Introduction:

Management today is never the same what was yesterday. And India, undoubtedly, has been one place that has witnessed radical changes in Management – be it Man Management, Money or Material Management. And it goes without saying that concept of “Lean” in all fields is the name of the game. Lean Organization, Reduced Vendor base, Shorter Production Cycle, Market Micro-segmentation and Skinned Distribution Points are all globally accepted jargons of the present day cost conscious world.

The world’s largest combined cycle power plant on a single barge, and, India’s first and the only barge mounted power plant set up at Mangalore coast set up by GMR Group, a renowned name in Infrastructure Sector. The plant had all the traditional elements of Lean concept – A lean human organization structure, lean operation cycle, a single-segment raw material supplier and a single segment market for its Power.

Add to this was the Open Warehouse System, Where many companies today try to squeeze costs too hard in trying to meet its own requirements, GMR aggressively promoted Open Warehouse System to ensure Accessibility to Operation and Maintenance Teams – thereby provide Product Reliability to end customer – Supply Power on Demand.

Traditional Hiccups: 

An oracle based ERP system put in place centrally integrating the entire Supply Chain Network. In an Open Warehouse System, the conventional Window-Issue system is replaced by “Take and Post” system where each member can take material but is expected to record (t)his (trans-) action in the ERP system, the lone Warehouse member providing value adding services such as Accounting, Auto Replenishments and key MIS to Top Management. In any case, authorized Heads would approve all such recorded transactions the same day.

As is for any other industry, non-manufacturing units in particular, Material Indents for B class materials to some extent, and particularly C Class materials have been the maximum. Following is the indicative figures reflecting the phenomenon: