and in order to protect our margins we must not reduce prices.
The right side box suggests solution to think Win-Win for both the teams.
Let us see how these two teams are thinking and what their fundamental assumptions are behind their respective approaches.
It is quite often evident that the traditional way of thinking is to increase sales revenue by reducing the selling price. Always you find that marketing people are happy to reduce prices and sell more to the customer. If you go and ask them why our sale is not happening, the typical marketing answer is “Sir, our prices are higher than the competitors. Here the fundamental assumption of Team A is that only if we reduce prices customer will buy more. Even they do not take pain to understand why we are placing our product at higher price and what competitors are delivering comparably at lower prices. The simple analysis to understand our product and competitor’s product, and its pricing is also not carried out many times in detail by our teams. They must understand that reducing prices to compete with any of the competitors is just a matter of one day decision and this kind of strategies are copied just in no time by competitors. This also results in to another serious undesirable effect in the market and that is a big price war. Lot of compromises happen on quality and functionality to follow this strategy of reducing prices from both ends and finally customers suffer on his expectations and eventually product dies.
On the other hand if forward thinking team members like Team B thinks that the protecting margin is very much important to sustain our profitability, their fundamental assumption is exactly opposite to the Team A. This is a conflict many times, as there is always a management pressure of increasing revenue with a time line on both the teams. This pressure many times take an easy way out of reducing prices and marketing teams manage to create pressure continuously on the organization to reduce prices. However, in a long term this proves to be disastrous.
Management needs to work out solution around protecting margin and adding values on product offerings like service, quality and functionality-features to the customers so that the customer sees more useful values and product gets different standing in the market like “Innovative product, Excellent Service, Absolute availability “. This enhances confidence of a customer in our products and the customer base starts widening. Thus, more sales volumes are generated.
This thinking approach creates decisive competitive edge – DCE, which is usually found difficult for any competition to copy. The rise of our brand takes place in the market due to this unique DCE and customer is now ready to pay premium for our products.
Hence building decisive edge to create our brand in the market is strongly recommended than indulging into price war, which is a superficial work many organizations follow. It is necessary for organizations to stay away from this trap of price war and build teams and infrastructure to go for designing a DCE – Decisive Competitive Edge for the product and the organization. The management must continue to believe in convincing the front-end team to sell products without compromising the margin and make sure that DCE created by the organization create that fundamental assumption in the minds of marketing people that the customers are always glued to DCE and is ready to pay premiums.
Hence, I believe and strongly recommend avoiding price wars. Instead, we develop capability to create DCE for the organization on which we make more sales as well as protect our margins…of course to make money now and in future.
Sandip Devkar
General Manager – HR (Training & Development) – Fleetguard Filters Pvt Ltd, Pune.
General Manager – HR (Training & Development) – Fleetguard Filters Pvt Ltd, Pune.
BHARAT KOKATNUR (MEDICAL EQUIPMENT MANUFACTURING COMPANY)
SMARTMARK
SEPTEMBER 24, 2020
Customer – Medical Equipment manufacturing company
Unique experience
It was like any other regular enquiry got through our website over phone. No privileges or special references of who is associated with the company. It first went through the purchase department and later Mr. Utpal Parrikar contacted us for technical discussions. He never told us his surname. It was us who in curiosity of knowing the client a bit well, searched about the company and came to know that it is directed by Mr. U M Parrikar son of late Mr. Manohar Parrikar. The technical discussion was held on the Saturday evening on conference call. It was to the point, concise and decisive. Upon getting all his queries satisfied and establishing confidence in our ability to carry out the project accurately and in time, on the same call he gave us verbal go ahead for the project. The formal order confirmation came in 2 days on Monday. And still we just know him formally as Mr.Utpal Very humble, technically sound and polite personality reflecting all the noble qualities of his lineage.
We know Manohar Parrikarji for his simplicity & down to earth nature even when he was a Chief Minister of Goa & Defense Minister at the Centre. I have personally experienced this simplicity, after interacting with his son for a specialised marking related enquiry and feel great for having done the best.
Bharat Kokatnur
V.P. – Technical
V.P. – Technical