Mr. Ramasubban is post graduation in Industrial Design from IIT, Bombay | Self-employed | Design Consultant Cranes and Railway equipment

Expertise in cranes and Drop pit table for railways. Currently working on design packages for cranes. Probably the only person to have worked as a crane designer for 20 years and another 20 as buyer engineer at Essar Steel Ltd.Expertise in Steel plant layouts and debottlenecking services. Achievements are too many to be compressed.

 

For manufacturing SME should it rely in IN_HOUSE production or OUTSOURCE ?

There are conflicting thoughts about this subject, but in my opinion IN-HOUSE is much better than OUTSOURCING

Benefits of INHOUSE Facilities

1. Quality : with in- house production you can assure a quality product. The quality lies in your hands. With outsourced you might be compromising on quality as it may not be feasible to eventually check each and every item.

With inhouse manufacturing you can adopt systems and procedures to have quality assurance and move ahead of quality control.

1. Cost : One of the prime reasons is cost control. It’s a simple logic, if you are outsourcing something the other person will of course charge an additional X on the amount. Unless and until it is something which you are not capable of producing.

1. Timeliness : in today’s date timely deliveries are very important. With outsourcing one loses control over the production and is normally on the wimps of the vendor.

It can also result in Semi finished goods waiting for a small part to be fitted for the assembly. Hence loss of time as well as money with piles of inventory of semi finished goods lying at your end.

1. Secrecy : intellectual property your drawings and procedures are at risk ones given outside for manufacturing. However hard you may have clauses of protection you might have still chances of leakages.

So in my opinion it is best to have INHOUSE MANUFACTURING Facilities.

Since i am from Crane Industry. One of the major european manufacturer of Cranes and Hoists has 100% in-house manufacturing facilities, to the extent that they are manufacturing Motors also in-house. Advantage the motors are specially designed for crane duty application, the length of the motors are much more that the standard IEC frame size motors. Hence Kone has an edge above rest of the manufacturer and hence is the world leader today.

What Guidelines do you wish to give to the young entrepreneurs of SME?

I believe there is always extra potential which is not being utilised. Whether it is a industry, or a human, or a machine.

Coming from Design background of cranes i am aware of the immense margins and safety factors we consider while designing the cranes. So a crane which is supposed to lift 25t is normally designed for 30-35t easily in normal operating conditions.

Similar is the circumstances with a Industry. One should find out the immense potential in the industry and come out of the comfort zone being enjoyed stretch themselves and the industry for more and better results.

Lalu Prasad Yadav during his Era as railway minister applied this logic very well and turned railways to profit making. He recalled that there is overloading everywhere, whether it is a bus or a auto so why can’t there be overloading in railways. He allowed 20% overloading and the results were changed within moments.

So stretch yourself and search for the hidden potential your industry have.

What is important aspect of Leadership to be understood by entrepreneurs of SME?

I believe that the entrepreneurs should as soon as possible develop second level of leadership in the business who shall manage the business professionally.

A professionally managed company runs much better than the owner driven, since the systems and procedures are in place and are followed. A CEO will training, delegation, work according to systems, hiring better talent, hold others accountable for results but encourages mistakes, cultivate culture, plan out BIG.

Whereas the owner driven company would be running without or partial systems, clarity, everyone is responsible for everything, negotiate everything, have a nose in anything and everything, everything starts from the owner and ends at the owner.

In my previous company Garlic Engineers, before my joining, the company was into losses. The owner of the company appointed one Mr. Khemka as the CEO of the company and gave the charge to turnaround the company.

Mr. Khemka although from non technical background and purely a commercial man, studied the financials and idealised that the only way to turn around is to reduce the weight of the cranes. He instructed and coached the design persons to reduce the weight of the cranes by 20% to 40%. It was then I was approached and appointed and given this task of weight reduction in the cranes. Soon we were able to turnaround the company from losses to profits.

There are many other initiatives which Mr. Khemka took, like entry into smaller capacity cranes segment and such.

So professionally managed companies are always more progressive than other way round.

What is the most important department in any organisation according to you?

In my opinion the priority is as below:

1. Marketing : marketing is the first priority, since today’s world is buyers market with the advent of internet, the knowledge is not restricted. Gone are the days where only 2-3 companies were competing. Marketing plays an important role in finding quality leads and conversions thereoff.
2. Design : Design is the most important after marketing as they are the key people how can convert a company from losses to profits. One should invest in the design persons. Research and development of new products, changes in the designs to ease production, lower weights of the assemblies are the key areas where design should be looking at.
3. Production : production and the related quality is the third most important aspect. Timely and quality delivery is an important and pre-assumed parameter for growth of a company. When you make a good product then the word spreads and nothing can stop you.

What according to you is the role of consultants in an industry?

Role of a consultant is very crucial for any Industries fast and exponential progress. Be it a preparation for quality systems or setting up a whole new plant, one should take advice of the consultants. The experience and the expertise of a good consultant can save you a lot of cost other than foreseeing and eliminating the future problems.

Consultant have a huge role to play.over specifying costs money and under specifying costs much more due to probable site troubles. An optimally specified crane will benefit the user in the long run. 

Mr. Ramasubban can be reached on www.nationbuilder.in for any additional comments or details required.

Thanks