TCIâs Contribution to Automotive Logistics
The TCI group has been walking alongside the Indian economy since 1958 while doing its bit in enabling quality logistics. Amongst the focus industries has been Automotive which was amongst the key beneficiaries of the liberalization in 1991.
The Automotive logistics is perhaps the most refined and advanced across the globe, largely due to two key aspects - the Assembly line concept and the need for Aftermarket for servicing a customer over the lifetime of the product.
The Assembly line concept gave birth to long standing relationships between OEM's , which becomes a logistical challenge for converging of say 1000 parts to make a car â€" at the right time. This has given birth to the JIT (Just in Time) and now many variants in each product has also made this JIT as Just In Sequence (JIS).
The progress from a Stores in Plant to JIT /JIS is not an easy one. It moves via steps through a VMI (Vendor managed Inventory) to finally a true JIT model. TCI Group is fortunate to be associated with the doyen of Production Logistics early on and partnered them to provide true JIT in the 1990's.
Today TCI manages more than a dozen plants as a Lead Logistics Provider, doing thousands of pickups by milk-runs every day and adhering to window times on a six sigma level, with a glass pipeline visibility across each SKU, Plant and Supplier.
This journey is not easy as it requires a cross functional team from Purchase , Materials , Plant , Finance,Logistics and IT to bring it together.
The Aftermarket or spare-parts in common parlance is another key area defining the Automotive industry's relationships with a customer -servicing him or her over a lifetime of the product.
With advancement in the vehicles technology â€" for reference India has progressed from no norms in 1999 to Euro 5 now -the need for servicing at an authorized center with the same speed as a local workshop gives huge responsibility to the warehouse for quick and accurate processing. TCI manages multiple such centers for many OEM's across the country
The most visible part of the Automotive Supply Chain are the huge trailers that carry cars, tractors, Earthmoving equipment and 2-wheelers. While a key parameter is On Time delivery, at TCI we have made safety our key attribute â€" Man, Machine and Material. To ensure the same, all vehicles are made as per the strictest law, we disallow night driving except in well-lit safe stretches or No-entry area and all vehicles are tracked 24x7 though GPS.
This has enabled TCI Group to be a trusted partner to OEM's and move more than 10% of CBU's produced in the country.
"Our mission  is to be the most admired service provider of Integrated Supply Chain solutions and to deliver value to our customers and stakeholders by adopting best practices and continuous innovation. This has helped us focus our approach to best practices and innovation," said Jasjit Sethi, president and CEO, TCI SCS.
"Our clients have benefited both in process optimization and cost transparency on long terms and in multiple value adds to optimize their profitability. A centralized control tower monitors all transactions ensuring that promises are kept," he further added.
As India's automotive industry emerges as the third-largest in the world by 2020's ,Group TCI is investing continuously to partner with the Industry towards new horizons.