India's largest apparel manufacturer, Shahi Exports, is looking to transform existing business processes and models with multiple technologies like a multi-cloud approach, computer vision, predictive analytics, Virtual Bots, traceability, and augmented reality.
The 50-year-old organisation is focussing on major business drivers like growth, cost, sustainability and experiences involving customers, employees and stakeholders to take the company to the next level of growth..
Shahi Export Group’s chief technology officer, Puneesh Lamba told iTnews Asia that the company is partnering with startups and digital solution providers on a multi-cloud strategy to enhance operations and also improve a lot of key performance indicators (KPIs), thereby impacting their top and bottom line workforce.
Lamba said the company intends to address existing problems with the help of technology and crowdsourcing of ideas to deliver value to customers.
This will see the firm using computer vision and analytics capabilities to improve efficiency and productivity.
Shahi operates 65 manufacturing facilities and three textile mills across 10 Indian states and has a workforce of over 100,000 people.
The company expects to reduce travel time for customers and enable them to virtually visit and audit manufacturing plants using their augmented reality solution.
For instance, the company uses bots based on intelligent process automation using repetitive, rule based, predictable processes (RRP) to be automated after making them leaner and smarter.
“Around 20 percent of my teams are virtual and non-human, called the Shahi bots,” Lamba said.
He added that these bots are used to carry out monotonous tasks like data entry where they could be operated with a defined algorithm with source and destination.
“These are crucial in helping us focus on creative things,” he said.
Digital twins
Lamba said the company has co-created digital twins along with a startup to reduce turnaround time for sample approval for those samples where touch and feel is not highly significant.
“We could successfully reduce the approval time from six weeks to just two days,” he added.
The company is also exploring approving costs with bots. If a new proposal is quoted beyond the specific margin and cost, we intend to use machine learning and reasoning-based algorithms to help decision-making, he explained.
Moreover, Shahi also uses computer vision-based solutions for recognising faces, vehicles entering premises, factories and other monitoring operations. “We could ensure the highest accuracy in meeting various compliances,” he added.
Remote support
Shahi needed to manage a largely distributed workforce across its operations through its support desk agents. It looked to improve its IT infrastructure throughout its production facilities.
“We implemented an enterprise-grade solution to achieve seamless remote access and IT support management capabilities,” he added.
This solution has helped Shahi cut organisation costs and handle various operations like desk ticketing and multi-agent collaboration to solve issues faster and more efficiently.
It also has a built-in live dashboard to track agents' performance and create reports for comprehensive IT audits.
Speaking about the future plans, Lamba said the firm is planning to renovate its data lake with artificial intelligence (AI) and real-time insights to achieve a single source of truth.
Shahi is working along with 10 startups to build a digital ecosystem to achieve sustainable growth. “We've also started doing some experiments with ChatGPT and I am sure to find use cases and integrate them with our KPIs,” he concluded.
