What is the role of the plant operations in the ‘New Product Development' process?
In New Product Development (NPD) process, cross-functional development teams work to project fit with manufacturing resources and skills to ensure three critical areas - to achieve lower cost, high quality and short time to market in NPD.
We have a launch manager concept for every product, he and his whole team works with new product development team right from the start to the end, participating in DFMEAS, PFMEAS and DFA (design for assembly) continuously sharing learnings and giving inputs related to their domains to ensure no errors and rework.
This ensures seamless transfer of products from drawing boards to manufacturing and helps deliver first time right products and processes.

Here in Chakan plant we get to see good blend of automation and manual? Your thoughts on Industry 4.0 evolving in India…
Yes. rightly said we do have a balanced blend of technology and manual work. We do not believe in use of technology for the sake of it. We use technology very judiciously, and where found most apt to use, key areas where we like to use technology is quality, ergonomics, and safety.
We have a concept of "Connected Factory" which is primarily to ensure seamless operation of such large-scale industry to deliver vehicle of choice to customer at their expected time. We have extended the connected factory concept even to our suppliers who are in sync with our schedules and deliver on line not just in time but "just in sequence".
The talks these days is revolving around Industry 4.0 and the edge it is offering to drive new levels of efficiency on the shop floor processes. We are not averse to digital 4.0 you can see many elements of this in our factory today up and running Viz MES, Robots, cobots, connected machines. If the question is will we blindly copy every element of industry 4.0 to the same scale answer may not be "yes". We will ideally be chalking our own path in this digital journey, we will do what best suits our business and the Indian context at large.

How do you see the role of SCM in your operations?
Building ‘strategic alliances' with our key supply chain partners is what we believe in.  MVML's strategy is to be an agile supply chain wherein key suppliers operate in a firm's zone by ensuring that their manufacturing lead times are lower than MVML's ordering times. These suppliers are either housed in adjoining supplier-park or are encouraged to have their plants in close proximity of MVML.
Supplier domain is completely synchronized with MVML's state of the art MES and in some cases also have a B2B connectivity with their own MES. This enables them to supply components on a Just in Sequence (JIS) basis. This flexible back end strategy gives M&M a competitive Edge in the market place when it comes to dealer committing dates to customer.
In terms of our expectations from our suppliers: MVML believes in partnering with suppliers to get excellence in areas such as - reliability of supplies, responsiveness, flexibility, supply chain costs and supply chain asset management.

How is MVML attracting and retaining new generation talent particularly when you operate in automobile hotbed of India? 
The attractiveness of software industry is receding and there is growing urge among Gen Y workforce to work in the core disciplines of engineering. There are equally good career avenues available now in manufacturing.
Hiring the right talent and carving right path of capability Building for Employees has always been the focus area in Mahindra. Employee Engagement Philosophy & Employee Value Proposition focuses on managing Career Aspiration, Alignment with Business Goals, Recognition of Outperformance & Abundant Learning Opportunities for Employees. This delivers & drives Employee Retention at M&M.
What is unique to Mahindra is probably the culture of empowerment, freedom to experiment, freedom to choose your place of work, supported by a culture of a reward and recognition.
An employee at Mahindra can apply for Job Rotation across any function, department, even across Business and if found suitable is supported by HR Policy for smooth transition across roles.
At Mahindra, all senior leadership follow open door policy. One can just walk in and share his thoughts and ideas, it helps build a strong bonding.
Added to this we have a very robust and fair transparent performance appraisal system which identifies high performers who are then groomed to become future leaders.
All this culminates to the fact that M&M AFS as an organization has been featured among the top 25 companies in Great Place to Work 2017 survey report third time in a row and among the top three in manufacturing sector.

What are the sustainability practices at MVML?
We have our efforts directed towards sustainability to reduce resource use in the plant and reduce the environmental impact of our manufacturing footprints.
In our mission to water neutrality, water harvesting facility is developed inside plant premises which stores One lakh Cu Mtrs of rainwater sufficient to cater annual domestic water requirement of 1700 families. We have been able to reduce load on MIDC fresh water intake to a large extent.
We also have complete eco-friendly, high rate transpiration system (HRTS), as a tertiary treatment for the effluent treatment and disposal process. With this, we have been able to reduce GHG emissions & eliminate hazardous wastes generated out of conventional process. The efforts are also being taken to become a Zero land fill company. 
With initiatives for Solar PV setup and solar dish for generating energy for different applications and Wind mill for feeding green power we have been able to reduce our CO2 emissions considerably.
In our endeavour of green SCM, environmental impact of packaging has been reduced to half in last 5 years and target is to reach zero in next 3 years.
Going forward, we pledge to generate 5 MW power through roof top solar. With this, a majority portion of plant's today's energy requirement will be met by renewable energy sources which is equivalent reduction of 10000 tons of CO2 emissions.
Looking ahead, the journey from constraints to abundance will be long and complex. Nevertheless, it is the only long-term solution and I am sure that with our heightened awareness, enthusiasm and dedication, we will rise to the sustainability challenge as well.
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