Cover Story
Ashwamedh’ 17
Electronic Supply Chain Management
____ Right to Privacy Shifting Responsibilities or empowering the Doer?
____
Opsession August Issue Introducing Volume 4, 2nd Issue of Opsession, the X-Ops Monthly Newsletter. This Periodical aims to bring some of the key happenings in focus and spark discussions around them.
Right to Privacy A step back from smarter India?
Recent happenings in Operations Management
Xavier Institute of Management, Bhubaneswar
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Ashwamedh ’17
Ashwamedh is the Annual Operations Conclave of XIMB organized by X-Ops, Operations Committee. The unique national level Industry-Business School seminar which brings together eminent personalities from a
diverse range of background commenced on 12th August. But the preparations had begun since months before as it was adorned by the industry stalwarts. The pioneers of the field were present to provide their valuable ideas on the revolutionary topic- "Use of IoT for Operational Efficiency." The Internet of Things (IoT) is not just the latest buzzword to circulate through board rooms of manufacturing conglomerates. The Internet of Things is poised to transform the delivery and logistics industry and relieve stress for retailers, delivery
companies, and consumers. It is a proven strategy, a developing trend, and an innovative technology. More importantly, the IoT is enabling manufacturers to improve efficiencies, reduce waste and increase profits. Ashwamedh ’17 unfolded with the welcoming of the guests and the ceremonial lightning of lamps by the esteemed guest speakers. The moderator for the event, Prof. Arun Kumar Paul, Operations Management, then opened the stage for discussion. Mr. Ashutosh Mayank, Vice President, Lumis Partners, spoke on growth of IoT in the
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industry. He talked about how IoT has come up big time in enabling a lot of benefits. Mr. Venkatesh Subramanya, Associate Partner, Infosys Consulting Inc, talked about the applications of IoT. He stressed on understanding the problem before application of IoT. Ms. Farhana Haque, Vice President, Internet of Things, Vodafone India, shared her views on drivers of IoT. According to her productivity and operational efficiency are the biggest drivers of IoT. Mr. Sangeet Kumar, Co- Founder, Addverb Tech, expressed his opinion in favor of IoT since in his opinion IoT is making the products smart by enabling customization. Mr. Swarup Mandal, Practice Head, Wipro Technologies,
spoke on the significance of IoT stating that IoT is the fourth revolution. The insights provided by the speakers were very enlightening for the audience. The discussion was followed by a very interactive QA session with the students. The speakers unveiled Ashwamedh, the annual magazine of X-Ops, Operations Committee of XIMB. The top white paper entries from various colleges
on the discussion theme were published in the annual magazine of X-Ops. The guests were presented with the mementos as a token of appreciation. The event concluded with the vote of thanks delivered by Prof. Rahul Kumar. The event was extensively supported by media partners TNT-The Northeast Today, adgully.com, Brain Brunch, Office Chai, MY Bhubaneswar, Brainbuxa.com -Educational Portal, Bhubaneswar Buzz, OhCampus, BL on Campus, Business Standard, The Indian Iris, The New Indian Express. It was also promoted on social media through official X-Ops, Operations Committee of XIMB page on Facebook and Twitter. The presence of the great minds and the enthusiastic students made the event a grand success.
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Electronic- Supply Chain Management or e-SCM
Inroduction The Internet and the recent technology development have un-doubtfully changed the way of living and working and have opened new opportunities and ways for conducting competitive advantages for the organizations nowadays. In these regards, the development of the Internet and information technology has also brought new dimensions in the supply chain management. Poirier and Bauer have referred to
connected to the supply chain and its management. What is e-SCM? The concept of electronic supply chain management or e-scm is based on the idea of the existing concept of the supply chain management. this transition as a “tsunami change� representing the ability of the Internet to be an effective medium enabling integration and synchronization of all the information and processes
First of all a supply chain is defined as the flow of materials, information, money, and services from raw material suppliers through factories and warehouses to the end customers and when the
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supply chain is managed electronically mainly through a web server, then it is called cooperation enabled by the Internet. Although the e-SCM represents an advancement from the SCM, the traditional processes carried in the supply chain management such as procurement, shipment, etc. also take essential part in the new, improved electronic SCM. Opportunities provided by the new technologies in the context of e-SCM New opportunities are emerging under the umbrella of e-business, the execution of business processes with the assistance of Internet technologies. The collaboration among partners and information
e-SCM. It is developed as a result of the evolution of the information technologies as mitigation of the risk and problem with stock over and stock out. This problem, known as the bullwhip effect represented a common weakness of the former, supply chain management. Therefore, having real time information available between all partners decreases the trend and possibility for larger and larger swings in the inventory that result in exaggerated fluctuations. The under and overestimations are bypassed as a result from the ability of the Internet and new technology to offer access and transmission of information among the supply chain partners.
