We export to over 100 countries from India

Jasmeet Singh,
Head - Corporate Communications and External Relations,
JCB India.

JCB India Limited is a leading manufacturer of earthmoving and construction equipment in India. The company was started in 1979 in India. With five state-of-the-art factories in India, it today manufactures a wide range of world-class equipment, not only for India, but also for global markets.
Jasmeet Singh, Head - Corporate Communications and External Relations, JCB India

Can you give current scenario of growth trends of the industry?

2015 we bottomed out as an industry and after 2015 then there was this huge focus on roads and highways and infra and that took the industry up in 2016. 2016, 2017, 2018 all three years were years of good growth. I am talking of calendar years. So, 2018 also was a very strong year. In fact it was the best year ever for our industry.

Crossed 1 lakh units.

Yes. So it is commendable that the industry really took off. If you remember 2017 was a year of disruptions so you had the emission issues in first half and GST in second half and that led to some disruption and there was a lot of pent up demand. So that pent up demand took off and 2017 last quarter to 2018 the entire year it made quite strong also and resulted in 2018 was the best year for us and also for the industry.

Your sixth factory is on the roll now, what do you think the recent trends in the  manufacturing sector?

The new factories that we have announced in Gujarat which is going to be in Vadodara and of course we see future and we will see opportunity in India and that is why we have committed an investment of 650 crores for the new factory in Vadodara. In terms of manufacturing trends even the manufacturing industry is not getting quite high tech. So people are preparing for the industry and that is the whole scenario. Most plants are now modern. Talking about JCB I do not know if you have been to our Dhalabgarh[?] factory it is the largest factory for backhoe loaders. It is a fully automated factory, you see backhoes getting rolled off. That sort of thing is there. Similarly Jaipur is a zero discharge facility and all world class export worthy factory is there and so the whole thing of Indian manufacturing gathering steam is now taking place. There was a time when people were not very sure of what Indian manufacturing is all about. Now as things are improving…we export to 100 countries from India. So those things are there and one global quality is now an achievable phenomena and we have done that. Made in India machines are very proudly exported even to developed markets from India. So the trends are all positive, they are all towards achieving one global quality. The trends are towards improving efficiencies of factories. Safety again is a very big talk point. If you were to visit JCB factories you will see there is a massive focus on safety. So people working in the factory and people visiting the factory we feel they should be perfectly safe at all times and I think again after one global quality the next thing is one global health and safety standard wherein sometimes we see unfortunately some people take shortcuts but we take it very seriously here at JCB. There is a huge focus on health and safety.

If you tell about the manufacturing philosophy or production principle, how do you put it especially JCBs philosophy?

We have a JCB philosophy and that philosophy by and large is towards one production of waste, two, improvement of efficiency, it is called JCB production system. We talk about it and that is the footprint on which all JCB factories are made and operated across the world. So health and safety again is the platform on which everything else is built on. And we talk of one global quality which means all our systems, all our processes have to be of global standard.

Throughout the globe?

Yes so you will see all JCB factories operating on a single philosophy of quality. So there is nothing like you have X quality for one country and Y quality for some other country. Very importantly as I said our supply chain also is calibrated accordingly because lot of the things which go into making a machine are brought somewhere and while we can have the best quality but what if our vendors do not have the best quality. Therefore that is percolated down to the last level. In fact when we choose a vendor the vendor is not just for India that person is open to sell anywhere in the world into any of our factories across the world. Of course the product design itself and the way it is manufactured then all of it then comes together.

Someone will name is Lean Philosophy or someone will say something else. Like that how will you talk about your system?

The system as I said is called the JCB Infra System.

Can you give me 2-3 major unique characteristics of that?

One as I said we were on lean manufacturing philosophy and of course we are IT enabled. So Lean is that there is constant pursuit of elimination of waste. The other thing is we work on a no fault forward policy. So that means that when we are assembling something like our engine factories when we are assembling something and hypothetically speaking something has not been tightened properly the line itself will not move forward, it will keep giving you an alarm. There cannot be a situation where you are carrying a fault forward. Somebody else has left a nut loose and someone else is supposed to do it, that doesn't happen. Whatever fault is there it is corrected at that stage itself, it doesn't go forward.

JCB right from the beginning in India and sixth factory is going to come, how do you see the transition from legacy systems to current system? How smooth is the transition and what are the challenges?

