The 7 Faces of Manufacturing

While growing up amidst early primary school textbooks, one of the key things we learnt was how manufacturing and related inventions had made the world a better place. Industrialization in mobility, electricity, oil and gas and many others – humanity owed its advancement to it.

Then came the secondary school books. We got to know that great nations are built on the power of manufacturing at scale. Germany, Japan, the US, the UK and a bulk of the developed world were what they were owing to manufacturing.

Then came my engineering, and we learnt how the progressive world had engineered processes that made manufacturing a lot more efficient. Be it the precise Swiss, the lean Japanese, the fine French or the complex German engineering: manufacturing was an art.

Then came my first professional introduction to manufacturing at ITC, an organization that prides itself on manufacturing excellence. Unlike in other institutions, the best of ITC talent was in the factories and rose to the top basis brilliance in it.

Then came my introduction to small-scale Indian manufacturing as an investor. I realized why the SMEs had been left behind. Inefficiencies, sub-scale, mismanagement, and fragmentation ruled. The sector, thus, was looked down upon as being tough on the wallet.

I landed then as a lender and raw material provider to manufacturing. One learning that I had is that it is amongst the most honest of sectors and a real breadwinner for real India. They always survive to fight another day.

As we at OfBusiness start our own foray (albeit small) into manufacturing, we draw upon our learnings of having seen it at its glorious best to the survival of the fittest. (We start) with the trust that if we get this move right, it will bring back the best of our country’s resources – capital and talent – to manufacturing. And the glory that follows.

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