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During these trying times when the industry is heavily affected with economical issues came up the pandemic called Covid 19 and disrupted the industry completely. We at Industrial Automation Magazine have taken an initiative to bring the industry together and share their viewpoints so that others reading can take measures accordingly to have minimal damage.
Disclaimer: The views expressed in interviews are personal, not necessarily of the organisations represented.
JP Singh (JP) has led and grown businesses in the JV/MNC/Indian MNC environment at
Fisher Rosemount (now Emerson Process Management), Yokogawa Blue Star and Larsen &
Toubro for over 30 years A Chemical Engineer from DCET, Chandigarh, he worked in the
early part of his career, at the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC), Mumbai. JP joined
a 1980s ‘start up’ Rosemount India – a JV of Emerson Electric Company – that had a
market-leading suite of process instrumentation products. He headed Sales & Operations at
Rosemount India for over 17 years, driving Sales growth & Operational excellence as GM
and thereafter, VP&GM. Post this he led the India JV of Yokogawa Japan for 5 years and the
Electrical & Automation Projects Business of Larsen & Toubro Limited for around 10 years.
In all of these outstanding enterprises, JP’s focus was on building a robust revenue engine,
getting the organisation client focused and growing sales. The challenge of achieving this
consistently, over time and over varying economic cycles was something that energised and
drove him over the years.
Short answer – it has. Both unaware and unprepared. However, it is not as if the world had
not been forewarned. WHO has for several years now predicted and cautioned that the world
is not ready for a pandemic, should there be one, like the 1918 ‘Spanish Flu’. Not just WHO,
countries – including India – have not spent enough on critical health care and capacity
creation to deal with such a pandemic. In the 2000s, we have had Ebola/Swine flu or SARs
and H1N1 – and these had a higher mortality rate than COVID-19 (approx 3-3.5% globally
as we speak).
This is an unprecedented event and there has been nothing like this that businesses have ever
known or experienced. In my work life, for instance, there’s been the plague in Surat – late
1980s, and then the others in the new millennium, which were referenced earlier.
The impact on business is there for us to see on our screens and in our businesses every
day/hour/minute. In the short term, clearly the impact is hugely negative in line with the
spread of the Virus. When countries and markets are able to see trends that appear to suggest
declining rates of new cases that’s is when businesses will begin to focus on opportunities. So
one could say this might be ‘the medium term’ as you call it. It could be two months or 3
months or even 6 months, depending on trends in Virus dissipation and emergence of
cures/vaccines. In the longer term, as the Virus impact and there will be an end be it even a
year- that's when the pick-up – whether gradual or steep will commence.
By anticipating and planning for such pandemics as people and nations worldwide continue
to relentlessly assault the environment.
Spend on healthcare in India needs to be dramatically increased with particular focus on
creation of ICU capacity, Ventilators and PPE (Personal Protective Equipment for healthcare
workers and Doctors). From current levels of 1.5 % of GDP, this needs to double and stay
there. This will also have a large collateral benefit in job creation – so needs to be done.
In a word, the answer is Yes, they are certainly more effective than self-declaration – which
was the norm for people arriving from overseas. Its true that costs are relatively high but its
demand and supply – the more thermal screening is resorted to, even in normal times – the
better it would be. Some duty incentives on import of critical parts like thermal cameras
would also help bring down costs, plus lower indirect taxes.
Going by early trends and feedback from family, colleagues and clients – it looks as if
productivity from ‘work from home’ is truly high. This, in spite of most people having to
contribute to ‘house work’ as well as ‘workplace work’. It could probably lead to a shift in
work culture overall – with both employees and managements realising that ‘work from
home’ is enhancing employee engagement, enhancing productivity, containing travel and
transportation costs, etc. One could go on and on but I’ll leave it to readers to contextualise.
Not every work role nor any one-size-fits-all ‘formula’ will emerge but a realisation of cost-
benefit and engagement-benefit could potentially drive this trend upwards. What actually gets
implemented post the crisis, will, of course, vary from Industry to Industry. In the automation
industry, a fair bit of design and proposal related, systems engineering and project
engineering work can effectively transition to work from home. A true Digital India, with
faster, more reliable broadband will be a key enabler for the shift to take place, sustain and
grow.
Probably. The crisis could encourage more people towards ‘Lights out Manufacturing’. Such
manufacturing is certainly not unknown. For instance, Fanuc has been operating in this
manner since the early 2000s. There are also several accounts of this mode of manufacturing
being used in the manufacture of Plastic Moulding Machines (humans are still needed to load
the production line). Having said this, given the investments needed, the availability of good
work forces and the like, only the larger players in a sector, particularly those having to
produce high volumes, could possibly be encouraged to try this as a future manufacturing risk
management strategy.
Governments, Businesses and Individuals will take away several lessons from this crisis. For
Governments, investing to plan for and equip the healthcare infrastructure, the need for over
reaction to a crisis instead of waiting for the crisis to hit us (Italy and most of Europe are
examples of the latter. For Businesses, it would reinforce some traditional lessons: staying
liquid, intense focus on customers. Plus enhancing by orders of magnitude both digitisation
as well as ability to operate on line, paying intense attention to disaster management and
retraining work forces to operate in environments which are dramatic and unprecedented- be
it through simulations, gaming or war games. It would not be an exaggeration if one were to
say that the world order in its entirety would need to up its game on manging a crisis for
which no playbook exists.
#April 2020 Covid Special
To say the world is passing through trying times is to state the obvious. Also evident is the fact that for too long the world has been ignoring the warning signs of environmental degradation fuelled by human excesses and greed. But this is no time for ifs and buts, nor recrimination. Instead, the crisis should be used as an opportunity to make the required course correction to make the world a safer place for all living beings, and the ecological balance, restored.
Industrial Automation invited a cross section of industry leaders to offer their views and possible course of action as a way forward from this situation, even as governments across the world and the people are trying to make sense from the still evolving scenario.
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