Intellectual capital is critical to enhance the value proposition through development of unique and sustainable products and service solutions. The drive to better serve the growing infrastructure needs of India has spurred the adoption of new and improved technologies. The Company understands the importance of R&D and innovation and makes constant efforts to evolve and adapt to the changing needs. Resources to the tune of H41 crore are made available to a dedicated team of 155 persons constantly working to address these requirements. Intellectual capital helps the Company to realise its vision to 'Bring positive transformation to every life we touch'.
The Company believes that there is virtually no limit to becoming 'better' – be it related to products, processes, infrastructure or the surrounding world. Building on the core strength of efficiency, the Company is driven to achieve excellence through innovation, expertise, quality and operational efficiency. This is demonstrated by numerous improvement initiatives in the Company.
Intellectual capital also enables the Company to engage with the consumers, giving it an opportunity to learn about the evolving needs, as well as to communicate the advantages of using superior quality steel at manufacturing sites. The product, JSW Neosteel, helps achieve this objective.
The Company believes that it is important to deliver the product of choice to the consumer. Through JSW Shoppes and JSW Explore, the Company is combining sales and services for providing the desired product to the end consumer.
y-o-y increase in sales
The highly-competitive sector has begun witnessing a range of digitalisation efforts. JSW Steel is applying these to all critical areas of manufacturing operations, supply chain, and sales and marketing; and is collaborating with global firms to facilitate the journey. This process began with the identification of projects under Wave 1, and thereafter the implementation of the same. These helped the Company establish the power of analytics and automation, while simultaneously getting people involved in the digital agenda. Since the Company was able to identify the potential for value addition from these projects, several other new ones have been identified and are currently being implemented.
Continuous Optimisation to Realise Excellence or CoRe was launched in FY17 as a breakthrough improvement methodology focusing on cost management. The purpose of the initiative was to generate ideas by involving every employee in the plant, besides suppliers and functional experts who were working at the site in other functions. The initiative was a KPIbased improvement approach, applying concepts of compressible, semi-compressible and incompressible costs. The scope included generation of ideas, evaluation of ideas, preparation of an action plan for implementation along with responsibility and target dates, and handover of the file to the respective HODs for implementation. The programme yielded benefits of about `227 crore in the last two years.