We have been here for 40 years, we came to India in 1979 and it has been a very interesting journey for us. As you rightly said manufacturing systems 40 years ago were totally different from what they are now. the transition that we had to make as accompany that journey has been very steep and 2005-06 onwards when the market started to increase we wanted to start exporting as well and that is how all transition of training, of skilling, of investing in technology, investing in capital, all of that went into the organisation of factories and keeping it with time. And that is how now all these factories which you see in India are absolutely at par of any factory of JCB anywhere else in the world. Training of people has played a very important part. Changing of the thought process and being accountable for what they are doing and ensuring what they make and do there is pride in that. If there is no pride in what you are doing then you are not bothered. At the end of the day we all work for pride and money as well. But the fact that we are working for pride and once we are able to get that in the picture then everyone is responsible and accountable. You have been to our factories and we do not have thousands of people, we have 5000 people in India but again we are lead something in that.

How do you look at the industry 4.0 concepts, is it implemented in the Indian space overall?

Not in its entirety because industry 4.0 is a very large vision and we are only just now kind of starting to move towards that vision. Industry 4.0 I would not say it is a target, it is a journey and I think it is going to be a long journey for all of us. It talks of integrating everything, the entire environment in the way factories operate, or suppliers operate or dealers operate all of them to come under sort of a vision and one sort of a philosophy where everything is interconnected. And it cannot be done overnight. It will take time but very encouragingly people have started talking about it, people have started taking steps towards it and it is a good way forward. Having achieved it I do not think we have achieved it as of now. But of course we are on the line.

Can you give us details on how IT enabled or the data analytics is one of the strong points for JCB?

In terms of IT enabled now I think all large scale organisations everything works on IT enabled environment, ERP systems is done by SAPs. Now that means that there is full transparency of every process, every product, and everything goes back to where we got it from and what is being sold and where is it going. On dealer end also we have got SAP which means we are integrated from supplier to the factory to the dealer and all is done through IT. On the product side that is again integrated through live link, so that means we can actually trace back from where the component has come, when was the machine made, when was it given to the dealer, when was it sold, what is the machine doing now. So entire chain is enabled. All is done through IT. I think it is there in most modern factories where IT plays a huge role.

JCB has been a pioneer in using digital platform into the tracking system and product system. So how do you look at the growth forward and what are kinds of things you are doing on that?

We introduced live link in 2014-15 and now I think we have got more than 1 lakh machines which are being monitored on live link.

Two years back you said 35 and now it is more than double the growth.

We have been doing the growth figures, so I do not know two years ago could not have
been 35.

You said 34000 connected machines to live link.

Now that number is upto 1 lakh. That number has grown to over 1 lakh now. That data is of course contributing to the bit data in IOT which means now we are able to assess better, we know the machines now. So here is how it works, once you have the data with you then accuracy comes into picture and then you can seeing trends, you can start looking for trends on this data and that data. On the customer side now all of that is on an app also. So that means if you are a customer then on your smart phone you can see your machine on an app and not just look where the machine is so for excavators, wheel loaders and compactors in Bauma Con Expo we launched the Intelli Series. Intelli series is now linked up through the live link telematics technology and now you can also come to know how much your machine has worked through the day. So not just location and fuel, you can also come to know what is the productivity of the machine and how much work it has done. We are going granular. We are going deeper in what a customer needs. I think the customers life has to made easier through technology and digital interventions. Because fleet sizes are increasing. Increasingly we are seeing people who are having more than one or two machines. Therefore you require some system where there is monitoring track.

Is there any scope from JCB side on additive manufacturing because HCB hands the bulk for additive manufacturing? Backhoe loader you control almost 74-76%, so is there any connection? Will you be able to get into spares and parts and this kind of a format?

You are saying we start manufacturing components?

I am talking of 3D printing.

No not now. There is some time for all of that.

Today how do you think of augmented reality which in area of training are you using this kind of a thing?

AI again is next step, after bit data IOT is the next step. Artificial intelligence we are moving in that direction and we have not been able to achieve that fully. Again our industry the scope of all of that becomes slightly limited because once you say for example Facebook or Instagram and if you are surfing on it for products then automatically Facebook will start giving you that sort of advertisements on your feed. We are not doing that now, we are not into that yet. But machine learning which is through Live link it is interim machine to machine learning, yes, IOT, yes, Bit data, yes, digital tech, yes all of that we are doing.

In event space what do you think maybe couple of manufacturing trends?

Manufacturing trends one is that the integration of digital technology into manufacturing that is one thing which is key and that is going to keep increasing with time and that is a huge thing. The other is inherently the design of the machine is now becoming smarter, so you will see smarter machines coming out and all such things are there. These are the two three trends which are coming out now.

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