Material managers bank on IT tools

Information and Communication Technology (ICT) has a major impact on productivity which is the single most important driver of per capita income, said G D Gautama, principal secreatary of micro and small scale enterprises and textiles of the government of West Bengal.

In this world driven by ICT, information infrastructure has become as important as physical infrastructure and our efforts should be directed towards bridging the digital divide, he said a seminar on 'Information and Communication Technology: Emerging Trends and Challenges in Materials Management', organised by the Kolkata branch of the Indian Institute of Materials Management (IIMM).

Gautama pointed out that in India 3.8 per cent of the GDP is spent on ICT as compared to 8.1 per cent in US, 10.4 per cent in Sweden, 8.4 per cent in Brazil and 5.4 per cent in China.

In his keynote address, S Radhakrishnan, managing director of Dishergarh Power Supply Company Limited (DPSC) stressed on the importance of ICT in today's competitive global environment and also recognised the acceptance of such techniques and tools in his organisation.

Speaking on the occasion, Bijan Kumar Ghosh, secretary of IIMM said, The present era is that of third generation information technology (IT) and ICT has entered the third phase of its collaborative business relationship to sustain the competitive environment worldwide.

"The share of the IT sector to India's GDP is set to rise from the current 5.5 per cent to 10 per cent by 2010 as the software exports from the country will touch $60 billion by that time. About 3 million jobs are projected in the IT and the ITes (information technology enabled services) sector by 2010", Suparno Moitra, regional manager of Nasscom said quoting a Nasscom study.

Talking on the role of ICT in supply chain management, Rajeev Mehta, joint executive president (logistics) of Grasim Industries' cement business marketing section, said, "IT has come to play a crucial role in streamlining the process of supply management. The dynamics of supply chain have undergone many changes and IT has been one of the key drivers of change apart from other factors like business environment, infrastructure and scale of operations."

ICT has many useful applications in supply chain management, agreed Saibal Mukherjee, head (supply chain) of the Haldia unit of Tata Chemicals Limited.

Mukherjee cited the instance of Fertiliser Monitoring System, an IT-enabled tool used for subsidy verification.

He also mentioned that connectivity to remote locations has been made easier by a software package called ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) System and GPS (Global Positioning System) has facilitated in transit tracking system.