27-06-2013, 03:50 PM
L&T PRODUCT LIFECYCLE MANAGEMENT
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INTRODUCTION
More than seven decades of a strong, customer-focused approach and the continuous quest for world-class quality have enabled it to attain and sustain leadership in all its major lines of business.
L&T has an international presence, with a global spread of offices. A thrust on international business has seen overseas earnings grow significantly. It continues to grow its global footprint, with offices and manufacturing facilities in multiple countries.
The company's businesses are supported by a wide marketing and distribution network, and have established a reputation for strong customer support.
L&T believes that progress must be achieved in harmony with the environment. A commitment to community welfare and environmental protection are an integral part of the corporate vision.
Customization for profit
The company takes care to customize every product according to the specifications of its customers. Every product is unique with an individual design like an 'engineer to order' business. Timely delivery is very important to many of its customers. And being able to bring products to market more quickly was the key for L&T to increase profitability.
Globalization spurs the change
In the early 90s, after the economy opened up and the company began to attract clientele from other developed and developing countries. This called for a radical change in the style of manufacturing, operations, and conducting business.
Since these clients expected world-class products with no room for consideration, and expected timely completion, the company felt the need to manage the product lifecycle better.
Before the open economy, L&T's clients, which were mostly Indian companies, allowed products to be delivered within 16 months. But after the economy opened up, the company realized that most international companies expected delivery within 12 months.
Efficiency at the enterprise level
To achieve a shorter delivery cycle, all the business departments in the company, which was based out of Powai (Mumbai), began activities aimed to promote efficiency in the delivery cycle. And the departments created customized software tools and applications to manage their businesses.
"This resulted in the decrease of the delivery cycle to around 12-14 months," said Shenoy. "But our customers' expectations began to grow and they expected delivery within 10 or 11 months."
L&T's objectives
The main aim of the PLM solution was to manage the entire product lifecycle. It also had to reduce delivery periods and shorten the fabrication cycle-time.
The company needed to have a comprehensive system that reached across its extended enterprise of customers and partners to collate data from 7,000 drawings, 50,000 documents, schedules, purchase orders, O&M manuals, and applications like AutoCAD and Office. It also wanted to enable its executives to approve versions, routings, specifications, and to authorize actions throughout the product lifecycle.
"The number of drawings and documents were growing at a rate of 900 and 15,000 per annum respectively. There were a lot of data islands with redundant and duplicate data. Data volumes were creating problems with ownership. Different functions were using different terminology and were referencing the same data differently. Archiving and retrieving data was also a big problem," explained Shenoy.