Speculations around an extended lockdown do not come as surprise to people given the spike in numbers of COVID-19 affected persons. The government is already taking some hard war-like situation decisions by deploying police forces to maintain lockdown restrictions and using military-level surveillance to monitor the cases and ensure social distancing.
Doctors and medical officials are fighting this pandemic on the frontline with state governments and centre at the backend, walking a thin line between public safety and economic slump.
India’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) has seen a sharp fall especially due to the feeble growth in the manufacturing and construction sector. The country is going to be looking at the lowest ever GDP growth of 2 % in the current financial year 2020-21.
As people stare into the grim reality of this deadly virus staying undeterred despite the heat and medications, businesses look hopefully at the government to resume at least some of their operations. While the service sector has adapted efficiently to a work from home system, the manufacturing industry can’t rely entirely on this model. Management discussions and communication can happen virtually but this sector requires around 50% of its staff to be on-site.
The manufacturing sector will have to redefine a lot of their operations and methods to embrace the new normal of technology the world has acquainted itself with. The way forward for the manufacturing industry is to integrate technology in most of their functions. The only way forward is to change.
The manufacturing sector should look at these technologies to sustain in the future:
Virtual meetings and conferences involving shareholders, CEOs, vertical heads, employees, etc should become a permanent scenario. The operations that the manufacturing sector can digitize should be digitised going forward as well. The virus may not be leaving but operations will have to resume and hence, maintain social distancing wherever possible.
Automate the manufacturing tasks that require people to stay on site. AI, IoT and ML are some technologies that will help automate redundant tasks and open up new job avenues for employees that are tech-savvy. Automation and Robotics is a success with manufacturing already since it boosts productivity.
During this lockdown, every sector would have realised the importance of data and the need to have a data infrastructure. Having access to real-time data has become a deciding factor for business continuity and of course, strategy. The manufacturing sector must deploy a good data infrastructure that includes IoT, AI-based insights, collaboration tools, etc that will make manufacturing manageable digitally.
Use digital tools and messaging platforms to manage your supply chain communication and operations. The advantage of these tools is that you can have more accurate and risk-free results. With better insights and results, the policy-making and business decisions will become more relevant and hence, work better.
Summing Up…
As manufacturing decides on how to go about the future, the industry will also have to teach their employees the new standards expected out of them. A few precautions such as thermal sensing, sanitising the factory, providing sanitisers to workers, establishing boundaries of social contact, etc should be taken if after the lockdown ends. All in all, the manufacturing sector should think of the long term and mold its business model accordingly.