The Indian auto industry is one of the largest in the world. The industry accounts for 7.1 per cent of the country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP). As of FY 2014-15, around 31 per cent of small cars sold globally are manufactured in India.
The Two Wheelers segment with 81 per cent market share is the leader of the Indian Automobile market owing to a growing middle class and a young population. Moreover, the growing interest of the companies in exploring the rural markets further aided the growth of the sector. The overall Passenger Vehicle (PV) segment has 13 per cent market share.
India is also a prominent auto exporter and has strong export growth expectations for the near future. In April-January 2016, exports of Commercial Vehicles registered a growth of 18.36 per cent over April-January 2015. In addition, several initiatives by the Government of India and the major automobile players in the Indian market are expected to make India a leader in the Two Wheeler (2W) and Four Wheeler (4W) market in the world by 2020.
Earlier the Indian manufacturing sector was giving tough competition to other countries all over the globe in terms of labour cost and cutting edge productivity. But since other economies in the world are progressing to provide classical, traditional and highly effective labour, India needs to maintain the cutting edge in such an eco-system surrounded by a huge number of competitors.
Auto industry is mature and leader in efficiency parameters across the globe and same in India as well.
– Manpower productivity is considered to be must have to survive the competition and is no longer driver for higher profitability.
– However, there are few tier 1 and several tier 2 & 3 suppliers where it has now become imperative for them to look at basic stability of all 4Ms (man – method – material – machine).
Recently, Faber Infinite Consulting team assisted a major tier 1 automobile component supplier in India with tremendous results. Below are some of the drivers for improvement and benefits delivered to the client. Although these numbers can be referred to before the demonetization drive occurred and though demonetization may have its impacts these efficiency drivers do stand true even then.
Benefits Delivered
Help to identify existing bottlenecks in the system
The exercise analyzed processes and inefficiencies as the operators go about their daily routine activities. It helped in determining if there are wasted efforts, that are repeated and which therefore waste time and reduce the productivity of the operators. The study helped in designing a setup for workplaces in such a way that operators can perform routine duties as quickly and effectively as possible.
Decrease the cycle time for the activities performed
It involves systematic examination of methods of carrying on activities so as to improve the effective use of manpower and equipment and to setup standards of performance for the activities being performed. An in-depth as well as critical examination was carried out to analyze different ways of doing things to make improvements.
Improve and enhance manpower productivity via time and motion study
Since the technique of time and motion study involves investigation of existing or alternate proposed methods of work and how to improve them, it helped the client in establishing an appropriate framework for carrying out specified jobs. It estimated the effort utilized per person and took into account the duration of time taken to complete a particular task at each workstation. The manpower utilization for a particular workstation was increased to 65.80% after line balancing. The scope of improvement was found to be 35 to 36% for different workstations.
Core purpose of this study is to analyze all the activities at workplace and come up with Standard time of each activity. During the study, factors such as environmental conditions, difficulties encountered nature of task, etc. were considered and evaluated as per ILO standards. This study benefited the client to provide a systematic review and analysis of the activities performed in current scenario and provided recommendations for eliminating NVA’s (Non value adding activities) for future practices.
Written By: Faber Devna Chaturvedi
