THRUST AREAS FOR TECHNOLOGY 

The thrust areas for indigenous technology would include :

• Development of indigenous machine tools and equipment for testing, equivalent to international standards of precision.

• The suitability of these machines in the Indian working environment would be the critical factor.

• Materials are available indigenously. However, the quality of tubes in particular, is not to the satisfaction of the industry. Moreover, consistency in supplies is also not experienced. Cleanliness of material needs to be improved to a great extent to enable the industry to take basic advantage of quality raw material. As regards forged rings, suppliers meeting sufficient quality standards need to be encouraged.

• Operational expertise of a very high caliber has to be achieved. Maximum precision in the process, minimum handling damages, and maximum cleanliness should be observed to get the desired quality of bearings.

• Fund at levels consistent with world ‘standards’

• Bearings Steel technology roadmap

• New steel initiatives, disruptive technologies

• Better & more collaboration from government in R&D funding for bearings and components sector

• Restructure project assessment

• Establish policies that strengthen Indian manufacturing in the global market

Customer Increasing Expectations :

With a cross-section of bearing customers to discover how supplier requirements are changing in today's intense competitive landscape. Here's what we heard, loud and clear:

• The constraints of global competition in 2005 require bearing consumers to find critical leverage points outside the plant walls to address cost challenges and solve day-to-day operational problems, often with reduced capital, operating and labor expenditures.

• The specialist distributor, one with a core focus in bearings, is a strategic partner who brings new value every time he walks in the door. That's a key difference for separating the specialist from the generalist, for separating a value-producing engagement from a time-wasting sales call.

• Bearing consumers who follow best practice methods with benchmarks leverage their specialist distribution resources more strategically and effectively than those who use more traditional vendor management tools.

• Innovative bearing consumers are tapping into the service expertise, knowledge and experience of their specialist distributors at multiple levels to achieve lowest total cost, stabilize supply, improve processes and much more.

• Increasingly, the levers with the largest value return are knowledgeable vendor specialists, who fulfill specific needs in six critical areas:

1. Product Availability & Cost Control

2. Process Improvement

3. Service Reliability

4. Benchmarking Assistance

5. Measurable Value

6. Intangible Value: "The Personal Touch"

Key takeaway: Leading bearing consumers are moving from transactional to strategic relationships with key suppliers today. These specialists are viewed as value generators, not cost loads. Traditional core distribution values (logistics, transaction processing, etc.) remain critical measures, but are part of a larger set of metrics. Knowledge-based services provided by bearing specialists – specialized product knowledge, knowledge of specific plant/production/process challenges, corporate procedures – raise the level of engagement to yield a higher return on investment.

Additionally, It has been  researched key supply chain trends in 2005 to identify how the best manufacturing and process users of bearings address critical challenges.

Today's global competitive landscape is putting unprecedented demands on production/process managers and maintenance supervisors. While a global economic recovery has spurred a rise in production rates, plants and facilities are almost universally squeezed with fewer internal resources. Fewer maintenance and purchasing staff are managing a reduced operating budget and capital spend. Internal skill sets that traditionally provided a knowledge base for design, production, operating and maintenance support have been depleted over the past five years.

Plant/facility managers have had to find alternate and smarter ways to improve production reliability, labor efficiency, material optimization, warranty and service management across the asset base, including bearing usage. To address this challenge, most organizations have instituted some form of vendor management program as part of a larger continuous improvement initiative. These initiatives include supply chain optimization, vendor rationalization, asset lifecycle management, Six Sigma and lean process improvement efforts.

 These industry and competitive forces have driven a few key trends: 

• Corporate management is demanding hard-cost savings, yet often remains resistant to supply-chain innovations, such as outsourcing inventory management, that could significantly reduce transaction and holding costs. Plant managers, maintenance supervisors and purchasing professionals today are finding creative ways to meet tougher corporate requirements and operating environments.

• The ability to outsource services and skill sets traditionally managed in-house has in fact become a new and critical skill set for managers. These managers are increasingly evaluated on vendors' overall ability to perform, including emergency service, technical support and on-time delivery.

• Innovators use a broader set of evaluation tools to measure return from vendor relationships than they did just a few years ago. Total cost of ownership, total cost reduction and other metrics have become innovator vendor benchmarks.

• Innovators are integrating key suppliers into their organizations and leveraging this specialized knowledge to achieve continuous improvement goals. Gone are the days when a large pool of vendors was managed in an adversarial manner to achieve purchasing department goals.

 Enduring & Changing Value of Distribution:

The traditional core values of distribution haven't changed, but their relative importance clearly has as alternate channels, sourcing options and competitive pressures have mushroomed in recent years. Why?

Bearing purchasers and end-users are being squeezed from all sides. The rising cost of raw materials is pushing production costs steadily up, while customers downstream steadfastly resist attempts to pass those costs along in higher prices for products that use bearings or production processes that involve bearing replacement. This research identifies how certain distribution functions retain their importance today. Other distribution services, sometimes called "value-added," have become key tools to help bearing customers meet today's tough requirements.

• Best-in-Class bearing consumers clearly differentiate in their ability to extract the service-oriented skill sets of their distributors to compensate for fewer internal resources. In short, they look beyond "traditional" distribution functions – sourcing, inventory, credit, sales/fulfillment, technical support – to obtain more complex and deeper value-producing capabilities. The relationships are deeper, better, and more cost-effective than more traditional approaches.

The functions and value a distributor provides is unique in the mix of product and service capabilities delivered to the market. At the very foundation of distribution value is its logistical function as a conduit of products from manufacturer to end user. Traditionally, the time-place functions of distribution dominate any discussion of value: Get the right product to the right place at the right time at the right price.

Distribution has always been unique in the delivery of a combination of products and services to provide solutions to customers. But the combination of services to achieve this basic goal has always had an almost infinite number of variables, depending on very specific customer operating environments, conditions, and even cultures. There is a wide array of pre-sale, sale and post-sale functions and services that are generally bundled with the sale of product.

One research indicates core distribution functions continue to be necessary and high value services, but there is increasing focus on what is often termed value-added services, as outlined in the graphic below.