32 | AutoPartsAsia | NOVEMBER 2017Automation
Automation is inevitable, Sikka
believes. It will happen because in
certain areas, looking purely from
the suppliers’ point of view, quality
requirements are going up every day.
Repeat production, with consistent
quality, has to be done always.
Automation will help improve quality;
a robot on the line sets the pace of the
line as it will continuously churn out
a new part for the rest of the team to
follow.
The TAKT time, the maximum amount
of time in which a product needs
to be produced to satisfy customer
demand, is set by the robot; if it
throws the body to the next station
every minute, everyone will have to
follow the system. This brings in line
discipline. In a lighter vein Sikka said,
a robot doesn’t ask for wage increase,
doesn’t take leave, nor rake up any
industrial relations issue. There are
many advantages in automation from
a supplier’s point of view. This may
take away some jobs; therefore, the
industry needs to be very considerate.
However, he is very firm that for high-
technology and high-quality segments,
automation is indispensable. For the
other less demanding areas number of
jobs could be the criterion.Additive Manufacturing
Additive manufacturing is becoming
the favoured flavour of the
manufacturing industry. Sikka said
every supplier is moving up the
system profile. Most of the suppliers
are making the child parts after which
they are moved on to assemblies;assembly suppliers have moved to
a systems approach; suppliers are
able, either through collaboration or
their own internal R&D efforts, to do
some kind of designing to support the
system. He continued that, “as one
moves up the system chart, where
you keep complete ownership and
responsibility for a full system, it calls
for sustained R&D efforts. Once that is
done, you can add value. If suppliers
move up the value chain, OEMs would
be satisfied.”
The relationship between OEMs and
suppliers are vital for uninterrupted
supply of parts. Is the relationship
still transactional or has it become
collaborative? How has this been
evolving in Mahindra? To this question
Sikka answered that Mahindra
has done a lot of work in the last
20 years. He called it the pre-and
post-Scorpio periods. Scorpio hasbeen the change-point where a lot
of work happened since 2000 and
the vehicle was launched two years
later. The company’s relationship with
suppliers has moved away from the
transactional to a more strategic one,
where they are considered as partners
who they work with to help them get
repeat business. “Mahindra does not
bring in new suppliers just to reduce
cost; they have always had only one
single source per platform. Scorpio,
even 15 years after launch, is running
on a single source,” he said.The life cycle of products is
diminishing, from 60 months 10 years
ago, to 18 to 20 months now.
Sikka views that the life cycle of a
platform can continue for long, but
the top hats need change; from five
years earlier, a refresh has to happen
every 18 months now. There are
minor refreshes, then the major ones,
followed by a full model change; that’s
how the platform continues.
For every segment, the life cycle
has gone down. If earlier a refresh
happened every two-and-a-half year,
now it is only one-and-a-half or so. A
major model used to change every
three years, now changes every two
years.
The world over, cycles have come
down; the industry has become very
competitive and every OEM has to
plan for it, he said.For vendors to supply parts in a short
period with even small changes is
challenging. When a model change
has to happen in one year, it means
the OEM and the supplier would have
planned it much earlier. “Sometimes,
when we are developing a new model,
we start to work for the next model
change; the next refresh is already
planned even if the product is not
launched. A lot of work happens at
the backend in our R&D with the
product planning and marketing
teams working together to plan
ahead for improving productivity. NewCOVER STORY