Theme 1 Work Program 3 RDPS Rural Distributed Production System *This work is being carried out under the IU-ATC project funded by the Department of Science and Technology (DST), Government of India and the UK EPSRC Digital Economy Program.
Rural Distributed Production System Project Team Sudha Raj Parasakthi Pallavi Mentor: Prof. Ashok Jhunjhunwala (IIT Madras) Guidance: Suma Prashant, Lakshmi Vaidyanathan ROPE (Industrial Partner) Abstract Explore avenues for using ICT to enhance productivity of rural based distributed production centers Automated system to monitor stock movements, production and quality from anywhere and thereby reduce costs, improve productivity
Background and Motivation Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) growth crucial to development of rural India Rural distributed production centers model Day-to-day challenges with respect to manual tracking and monitoring Travel across centers Lack of MIS data/reports Our goal to enable empowerment of rural India by providing technical support and innovation to businesses S 2 S 3 H S 1 S 5 S 4 Spokes rural distributed centers Centralized hub (urban) ROPE is a company manufacturing natural fiber products, empowering women and providing sustainable livelihood Similar model of distributed rural production centers and urban HQ having similar challenges ROPE HQ, Chennai T Kallupatti Madurai
Challenges faced by distributed production centers Raw material Sample Tracking Sheet <Company Name>, <Location> Packaging & Delivery Semi- Finished goods -I S.No. Emp. Name Production Center Name Team Name Output Date Wages Signature Manufacturing Process Finished Goods Semi- Finished goods -II Semi- Finished goods -III Manual data collection disconnected workers Difficult to monitor Stock depletion situations, Attendance tracking, productivity Manual QC, recapturing difficulties Supervisors need to be on the move constantly
Objectives To develop feasible and scalable solutions using ICT To develop an application that will help reduce costs and enhance productivity To develop an application that will give access to complete records/enterprise db server through mobiles To develop a full-fledged application to do Centralized monitoring and tracking of stock and production Attendance tracking Report generation
Research Question & Methodology Can ICT be used to leverage: cost savings to such businesses Support feasible and scalable solutions Why mobile applications? Ease of use and availability Scarcity of PCs Can simple mobile applications help in improving productivity and reducing costs in their businesses? Central HQ Center 3 Internet Center 1 Center 2 Supervisors Workers
Methodology contd.. Three components GPRS, Voice & Web GPRS Voice Web Web Reports Data component mobile application to be used on GPRS enabled mobile handsets, Forms for stock movement updates from unit to another Forms for daily Production output by each employee at each unit Voice component to be explored in the next phase Web component - Reports
Current phase Implementation Authenticated Supervisors update Stock and production data use forms on a mobile application Online report generation Attendance per unit, per employee Stock consumed Productivity
Results The mobile application was evaluated on the field by supervisors(4 supervisors and 1 production center in-charge) in ROPE s production center at T.Kallupatti near Madurai T Kallupatti Madurai Training Introducing idea of mobile app Demo to Supervisors Supervisors found the application user friendly and provided feedback The response time was good and the network delays were within admissible limits Overall, the application created a positive impact
Lessons learnt Make it simpler and easier to use Pre-population of data Less data entry with more backend calculations Different components for different users (mobile app for supervisors, web reports for managers)
UK Relevance In England, 9.5 million people (19.3 % of the population) live in rural areas, compared to 39.7 million (80.7 %) in urban areas According to Ofcom, mobile reception and 3G coverage are still weak in some parts of rural UK The hub & spoke/distributed production model may not be relevant in UK, but Contract Productions are happening in the UK and also other parts of the globe ROPE like organizations: http://blackdownbabes.co.uk/default.aspx products and selling through Farmer s markets, Village markets or Fairs. No online shopping http://www.purethoughts.co.uk/ Natural Products, Online shopping using different payment methods, but not using the mobile RDPS mobile application would be a feasible option for such businesses with Contract production model in rural UK can be used both for internal stock and production maintenance and also for sales.
Way Forward Conduct more field trials and gather feedback Implement changes to the application following an iterative model so as to make it more user-friendly and at the same time functionally effective Voice Develop IVR based Voice system to use for functions such as attendance marking Explore the possibility of using video for monitoring quality
Acknowledgements Mentor Prof. Ashok Jhunjhunwala (IIT Madras) Guidance Suma Prashant, Lakshmi Vaidyanathan Business Analysis Guidance Vijay Rangarajan, Sreejith (ROPE) Department of Science and Technology (DST), Government of India and the UK EPSRC Digital Economy Program for funding under the IU-ATC project
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