Starting from sales and aftermarket value service offerings, till continuously driving operational and supply chain excellence, VECV has digitised multiple functions throughout the value chain.

In its continued vision towards driving modernization in the commercial vehicle (CV) industry, VECV has positioned itself as a first-mover in digitalising critical functions to transform into a customer-centric organization.  The company has made significant investments in its digitization initiatives, which were further accelerated during the pandemic to offer pioneering value-driven solutions, for all stakeholders. Starting from sales and aftermarket value service offerings, till continuously driving operational and supply chain excellence, VECV has digitised multiple functions throughout the value chain. The digitalization has led to a significant reduction in the overall cost of ownership for consumers by providing better and market-ready products and differentiated experience by consistently ensuring superior uptime to our customers.

Digital manufacturing and product development
VECV embarked on its digital transformation journey in the manufacturing domain with the extensive usage of advanced technologies like AI and ML-enabled IoT frameworks. The state-of-the-art manufacturing execution system was designed to enable faster decision making on shop floors, providing meaningful insights to improve overall line efficiency, productivity and quality.

In designing, for example, VECV supports technologies like multi-mechanical CAD, 3D printing and rapid prototyping. The entire digitized product life cycle is inclusive of product build history, serialized part inventory and software versions, with a complete picture of the product allowing service function to analyse the product’s status and performance for scheduling preventive and predictive maintenance.

With 100 per cent tracking and traceability of all assembly operations, the company witnessed a significant reduction in time required to identify the root cause issues. Predictive maintenance of assets has also significantly helped in reduction of downtime and improvement in asset efficiency. Additionally, real-time visibility of inventory and resources have helped reduce overall operational costs, thus helping deliver quality products at a low cost.

Products and solutions with advanced tech
In July 2020, VECV took a giant step towards modernizing the CV industry by offering 100 per cent connected BSVI products in the country. With BSVI, the electronic content on trucks has gone up. The company decided on connecting 100 per cent range of their trucks and buses to help the customers manage their vehicles and transport operations more effectively, by leveraging the data generated in the truck combined with connected services capabilities. Eicher’s advanced telematics system is fully integrated into the vehicle electronics and is engineered as a part of it. With Eicher Connected Services, the focus is on solving problems. It is going beyond presenting the information through an interactive portal and apps, like the traditional telematics solutions currently available in the market that focus on providing insights which drive actions that drive profitability.

For instance, Eicher not only detects over-speeding or excessive idling but also unravels how it affects their fuel efficiency. For transport operations, most customers use digital solutions of third party players across their multi-brand fleet. There are both start-ups and digital players disrupting logistics with innovative solutions. With Eicher’s ‘Collaboration platform’, our customers can avail services of these players by using the data from Eicher telematics system. Eicher has also partnered some leading solution providers who are already integrated on its platform.

The company’s aspiration is to become the Uptime Company of India by consistently ensuring superior uptime to customers and all the functions (frontend and backend) have been aligned towards the delivery of this objective and addressing customers concerns proactively. The uptime support capability was created as a control tower and real-time support center. The objective was to move from reactive management to active management so that Eicher responds within committed repair SLAs. Six unique services enabling high uptime to customers were identified and a co-located team from various functions are working closely to support uptime.

Digitalized partner interaction
With a robust frontline enterprise platform (UDAAN) in place and supported by an integrated digital ecosystem, Eicher has been able to drive the retail organization capability transformation. For workshop responsiveness, various digitalization tools powered by the analytical framework and leveraging mobility solutions in a simplified and intuitive manner were rolled out at dealerships to drive the performance enablers. Processes high on manual interventions were digitalized in an innovative manner which led to overall productivity improvement. These features made it easy for dealers to adhere to the processes and create an end to end transparency of workshop performance.

Achieving a threshold performance has become a criterion for dealer-wise Uptime certification, for the company’s flagship 24×7 uptime facilities offering.

Various elements of training had been identified for ensuring requisite technician competency at dealerships for BSVI readiness. Overall competency framework was revamped and the focus was developing competencies on mechanical, product, electrical and especially around diagnostics skillsets. Additionally, role-based structured learning program was rolled out for 4500+ dealer technicians and BSVI diagnostic training was conducted for 220+ front end VECV team. This was enabled through new methods of learning like byte size, tech contest and self-eLearning content supported by guided learning management platform.

Digital customer and aftermarket initiatives
Traditionally the transport business was driven by physical connect with customers and this was a hindrance for effective customer engagement with the onset of lockdowns. While the customers wanted to avoid physical meeting to maintain social distancing, the VECV and channel team too were bound by frequent lockdowns restriction and personal safety concerns. Online meets and webinars were conducted to ensure critical aftermarket assistance with minimal customer impact. The workshops started operating with a lean team and taking all safety precautionary measures. A remote call centre team was set up to monitor vehicle breakdowns & seamlessly coordinate for breakdown assistance between the Uptime centre and dealerships. This was enabled through real-time call allocations based on geolocation services and assignment of the service request to the nearest breakdown vehicle.

For contactless aftermarket operations, various initiatives were kicked-off across workshop repair process, channel communication, documentation and training. VECV enabled digital payments solution for customers to overcome the dependency on physical connect for service payments. As an alternate service channel, WhatsApp for business is enabled for self-serviceability for all aftermarket solutions and seeking prompt breakdown support. Eicher introduced a new way of customer connect through virtual platforms for digitally engaging with customers for meets and product launches. This became even more effective as it helped the company to maximize the customer reach seamlessly.

Digital HR
VECV has always been keen on embracing technology for deploying best in class digital HR solutions for empowering employees and providing a unique digital experience in their operations. While digital collaboration has been one of the areas VECV was working prior to the current situation, the tools deployed have helped in the continuation of business operations without any hindrances. Employees have been able to continue working from home or remote locations seamlessly by using the collaboration tools that were deployed as part of the organizational strategy and roadmap.

Being an employee-centric organization, the company’s focus on employee learning and development remained unhindered, with a delivery of more than 10,500 man-hours of online training through internal and external trainers covering over 3,000 employees. Overall employee performance-related processes were completed in time with a closure rate of 95-100 per cent, which was a testimony of the effective productivity and engagement level of employees. It also showcased that the engagement levels in the organization did not dip during the current pandemic.

Eicher has been known for offering world-class technology, be it through its 100 per cent connected vehicle range with advanced telematics or industry first 24×7 uptime facilities. The application of technologies beyond product offerings further reiterates Eicher’s forward look approach to staying relevant in the digital world.