Mumbai, 6th May: In an era where digital transformation is no longer a choice but a necessity, the electronics manufacturing industry stands at the forefront of innovation and adaptation. Navigating this transformation requires a strategic approach that aligns with industry trends and embraces emerging technologies. At the heart of this transformation is the cultivation of executive presence and a growth mindset within teams, fostering continuous learning and development. Ultimately, leadership plays a pivotal role in setting the tone, raising the performance bar, and motivating teams to excel in this dynamic landscape of change and opportunity.
Join Mr. Harmeet Singh Bahra, Digital Transformation Lead, Head New Projects, at Optiemus Electronics Limited. in conversation with Mr. Marquis Fernandes, who spearheads the India Business at Quantic India, as they delve into innovative strategies driving digital transformation in the electronics manufacturing industry in India. From fostering a culture of continuous learning to leveraging real-time transparent data for operational excellence, Mr. Bahra shares insights into aligning with industry trends and customer needs while ensuring organizational growth and customer success.
Mr. Harmeet Singh Bahra has more than 23 years corporate work experience and has seen the IT evolution and how IT has transformed the businesses over 2 decades. From simple end point computing to complex data centre operations, he has been involved in creating teams, processes and workflows to enable all stake holders and departments leverage the power of connected systems. In his current role as a digital transformation lead, he is heading a large team at OEL and bringing about smart tweaks and integration between various legacy applications and modern low code no code tools to provide real time data solutions to various stakeholders.
Can you outline your approach to driving digital transformation in the electronics manufacturing industry in India? How do you ensure alignment with industry trends and emerging technologies?
Digital transformation is must for electronics manufacturing industry across the world. Manufacturing is a traditional industry and hence systems deployed once do not undergo major change or upgrade as the time goes by. This leads to creation of systems silo in the organisation and such systems though complete in themselves, do not talk to each other. Therefore connecting the dots becomes a major bottleneck area for electronics manufacturing companies. Hence our approach is to connect our systems in a manner that they are able to pull data from anywhere and make it available at a place, at time and in the form it is required.
We have internal innovation committee that consistently evaluates latest trends and study emerging technologies to come back with small use cases that solve a certain business problem. Once these pilots are successful we look at bringing scale at organisation wide level.
How do you cultivate executive presence and a growth mindset within your team and organization? What strategies do you employ to encourage continuous learning and development?
21st Century Humans Skills – Executive Presence and Growth Mindset are two key human skills that will make organisations successful in a work place that has not been connected so well, so cohesively in the past. We conduct internal workshops on both these skills and take our team members through various workshops, project plays to help them become aware of these skills and also master them over a period of time. For example the starting point would be just to make people aware whether they have a fixed mind set or growth mindset.
We encourage continuous learning by various training programs that are organised as per the training calendar and also help our members upgrade their knowledge through external trainers, resources available.
How does real-time transparent data contribute to the success of operations at Optiemus Electronics Limited? Can you provide examples of how transparency and data-driven decision-making have improved efficiency or quality?
Data is the new oil. We have been hearing this phrase for a long time now. For us – Availability of right data at right time to right audience in right form is the key to success. Real time transparent data helps us keep everyone informed in the value chain. Be it internal teams, our customers, suppliers or partners. Electronics manufacturing is a complex process. It involves people across time zones, different cultures and work styles. Availability of the data in right form is the magic. Supply chains (reduced time), Material Planning (correct ordering), Production (produce only as much is required), Customer Support (efficient customer handling) and Customer Information Systems (provide the data to customers as per SLA) all are fed the right information, at the right time and in the right form to enable data based decisions.
How do you ensure customer success in the electronics manufacturing industry at OEL? Can you discuss your approach to understanding customer needs and delivering value-added solutions?
Customer problems and customer objectives are our objectives. We work cohesively with our customer teams for joint success. Our engineers are working continuously to make improvements in the process so that not only they become more efficient, but also lean so that there is less wastage and more produce for the same effort invested. NPI is one area where we work very diligently with our customers before we commit to mass produce. Our NPI process is system driven and our endeavour is to connect the NPI process to mainstream data systems so that we can study the production data from the beginning. We try to automate the production processes recommended by the customer to bring in efficiency and reduce human error.
As a leader, how do you demonstrate your commitment to raising the performance bar and setting an example for your team? Can you share a specific instance where you led from the front to motivate your team?
A leader is as good as his / her team. One of the key things that I look for in my team members is to identify each and everyone’s strength areas and areas to improve. Through consistent, constructive feedback and timely training interventions we have created a culture of co-create, co-win and continuous learning. In my view, 99% of people come to learn, work and have fun at work. If as a leader one is able to address all these three aspects the teams in not time will be a composite of high performers. I as a leader ask them difficult questions to enable them think critically, assign them problems and work closely to enable them find solutions.
To know more about us / publish your article, reach us at
www.quanticindia.com
marquis@quanticindia.com.
