And back!

So, I get back to core strategy planning. I guess this is where I am destined to be. Whether I go west or east, north or south, I always end up at the core of Business Processes. Out of the blue, a Siemens vendor comes to know about Knovantage and before I know, I am working on restructuring his entire manufacturing unit. And, as before, there is a change involved here. For someone like me who has always been in the Services industry, manufaturing is more raw, complex and demands a lot of attention and FOLLOW UP! Manufacturing is more complex, needs apppropriate skilled workforce and demands a lot of controlled monitoring. Ironically, it is percieved to be the easiest of the processes to be managed, atleast by the process owners. Now whether it is percieved as an easy process or taken 'easy' is subject to people involved. Most important part - you can call it the backbone - is managing the information flow and timely analysis of all such information from input to dispatch. As a matter fact, most manufaturing units operate on hypothetical data atleast 35% of time. If at all, there are inconsistent means and ways of data collation and analysis. Further, efforts to derive a conclusion and apply it toward a business objective is a distant dream. All these shortcomings and more, make process - redesign a must in the manufacturing sector