Panel Discussion at the CFI–MMA Manufacturing Leadership Forum, “Realising India’s Manufacturing Ambitions: Capabilities and Mindsets that Matter”

Lakshmanan M

Executive Vice President, Larsen & Toubro

I must confess I don’t have much manufacturing experience. I have broadly been in IT services, but over the last fifteen years at L&T I had the opportunity to run factories in some locations when I was in L&T Defence. The earlier talks were one-way. This session will be two-way, so at any point, put your hand up and the mic will come to you.

A few months ago I read Jensen Huang’s view that the physical AI race will not be won in labs or on the shop floor alone, but by the companies that connect the two. That means all of you in manufacturing. Physical AI means humanoids that perceive, sense and act on their environment, and that is just around the corner. Factories have started with robots, and several billion dollars of capital is flowing into robots for logistics and mining. Travis Kalanick has raised $1.7 billion for Atom, and Jeff Bezos is backing another venture with a staggering $12 billion. AI is moving from behind the scenes into the physical economy at unprecedented scale and speed.

When the rubber hits the road, this is no longer about software changes that an engineer can push out to fix a bug. Humanoids need thousands of hours of systems engineering and 23 physical certifications or tests before they can be safely redeployed after an issue. Making humanoids intelligent is no longer the question. Making them commercially viable is.

So I want to explore a few themes. How do we prepare as humanoids enter our factories? How do we embrace AI? How do we build new-age factories where humans and humanoids work together? What leadership skills will we need, with synthesis, not just analysis? And how do we brand this industry, as IT did?

When I moved into IT in the late nineties, after nine years in the railways and telecom, my CEO, GS Krishnamoorthy, asked me to fire people just after Y2K. I felt miserable. Had I left a government job for this? When I met him, he asked what my job was. I said HR head. He said no, you are here to transform the lifestyles of middle-class Indians. That vision stuck with me, and our lives did transform. What is the equally compelling vision for manufacturing?

Ali Asger S J

Director, Polyhose India Pvt Ltd

Polyhose is a thirty-year-old organisation. I joined straight after my twelfth and studied engineering while working there. I have been with the company since we were six people. Today we are roughly 6,000. I was lucky to start in manufacturing from day one. When young engineers went to college, most did not know what an extruder was. I studied polymer technology and worked on those machines and with suppliers, and that gave me a head start.

The question is not why young people aren’t coming into the industry. It is what we are doing about it. Josh grew to 30,000 people in three years. It took us thirty years to reach 6,000, with our own challenges in retention and growth. First, get young people in and give them responsibility early. When Polyhose started, everybody was young and not scared of making mistakes. That was a big secret of our success. We made people factory managers and put them in charge of operations, even outside India. They perform much better with responsibility.

Second, create a work-friendly environment. Today the first question in an interview is, can I get a five-day week? Manufacturing needs people on the shop floor, so we introduced flexible shifts, with alternate weeks of five and six days. Third, they care about career development. We bring in outside trainers for life skills, including financial management. Fourth, skilling must go beyond the degree to managing people, situations and conflicts. That is how we create a moat. Finally, we bring young engineers from the south and north and give them good accommodation, so they don’t worry about where they will stay. That ecosystem helps them and helps us.

India and the China plus one opportunity:

Over the last five or six years, all our customers have taken this seriously because of the geopolitical situation. Customers who were never interested in India now want to de-risk their supply chains and sourcing, and we must be ready. We have a very short period, with Vietnam and Thailand also moving in. India needs to develop rapidly. Everybody wants a tick mark saying they have a China plus one strategy, and as a country we must capitalise quickly.

Preparig manufacturing leaders for tomorrow’s complexity:

We must move from an inward-looking to an outward-looking organisation. We have been taught continuous improvement through the Toyota production system, lean and Six Sigma. But how do we make the quantum leap, going from zero to one rather than one to two? Get young people involved. They take their information from a different feed than we do. One of them once told us we had similar capabilities and should start a new product line, and we moved into a new vertical.

Kanika Krishna

Chief Operating Officer, Sak Abrasives Limited

This is a very relevant topic. We are not experts, and I want to say that right from the start. We are still figuring it out, just like all of you. One common thread, and it is a human thing rather than a generational one, is that we all want to feel part of something bigger than ourselves. Company branding matters, because you may not realise how large your company is when you are focused internally. Leaders have to communicate better that we are all part of something much larger.

We are also guilty of working in silos. We all log on to the same call from the same location, when we could simply sit in a conference room. The younger generation is very individual too, and that works against collaboration. They also know what they want much faster, so the first 30, 60 and 90 days plan matters. They want reassurance, and over-communication is better than silence. Knowing what they want quickly is not a bad thing.

Digital literacy matters as well. How much data are we getting from our machines? How much are we reporting? Daily reports can feed the communication they need. We are slowly getting outside our comfort zone on this. We run regular trainings, because upskilling is very important, and we give people global opportunities as much as possible.

Can technology help India’s manufacturing to leapfrog:

It is definitely outside our comfort zone. In our company, AI is mostly used for report generation and email drafting. How do we push that further? We work multiple hours on a report that AI could produce in a couple of minutes. It goes back to training and upskilling, so that all of us are not scared of the model but embrace it. I do think we can do it.

The hiring mandate for leaders:

It has changed. I used to look first at how many years someone spent in one company, because I wanted stability above everything. Younger people know what they want faster, and they don’t mind moving around until they find it. So I usually bypass the resume and interview instead. Attitude and drive matter far more to me than grinding-wheel experience. They don’t need to come from the industry if they have the right attitude and drive.