well as reengineering of the organizations’ business processes towards partner advantages of supply chain management by enabling information visibility and sharing in real time as well as great possibility for improving the cooperation among the partners involved in the supply chain as a significant competitive differentiator. In these regards e-SCM has received great attention due to the forward-thinking organizations, the early adopters that have implemented such strategy and have witnessed benefits of following this practice. Organizations that have adopted e-SCM practices
Moreover, the Internet also enables the supply chain partners to make and access data analysis and modeling and thus make better planning and decision making, commonly known as knowledge sharing. Adoption practices
sharing contributes to an improvement in forecasting and planning and thus
of
e-SCM
For many companies, it become evident that integration enabled by Internet has enhanced
has the the the
Some of the most influential business leaders worldwide were among the organizations first adopting
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the e-SCM and integrating their supply chain managements. Their experiences and learnings ➢ from the adoption of e-SCM serve as a benchmark for other organizations. Dell has demonstrated ➢ incredible growth: a 58% revenue increase and 82% profit increase in 1997, also rise in sales to $12.3 billion in 1997, profits to $944 million in 1997 and the stock split for the sixth time in 1998. At the heart of the success was the ability that this strategy offered Dell exchange of inventory for information. Challenges of a typical SCM ➢
➢ Supply chains can be very long, involving many internal and external partners located in different places ➢ Both materials and information must flow among several entities, and these transfers, especially when manually handled, can be slow and error-prone ➢ Companies can improve their demand forecasting by using
IT-supported forecasts, which are done in collaboration with business A lack of logistics infrastructure exacerbates uncertainties that exist in ✓ delivery times Quality problems with materials and parts can contribute to deficiencies in the supply chain ➢ Pure EC companies are likely to have more supply chain problems because they do not have a logistics infrastructure and are forced to use external logistics services How the e-SCM provides a solution to SCM ✓ Order taking can be done over the Internet, EDI, EDI/Internet, or an extranet, and may be fully automated ✓ Order fulfillment can become instant if the products can be digitized ✓ Electronic payments can expedite both the order fulfillment cycle and the payment delivery period ✓ Managing risk to avoid supply-chain breakdown can be done in several ways ✓ Inventories can be minimized by introducing a build-to-order (on-
demand) manufacturing process as well as by providing fast and accurate information to suppliers Collaborative commerce among members of the supply chain can be done in many areas. Conclusion Given the importance of eSCM and the impact it has for enhanced competiveness from the ceaseless integration within a network of organizations has intrigued numerous researchers to examine this topic as well as many businesses to undertake this execution and prove the benefits of the merge on the Internet with SCM to their everyday business. The positive benefits of integrating the Internet into supply chain management outweighs the risks and associated costs as innovation and technology incorporation into how business is conducted has become essential and indispensable nowadays.
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Going Lean— Shifting Responsibility or Empowering the Doer?
All of us have heard the story of it being easy to break a single stick than it is to break a bundle of sticks. Lean management takes a leaf from this book by involving more number of people in solving problems. Lean
management is an approach that supports the idea of continuous improvement, an approach that seeks to achieve small, incremental changes in the process and performance to improve efficiency and quality. The model involves improving the work process by those who do it i.e. those who are on the spot. It strives to build the capabilities of the employees to understand the customers better and fix problems that arise. In the current competitive environment, competitive advantage can only be
gained when one can learn, adapt faster and by developing deeper ties with the customers. Technology will obviously play a crucial role in this but only technology will not help one to get out of this competitive hole. Companies focus so intently on new technologies
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product experiences for their customers.
and methods that they don’t realise that the fastest growing companies are the ones that manage human beings who shape, use and revise new capabilities every day. For many a years if a problem aroused, the employees had to wait for the manager to give them orders as to what to do and then start solving the problem. But asking the employees’ suggestions about the problem would not only help solve problems in a quicker way but also provides various valuable insights about the problem that would help solving it in a more efficient manner.
