Technologies-the machine maker

1. The Machine Maker Incredible Stories of Indian Manufacturing Latest technology in manufacturing industry: SECO group technology gets operational excellence in the industry 4.0 Era: In the era of Industry 4.0 it is fashionable to highlight the newest production techniques and digitalization technologies. However, maximum productivity and cost-efficiency still are based on a foundation of operational excellence. India should start adopting digital manufacturing solutions:The concept of a Smart Factory, although recent, is a system that was envisioned earlier – largely as science fiction. Much of this was due to the fact that there was no internet, no wireless technology, no data analytics system, not a great deal of computing power, as also not enough capability of data exchange. Quality Management to Lean Management Practices in India: In my last column, I tried to briefly chronicle how quality management evolved over the years and gained prominence until the idea of Total Quality Management (TQM) flourished, which I had implemented with an acronym 'TORQUE' (Total Organizational Quality Enhancement) at Bharat Electronics. ‘TORQUE’ initiative yielded excellent results. Changing Scenario of Quality Management: Scientific business management in modern sense was introduced in industry in early 20th century. Walter Andrew Shewhart framed “problem” in terms of assignable-cause and chance-cause variation and introduced control chart as a tool to distinguish between the two. Shewhart explained that bringing a production process into a state of statistical control, where there is only chance-cause variation, and keeping it in control, is necessary to predict future output and to manage a process economically. This as a distinct theory and school of thought has always withstood the test of time.