WHAT IT TAKES
Last year, we, at Dynamic Manufacturing, did a good number of webinars. I would go as far as to say that we were the first magazine in the Indian manufacturing sector to have started doing them. We began doing our leadership webinar series in March 2020, that is, just around the time the countrywide lockdown restrictions came into force.
The idea of doing this was born out of a deep, uneasy sense of foreboding that was descending upon the industry in the early weeks of the pandemic. All of us in the industry were looking for answers; seeking any sort of clarity amid the Covid-19 gloom, and so we turned to industry leaders for help through these webinars.
In December 2020, we concluded these leadership talks with a two-day conference, just in time for us to break into holidays and shut the door behind us on, what, in every sense of the term, was a dreadful year.
During these leadership discussions, the one theme that emerged time and again was the following: How can our manufacturing industry increase its share of GDP from the current 15-16 percent?
A whole host of ideas were discussed around this subject, which, if documented, would be enough to fill a bookshelf. But if I had to do the difficult task of sharing a quick summary of these ideas, I would choose to do it through a great perspective shared by Shailendra Goswami, the CMD of Pushkaraj Group.
During a discussion on the subject, Mr. Goswami said (from what I recollect) that if we look closely at the various models of industrial growth adopted in the postwar era by Japan, South Korea, and in recent years, China; two distinct models emerge. One is the low-tech, high-volume growth model and the second is high-tech, low-volume growth model.
These economies deployed one, or combination of, these models depending on various factors, chief among them being the presence of a sizeable domestic market, inherent tech capabilities and talent, infrastructure, and their respective position on the growth curve.
Typically, economies with a large domestic market employ the low-tech-high-volume model first and then move up the value curve to the high-tech-low-volume model. An example of this is China, which first created a local supplier ecosystem for mass manufacturing, and in recent years has come to play a major role in high-tech areas whether it is in 5G, artificial intelligence or electric vehicles.
India, he said, is in a unique position to make use of both the models at once: being home to the world’s second largest market and having a vast supplier ecosystem give us the needed advantages for the low-tech-high-volume model; and our skilled workforce and the rich legacies of world-class engineering organizations put us in the right position to pursue the high-tech-low-volume strategy.
That brings me to the point of this article. The best exemplar of the high-tech-low-volume model is India’s aerospace and defence industry. Backed by world-class product design and development capabilities and the strong legacies of HAL and ISRO, India’s A&D industry is fast developing into a global manufacturing hub.
In the latest issue of DMI, we have featured the journey of a company that best represents this vision.
IAMPL (International Aerospace Manufacturing Pvt. Ltd.) – a JV between the British aerospace and defence major, Rolls-Royce, and India’s iconic aerospace engineering company, HAL – has evolved into a category-leading supplier in the global A&D manufacturing space in just about a decade.
IAMPL's success story holds several important lessons for industry stakeholders, and the most important one is this: We have all that it takes to be a global manufacturing force.
Stay safe. Stay resolute.
(A Reprint of Aanand Pandey’s Editorial published in Dynamic Manufacturing India magazine’s Jan-Feb 2020 Issue)