Hence it was realised that involving employees in decision making helped organisations grow faster and become better. Leaders are now putting in more efforts with lean so that they create new operating models that use human skill with not only unmatched agility and responsiveness but also creating value at the same time. As a result of these companies can respond quicker, with workers using their own creative skill rather than waiting for decisions to march up and down the bureaucratic levels. Dutch banking group ING are using lean principles to create new
As work with lean management starts to mature within a company, leaders or managers systematically transfer their mind-set to others in the organisation. While techniques like six sigma also tend to improve efficiency in solving problems, technology alone cannot be trusted upon to provide a solution. Involving humans along with the use of technology will help the organisation gain competitive advantage. Applying lean management principles will make the organizational structure less triangular(top down) and more circular as it tries to establish ownerships at all levels and instead of the hierarchical mentality.
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Right To Privacy: A step back from A Smarter India?
As the general mood of the country welcomes the Supreme Court ruling on the 27th of August, announcing that Indians enjoy a fundamental right to privacy, that it is intrinsic to life and liberty and thus comes under Article 21 of the Indian
Constitution, stating that privacy must “enable individuals to preserve their beliefs, thoughts, expressions, ideas, ideologies, preferences and choices against societal demands of homogeneity�, it also raises concerns for the State. With the government striving for a Digital India, and its Smart City projects which aim primarily at integrating Information and Communication technology (ICT) and Internet
of things (IoT) technology in a secure fashion to manage the city's assets (which include local departments' information systems, schools, libraries, transportation systems, hospitals, power plants, water supply networks, law enforcement and other community services), the recent Supreme Court verdict is bound to create setbacks. A smart city is promoted to use urban informatics and technology to improve the efficiency of services. ICT
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allows city officials to interact directly with the community and the city infrastructure and to monitor what is happening in the city, how the city is evolving, and how to enable a better quality of life. Through the use of sensors integrated with realtime monitoring systems, data are collected from citizens and devices – then processed and analyzed. The information and knowledge gathered are keys to tackling inefficiency. This data gathering is undoubtedly going to be a tough task to accomplish now. Aadhar, the 12-digit biometric identification project, was one such measure taken towards collecting and maintaining standardized database of citizens, and currently holds the information of more than a billion Indians. But right to privacy being deemed a
fundamental one ensures that this program can be implemented only on voluntary basis, and controversy continues to revolve around the project.
and people rush to ‘consent’ to share their private details over social media or to avail services, that any sort of control would be rendered useless?
Fact remains that in today’s era, it’s not the muscle or the military, or even the money, but the possession of information that makes one powerful.
If that turns out to be the case, then personalization or over personalization of the internet of things will no longer be an option and any attempt to control or restrain the natural order that is being followed globally, will only pull India back a few steps.
Data is the single most valuable commodity evidenced by the fact that some of the world’s most valuable companies have built their enterprise around the collection and use of data. The Supreme Court acknowledges this reality – finding that today’s world is characterized by “ubiquitous dataveillance” But isn’t it only a matter of time, in a culture where data is bartered as a commodity,
Whether India can afford this setback in today’s age of competing and risingeconomies, in an attempt to protect the data which will ultimately be out there anyway, only time can tell.
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Recent Happenings in Operation Management Xavier Institute of Management, Bhubaneswar
Abstract Operations management refers to the administration of business practices to create the highest level of efficiency possible within an organization. So it is the most required technology now-a-days. Recently there were many changes happened in the field of operations to make our world more enable. In this article we will discuss about five of the important inventions and how they are going to benefit our livelihoods. Along with that we will have a short write up for our yearly conclave, Ashwamedh.
