Small firms think outside the box to restart operations

MUMBAI: Small and medium enterprises are consolidating labour, using innovative incentive schemes and even redesigning assembly lines to tide over a labour crisis brought on by the Covid-19 pandemic and the resultant migration of jobless workers.

Labour intensive industries in the country, especially those in tier-2 and 3 cities, are unable to restart operations as most of their workers have migrated and the small workforce left behind is seeking higher wages.

According to industry trackers, the mid-scale companies are now implementing out-of-the-box strategies to tackle issues of labour and raw material.


Inox India, which operates three factories in Gujarat— in Silvasa, Kalol and SEZ—has opted for labour consolidation after facing shortage of welders and skilled fitters for manufacturing pressure vessels and related equipment.

“At our Kandla and Silvassa plants, we have 30-40% workforce from other states where we anticipate shortage of manpower for critical applications. We will be reallocating staff from other plants, especially skilled workers required for critical applications in fabrication,” said Deepak Acharya, chief executive officer of Inox India, one of the world's largest cryogenic tank manufacturers.

Many of these mid-scale companies are also reaching out for help in developing a strategy for manufacturing and managing workforce.

“In such a scenario, efforts like productivity improvement via work flow and time and motion studies, multi-skilling through training within industry (TWI) are more relevant now than ever," said Aakash Borse, founding partner, Faber Infinite Consulting.

Pune-headquartered Varroc Group, a leading automotive light manufacturer, is rejigging labour plans based on priority.

“In some critical locations, we are even importing labour from Varroc facilities in other cities and states based on our first month priorities. The focus is really to get labour into the facilities where it is most required. We have doled out new incentive schemes for labour willing to move,” said Arjun Jain, president, electrical/electronics at Varroc.

Some of the mid-scale companies are also facing the need to train the workforce on a war footing. “These companies believe that labour shortage is here to stay,” said Borse.

Others are adopting technology to reduce their dependence on manual labour.

Waterman Industries, a pump sets manufacturer, expects raw material shortage as well as supply line disruption.

And to deal with the constraints, they are redesigning assembly line and manufacturing processes. “At present, we have single-piece flow / uni-direction flow set up in the plant,” said Bharat Patel, Chairman & Managing Director at Waterman Industries . “We are working on continual improvement projects like Lean, 6S (5S + Safety), Kaizen activities, training, multi-skilling and motivate the team to improve productivity.”