Take paper away! Automatize operative systems to revolutionise the automotive industry
The automotive industry in India accounts for 22% of the manufacturing GDP and it is on the rise. Filling the cracks in production with the magic potion of innovation can turn out to be a huge success. Think7 provides solution to automatize the managing and coordinating systems in the whole production process in order to increase speed and efficiency. We met Zubin Jagtiani and Rajesh Jagtiani, respectively the Chief Operating Officer and the Chief Executive Officer of Think7 who told us their story.
Innovation
R: “We started two years back. We were already working in the automotive industry, but in different sectors. I have always worked in the management and marketing sectors in big multinational companies. Raghu, our Chief Technology Officer, is a software developer; whereas Zubin has his own factory. We all felt the need to work in a small environment where we could be innovators and not only responsible. The idea originally came from Zubin’s industry.”
Z: “The traditional system that controls the whole process of production is paper-based. The extraction of information from the initial design, coordination of operation, reports are all in a paper format which often results inefficient and/or incorrect. We spent some time talking with other people in the sector and found out that this was a problem shared by many. However, we could not find any existing Enterprise Resource Planning software that could suit us. So our current team came together and decided to do something about it.”“We realised that the main problem was that most of the Resource Planning software products were distributed indifferently any sort of company. My experience in the automotive sector taught me that, unless you are a big company, in most cases the software producer does not give you much attention. As a costumer, this was a thing that really stroke me.”
R: “One of the main problems of big companies is that they want to close the ticket as soon as possible. They want to conclude quickly their relation with costumers in order to show their efficiency. However, this often results in a very generic service which does not properly address the core of the problem.”
Z: “In the case of automotive industry, you normally see many people running around with paper giving instructions and reporting. We have taken that paper away and replaced it with any sort of electronic device. Think7 provides a completely automatic process. Our system reads all the characteristics of the initial design and transfers information to every part of the production. It is structured according to the International Standard Plan and it is therefore able to recognise every step of the manufacturing procedure.”
“The efficiency of this system is incomparably higher. It has the ability to detect if any parameter goes out of range and to stop everything after ten minutes that the anomaly is found. In the traditional system, mistakes are not visible until the end of the process. In other words, it is like if a doctor waits for the post-mortem autopsy of the patient to understand what the problem was, instead of trying to stop the pain as soon as it is noted.”
It works!
R: “ The simplicity of our products and the possibility of visualise their functioning on electronic devices makes them very popular. A very positive feedback comes from our costumers’ costumers, the final ring of the chain. In several cases they have come to our shop asking for our products and sometimes they want to propose them to their suppliers too! The quality of our products is the best publicity we have.”
So..let’s go global!
“This success together with the expansion of the automotive market is giving us much optimism for an expansion of Think7 at a global scale. In India this business is currently worth about 50mln USD and is planning to grow to 60mln USD by next year. This means more investments and need for innovation.”
Z: “Our aim is to go global and not that of expanding to other types of industries. We want to stay focused on the automotive industry because this is the only way to keep offering excellent quality. We have explored the aerospace manufacturing because it resembles the automotive one in terms of standard requirements, terminology, documentation and analysis.
The success of the big marriage
Z: “We can say that two main factors really helped to start up Think7. First, we did not need investors for financing the project as we did it ourselves. We experimented our software with my industry. Second, the team is a real energy and creativity booster. We are twelve people now working at the company and the key word is transparency. What we share among us is what we write on the website, what we describe to media and what we tell to anyone. Management meeting are open to anyone because clarity is at the core of success.”
R: “See, it is like a big marriage. If you join Think7 you cannot leave. You need to have a good reason to be part of the team. But once you are in, you will have fun! Also, like in a marriage we respect each other’s point of view, we talk a lot, sometimes we scream, and the result is that we come up with ideas that are the collective result of everybody’s thoughts.
Z: “ Our different backgrounds allow us giving always an outsider’s point of view when we discuss our ideas. When we talk we complement each other rather than overlapping each other.”
R: “And also...I married Zubin’s sister so there are other ties at stakes other than entrepreneurialones!”
