Power Women who are driving the Manufacturing Industry

Women are no longer a rarity in the automotive and ancillaries manufacturing industry, be it the shop floor or that corner office. There’s no doubt about evolving mindset on the congruity of women amid machinery. Women have come a long way up the manufacturing ladder, in automotive and beyond.

Indian women are making more of an impact. Many more women are now gravitating towards engineering, leading to that many more being trained to be on the shop floor and understand machines. It is believed that women bring typical traits to the table that complement mechanics through innovation, integration and wiser decision-making.

We have found eight women who are in the driving seat within the manufacturing industry, and the environment they flourished in…

Anjali Anand Singh

Chairperson, Anand Automotive Systems

The family business was always familiar to Anjali Anand Singh, 37, despite being an overtly male bastion. Her confidence propelled her to the company’s apex governing body, the supervisory board, in 2009, just four years since she actively involved herself in the trade. She became chairperson in 2011, succeeding her father, Deep C Anand.

According to her, Women representation in manufacturing operations of the group has been 25-80%, depending on the nature of responsibility. With automation of processes, women have started considering manufacturing as career options. If there are HR policies that support, encourage and empower women, it makes it easier.

Singh proudly said that, at a few of their group companies, the shop floor has more than 70% women.

Arathi Krishna

Joint Managing Director, Sundram Fasteners

A summer’s stint in the human resources department of Sundram Fasteners (SFL) catapulted this Economics gold medallist from Madras University and Michigan University MBA to the position of manager (business systems and strategy).

They decided to align Sundram Fasteners with Japan Institute of Plant Maintenance and start working on total product maintenance (TPM) on the shop floor. She was the first person to meet Professor Yamaguchi and start the TPM journey for Sundram Fasteners.

Krishna admits automotive manufacturing has always been a man’s world but the trickle of women entering the shop floor and reaching top rung in manufacturing industries has increased to a steady flow.

According to her, Sundram Fasteners is now almost 10% women, compared with 1% ten years ago. She feels governments should provide more incentives for women to join manufacturing industries. After all, corporate have upped the ante in providing state-of-the-art shop floor infrastructure to make them as attractive as an office space.

Krishna pointed that all intricate assembly work handled by women in their factories.

Shobhana Ramachandhran

Managing Director, TVS Srichakra

The soft-spoken granddaughter of TVS Group founder TV Sundaram Iyengar stepped to the fore on family exigencies. She has been at the helm of TVS Srichakra, since 1986, though she didn’t start from the shop floor.

She said, she always wanted to work in the automotive industry. She didn't mind the conventional approach towards the industry, where the percentage of men is high. For her, it’s always been about the tyres and being focused on quality.

She feels many more changes are needed before the number of women in manufacturing increases such as fully automated plant so, it becomes easier for women to operate. According to her where manual work content is high, women find it difficult to work.

Sulajja Firodia Motwani

Vice-Chairman, Kinetic Engineering & Founder-CEO, Kinetic Green

Motwani is candid in pointing out that women comprise more than 25-30% of the shop floor populace in manufacturing within developed countries such as the US and China but scenario in developing countries are also changing. In two of her companies — Kinetic Communication, which makes electronic components for the automotive sector, and Kinetic Taigene Electrical, which makes starters — more than 80% on the shop floor are women. Five years ago, this figure was 20%.

Motwani began her career on the shop floor of a group company and feels strongly about it. She proudly points, “Productivity is higher and absenteeism lower when women are managing the shop floor. Women are better equipped to handle skill jobs involving plastics and electronics, where not much physical labour is required.?

Hemalatha Annamalai

Founder-CEO, Ampere

Though the electric vehicles (EV) industry in India is yet to experience exponential growth, Hemalatha Annamalai has managed to carve a niche for her company.

In a non-metro like Coimbatore, men typically run the business and women give the back-end support. In this case, it was the other way round, and it was a conscious decision based on the strengths of the founding team. Hemalatha looked at the business side of things and her husband handled the process, research and development.

Coming from a non-manufacturing background, she wanted to create a whole new manufacturing sector. Just not stopping there she wanted a lot of women to come in so, one of four employees at Ampere is a woman.

Mallika Srinivasan

Chief Executive, Tractors & Farm Equipment

Srinivasan joined the family business, but only after arming herself with an MA in Econometrics and an MBA. She has managed to take TAFE from the level of an Indian major to being the third-largest tractor manufacturer in the world, by volumes.

Srinivasan has expanded into fields such as farm implements, engineering plastics and hydraulic pumps. Srinivasan does not like to be singled out on the basis of gender, strongly believing that qualities such as work ethics, persistence, skill, competencies and leadership are not gender dependent.

In TAFE, they have capitalized significant domestic volumes and their special expertise of operating in the sub-100 HP segment. They have built on this strength to build scale and bring out an accepted product range in over 80 countries.

Lakshmi Venu

Additional Non-Executive Director, Sundaram-Clayton

Daughter of Venu Srinivasan, Lakshmi got involved in his businesses quite early — both, auto components maker Sundaram-Clayton and two wheeler maker TVS Motor.

Though not via the shop floor, she has made great inroads within aluminium die castings manufacturer and exporter SCL. In 2010, Lakshmi was inducted as Director (strategy) and whole-time Director of Sundaram-Clayton. The next year, she was made Vice President in charge of global business strategy. And in 2017, she was appointed as Additional Non-Executive Director.

With a Bachelor’s in Economics, a doctorate from Yale University and another Doctorate in Engineering Management from the University of Warwick, England, Lakshmi also coordinates operations funding and improvements in efficacy at the company.

Ramkripa Ananthan

Design Head, Mahindra & Mahindra

Ramkripa Ananthan is one of the leading designer in the Indian Automobile Industry. She started her career on the shop floor in Thermax, Pune.

She has shown that women are capable of doing anything they wish for, and she proved this as she became the only women design chief in the world who was given the responsibility to design a car. She helped Mahindra & Mahindra Limited to make one of the best Indian SUV's of all time- XUV 500. Even while designing, she spends time in the plant on the trim chassis final line, getting the parts and assembly perfected.

According to her, Plants are getting automated for better delivery. There are very few shop floors in the organized sector today that need the application of physical strength, which means more prospects for women in manufacturing industry.

All these marvelous examples clearly shows that, everyone brings value to the table, whether it's a man or a woman. It's time tested, If opportunities are provided to the women, they have all qualities to learn, lead, manage, create and flourish. In coming times will see revolutionary changes in all the sectors by women.