The expanding role of design After digitization products, services and environments-both physical and online are converging to anticipate and meet rising customer expectations. Technologies regularly compound each other’s effects, with a dynamism and speed of innovation that has become unpredictable: for example, the combination of
global positioning systems (GPS), radar, video object recognition, and infrared sensors gave birth to the development of self-driving cars. Service companies are integrating physical products into their customer experience. Amazon’s Echo, for example, provides quick access to the company’s services. Evernote and Moleskine have collaborated to create notebooks that
seamlessly integrate physical notes capturing handwritten ones with the Evernote camera allows you to search and organize them digitally. Progressive Insurance’s connected-car devices allow the company to charge drivers according to their driving behavior. Example of end to end customer experience is A key focus of IKEA’s effort to develop its Home Smart line,
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which introduced technologyinfused furniture, was exploring the experience of integrated wireless charging of mobile phones in homes. The ultimate goal was to design a solution that would eliminate charging entirely. IKEA’s design team had to reinvent the research process to explore how people would react to these new features in furniture. To support the vision of a simpler, more human-centered home life, it was important that the result not look like technology but still understood as more than just furniture. Benchmarking The benefits of benchmarking are manifold. It can be a great eye opener, giving steelcompany decision makers an external and independent perspective on how well the company, a specific plant, or a piece of equipment performs compared with competitors. Benchmarking also helps to find and prioritize specific areas of opportunity and often confirms or validates assumptions, hypotheses, or gut feelings. Additionally, it can and should be used to set
performance targets and expectations. Making benchmarking an integral part of the way a company works can result in valuable data and performance transparency that triggers open and fact-based discussions and performance dialogues, leads to new ideas and improved operational practices, and helps establish a performanceand improvement-oriented corporate culture. Lean Management Think of what procurement people do each day. How much time do strategic buyers spend on truly value-adding activities, such as building a deeper market understanding in key
categories, identifying and qualifying new potential suppliers, or negotiating the best possible contracts? In all likelihood, much less than you think. At one large industrial company, our workload analysis found that strategic buyers often devoted less than 40 percent of their time to these core activities. The rest was lost on distractions. A broader and more thoughtful lean-management perspective doesn’t just help companies maximize the effectiveness of their current processes. It also allows companies to take a more integrated view of the value each individual buyer creates. It helps them answer important strategic questions, such as which activities should be kept in-house and which should be automated, allocated to near or offshore shared-service centers, outsourced, or stopped altogether. Standardized activities, fewer processes, better-qualified buyers, continual people development,
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and resources on activities value—this understand procurement. core
sharply focused that add real is what we as lean Growing the
Despite the rise of digital initiatives, core aftermarket services—the provision of parts, repair, and maintenance—is also critical to success. to success. Under these circumstances, it can be difficult for OEMs to identify the best opportunities. To gain clarity and remain competitive, they must undertake a more detailed examination of aftermarket lifetime value— the total revenue they receive from servicing their installed base. This measure, which is typically calculated for each product line, provides a more comprehensive view of aftermarket value than commonly used metrics,
such as service revenue captured per customer. Companies that examine aftermarket lifetime value closely may find that certain services, including core offerings, contribute more to the bottom line than expected. For instance, one OEM closely examined aftermarket lifetime value and realized that 90 percent of its near-term growth would come from core services, even though initial estimates suggested that digital solutions would be the main driver. Zero Based Budgeting More recently, “Zero-based budgeting then and now: Technology remakes the ZBB rules” showcased some of the breakthroughs that are making zero-based budgeting (ZBB) more practical and potent than ever. Yet even as more and more organizations commit to ZBB, doubts persist. Some
choices, however, can undermine the cultural change that is essential to ZBB’s long-term effectiveness. A few organizations have tried to omit the granular, bottomup budgeting and resourcereallocation decisions that
ZBB calls for. Those tasks are essential to reinforce ZBB as a mind-set, and not including them in the process risks leaving the organization with just another cost-cutting project whose effects fade within a year or two. Moreover, ZBB shifts the burden of proof from those tasked with driving cost reductions (such as a finance team or productivityprogram-management office) to the business leaders and frontline organizations, which must contribute to both identifying unproductive costs and eliminating them in practice. Instead of debating targets until they disappear, ZBB shifts the organization’s focus to asking, “What would it take to hit the target?”
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Editorial Board:
Opsession Monthly
XIM, Bhubaneswar
EDITOR:
SAMAR NANDA
CO EDITOR
SUBHANSHU BHATT
COORDINATOR:
PRAVEEN DASH
TEAM:
CHANDNI ROUT MAHESWAR PRESINGU PRAKAMYA SHARMA GIRIJA TRIPATHY
DESIGN:
KUMAR ADITYA