I started with a scooter and a problem worth solving
In 2000 I was one year out of engineering, in Aurangabad, building fixtures for the two-wheeler industry. Today Sigma Toolings is India's largest maker of specialised custom toolings, and the factory runs on data that our own people built.
Shashi Thete, Managing Director, Sigma Toolings India Pvt. Ltd.
The short version
I am here for the cause of smart manufacturing. I will share what worked and what did not with anyone who asks, because a Smart Factory movement is worth more to Indian industry than any one company's success. Shashi Thete
We got smarter because we ran out of other options
By 2010 the growth that felt good on paper was hurting us. Quotations took too long. Margins slipped. Orders that should have been routine became escalations. Buying more machines would not have fixed any of it.
So we started measuring, one problem at a time, usually the problem somebody could not tolerate any longer. Dashboards came later. The first year was mostly arguments about what was true.
- Decisions moved from opinion to data, starting with quotations
- Operators and supervisors got the numbers before the managers did
- Software came last, after we knew what we were trying to change
The factory got smart because the people did
Every operator at Sigma submits improvement ideas through our own system, Karma 2.0. A mentor scores them, and the best ones are recognised in front of the whole floor on the second Friday of the month.
Machines are easy to buy. Getting a shop floor to believe that its ideas will be read, scored and used takes years, and it is the part of the transformation that competitors cannot copy from a brochure.
What I do now
Speaking
How to build a Smart Factory, for owners, managers and working supervisors. Plant sessions, industry events and colleges.
Advisory
Sitting with manufacturers who are at the start of their transformation, mostly on the sequence: what to do first, and what to leave for later.
Research
Testing what is next in Smart Factory on our own floor before recommending it to anyone else.
Industry bodies
Working with MCCIA, CII and other associations to take Industry 4.0 beyond the companies that can afford consultants.
The community
Building India's first community for Smart Factory practitioners, so nobody has to learn all of this alone.
The book
Transforming into a Smart Factory answers the 17 questions that come up on every shop floor, using seven years of Sigma's mistakes as the evidence.
If you are starting this journey, talk to someone who has finished one
Whether you run a 20-person shop or a 2,000-person plant, the first year looks the same. I am happy to tell you what it cost us.