With volatility becoming the norm in today’s world, industries are relying on Industrial Engineering techniques not just to improve productivity but also to generate best practices that would equip companies to deal with competition. Continuous improvement for higher productivity of manufacturing and operations to increase the value of a product and service is the key role of Industrial Engineer. Some of the sharpest minds graduate from the National Institute of Industrial Engineering (NITIE, Mumbai), as skilled professionals that improve industrial efficiency and productivity to become part of some of the best industries both in India and across the globe. Since its inception, NITIE is at the forefront in supporting many industries in solving their complex problems through industry outreach activity.
NITIE is also associated with various industries for cooperative research through summer internship, field projects, consultancy, and management development programs. The students under the joint mentorship of Faculty and Industry Guide are contributing to improving the bottom-line of many organizations. Summer Internship Projects(SIP) are mainly focused on cost reduction through waste elimination, quality management, Inventory control, warehouse productivity, Material Requirement Planning, productivity improvement through automation, Lean thinking, Logistic, Supply Chain Network, and Industry 4.0 technologies (viz. IT, Machine Learning, Artificial intelligence, Blockchain, Data Analytics, etc.) to name a few.
Some of the projects undertaken by the students of NITIE have resulted not just in a rich learning opportunity for students, but also in eliminating considerable nonvalue added costs, thus resulting in significant cost reduction. A project completed for a well-known FMCG company for its warehouse problem. Project addressed many issues of warehouse management like dock productivity, worker synergy, parking issue, material analysis, planning of pelletized load to a particular distribution centre, etc. to increase warehouse productivity by 15% amounting to an annual saving of $65,000. For this, the Methods Improvement tool of IE has been used to map the warehouse processes, which are then analysed to arrive at the proposed solution.
Effective inventory management is essential for firms to stay lean and efficient. However, inventory holding could have strategic implications, especially for the auto industry, which is at the cusp of BS-VI implementation. In this context, firms need to be extremely careful while holding ageing inventory, which may have to be phased out. This was done through designing a dashboard to track down the aging of inventory at the plant as well as at the organization level. Concomitantly, the NITIE intern worked to automate the process of scheduling more than twenty thousand parts that are procured regularly for more than 300 variants of various commercial vehicles. Initially project carried out a gap analysis of the existing system in executing the MRP run, identified parameters for the successful generation of schedule, carried out a pilot run by updating the part master data file and designed a process flow chart for implementation. The project has demonstrated on a pilot basis for 15 vendors during the stint of internship and formulated a roadmap for the True MRP Run for the whole list of plant vendors on a phase by phase basis. The project enabled the global auto manufacturer to track the inventory levels on a real-time basis and generate schedules to the vendors, minimizing the manual intervention of buyers and streamline the whole scheduling and procurement division.
While focusing on efficiency and productivity, firms cannot undermine sustainability. A project done in the consumer durable segment achieved the twin goal of cost reduction through optimization of processes and sustainability through the reuse of packaging. In the project, the summer intern analyzed the inbound logistics operations of a company to reduce the landed cost of raw materials. After As-Is analysis of the Inbound Logistics Network, the project recommended changing the current route for importing, shifting from LCL (Less than Container Load) to FCL (Full Container Load) for certain commodities and checking the feasibility of reusable packaging for imports, etc. with a cost savings of approx. ₹ͅ 1,00,000 per container. This stood testimony to critical thinking skills that gave the firm cost optimization advantages while delivering on sustainability goals.
Another favourite and exciting domain of NITIE students is the management of a supply chain network. A leading FMCG organization wanted to expand its operations overseas by analysing the existing supply chain infrastructure along with growth plans and propose a long-term supply chain network strategy. After analysing the current scenario, the NITIE intern set up a virtual network of the supply chain by considering existing factory locations and potential locations, contributing to most of the demand for new sites of factories & distribution centres. Project developed Procurement, Manufacturing and Distribution models to compute procurement cost, make cost and distribution cost for any possible procured item from any point to being manufactured at any plant, and distributed to customers through any route. The internship project recommended factory consolidation from 10 sites to 7 sites with an addition of 2 new cross-docking hubs giving a potential annual savings of 15.8 crore INR, with YOY incremental savings and a payback period of three years.
A nascent area that has enormous potential in the supply chain is the Goods and Services Tax (GST), which avoids the cascading effect of taxes hence resulting in significant cost reduction for the end-user. GST provides an opportunity to restructure the distribution networks for potential cost saving and creating a competitive advantage. An award-winning internship demonstrated the application of IE tools like Clustering, Load-Distance analysis, MILP in reducing the number of warehouses from 35 to 27 with minimization of total transportation cost by 8%; decrease in average primary & secondary transportation distance by 14% & 6% respectively with improved service level and simplified tracking and monitoring of primary and secondary supply routes using an MIS Dashboard.
NITIE has, with time, ventured into projects that involve innovation, product development, or technological breakthrough in all the sectors, be it manufacturing, technology, software, logistics, or services. This has helped NITIE in aligning with the dynamic market needs, culminating in strong industry ties while also helping in bridging the gap between academia and the industry. Students apply the concepts they learn to analyse business processes for productivity gains and also setting benchmarks for industry standards. Through these outreach projects, NITIE leverages its student base for knowledge sharing and make them industry-ready by giving them opportunities to become tomorrow’s practice leaders. Thus, NITIE constantly endeavours to reach its industrial stakeholders through its student force for bringing in business transformation and contributing its bit in NATION BUILDING.
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Disclaimer: This article has been produced on behalf of NITIE by Mediawire team.