Page 34 - ITLN Jan-Feb 2023 for Magzter

Event Report
AutoSCM Summit 2022

car manufacturers started building
manufacturing plants in the country,
tried to follow the same JIT model they
followed in Europe when India was
not ready and how logistics services
providers got involved to solve the issue.
“When the Covid-19 pandemic
hit, everything just collapsed to an
extent where the JIT was questioned
as the right model for the automotive
industry. However, JIT is there to stay.
As normalcy is gained, people are going
back to the JIT model.”
However, Somil Shrivastava,
head of supply chain management,
Magna Automotive, thinks that there
were many more failures of JIT than
successes and believes that the
essence of JIT has gone.
“People are not very excited about
the JIT model. If a manufacturer wants (L-R) Javin Bhinde of Syncore (Moderator),
to follow JIT, he will push inventory to Sanjay Suranglikar of TATA AutoComp
the component manufacturers or the Systems, Manish Shrivastava of
tier two and three suppliers. I know Spark Minda, Krishna Giridharan of
OEMs that get supplies in JIT but if it C.H.Robinson, Mohan Kadam of Dana
India and Satish Lakkaraju of WIZ.
is out of 30 or 40 kilometres of radius,
then they have to keep seven days of we still keep some JICs. It is a mixed
stock in the warehouse,” he said. model and it will remain.”
On the same line, Mandar Vaidya,
director materials management - region Digital transformation that extends
India, ZF Group, reminded us that JIT is to entire value chain
built on the premise that the end-to-end The event also took a deep dive into
value chain is very reliable but we don't the world of digitalisation and the
live in that world anymore. technologies used in the supply chain
“India has never been in a stable of automotive with the third panel.
situation. We were always growing The discussion ranged from selecting
suddenly or stopping suddenly. the right partner to have the ability
Immediately after the Covid-19 to integrate and from providing
pandemic disruption, people real-time visibility to predicting
started building buffers and the the arrival of shipment.
buffers were built in almost It also ventured out to
everything. However, things are understand the differences
getting a little bit back to normal. and boundaries between
We are actively looking at what digitisation, digitalisation
buffer can be taken out and what and digital transformation.
needs to remain. There is an Sanjay Suranglikar, senior
effort to go back to JIT but general manager -
central purchase,
TATA AutoComp,
Srinivas Mahankali, stressed the need
chief business officer,
Blockedge Technologies for companies
to look for the
right partners

32 January - February 2023 www.itln.in