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Operations

Manufacturing: the enabler of future growth

In 1988 Secure Meters started the first electronic electricity meter manufacturing in India, in The City of Lakes – Udaipur, Rajasthan. Initially we started with a handful of people at one location and produced just a few hundred meters a year. Over time the company has grown and expanded its manufacturing facilities to three locations in India – in the states of Rajasthan, Himachal Pradesh and Gujarat, as well as establishing facilities in Bristol (UK) and Melbourne (Australia). Currently, cumulatively, these state-of-the-art facilities employ about 3000 people and produce more than 5 million products every year, covering the entire range – from analogue, to credit, pre-payment and smart meters, and controls. These products cover all segments – residential, commercial and industrial, as well as the generation of energy. The production numbers have steadily grown over the years, riding on the success of the smart metering revolution in Australia and the UK.

The products supplied must conform to a target failure rate of less than 3 ppm and on-time delivery performance of greater than 90%.

The operations team at Secure serves all our business units with products and services at a cost point that makes them competitive. The products supplied must conform to a target failure rate of less than 3 ppm and on-time delivery performance of greater than 90%. The operations leadership team demonstrates results through focus on execution, the discipline of getting things done. The emphasis is on creating an empowered, vibrant and forward looking team through adequate training on every aspect of organisational life. This is reinforced by good manufacturing practices (GMP); production systems, processes, technologies; statistical process control; variability reduction drive using techniques (Design of Experiments) developed by Shainin & Bhote and cross functional working. This learning percolates down through the organisation through knowledge sharing and skill development programmes.

Secure is playing a pivotal role in fulfilling the dream of creating a knowledgeable workforce across all of society

Training on the shop floor:

Secure Meters is thoroughly committed to fulfilling the dream of creating a knowledgeable workforce at all levels of society in India. A stark fact about the state of technical education is that only 17% of the engineering graduates in the country are employable (a report from Confederation of Indian Industry, CII). Of the ~1 million engineers that graduate annually, only 18.43% of them are employable for the software engineer-IT services role, while just 3.95% are appropriately trained to be directly deployed on projects. For core jobs in mechanical, electronics/electrical and civil jobs, only a mere 7.49% are employable (Aspiring Minds).

In addition, the operations team at Udaipur currently has more than 850 lady workers from the tribal belt of Rajasthan who otherwise would not have a means of earning a livelihood. This engagement helps them to stay in Udaipur and continue studying, thus furthering their career objectives.

Improvements are basically driven through a participative approach cutting across hierarchies

Satisfied customers and zero defect products and services:

To improve the quality of our products and delivery to our customers, we have adopted manufacturing practices that focus on reduction of variability across all stages of the manufacturing setup, by process adherence, using pre-control and positive control mechanisms. Improvements are basically driven through a participation approach, cutting across hierarchies, with measures like Kaizen and creating a happy, hygienic, safe and clean working environment.