Key Highlights :
Tata Steel reduced online order delivery time from seven to three days.
It is powered by more than 600 AI and IoT models, enhancing efficiency, safety, and customer satisfaction.
Key Background :
One of India’s oldest and biggest steel makers, Tata Steel, has undergone a fundamental digital makeover to enhance performance and delivery of services. The company has integrated more than 600 AI and IoT models in its business, ranging from raw material sourcing to customer distribution. It has shortened delivery time significantly and enhanced efficiency and customer satisfaction.
Among the key thrusts driving this is the firm’s unified IT infrastructure, which brings together data from operations and locations. It is an uninterrupted pipeline through which acquisitions, new businesses, and mergers can align with current operations. More significantly, it allows for real-time analysis alongside customer-confronting platforms in order to create value in a continuous manner. Compass, DigECA, and Aashiyana—Tata Steel’s virtual gateways—provide customers the convenience of real-time end-to-end order tracking, convenience of post-payment, and electronic payment aggregation, simplifying the buying process and making it transparent.
Tata Steel Chief Information Officer Jayanta Banerjee has explained that digitalisation is not merely a technological advancement but also an integral component of Tata Steel’s long-run business model. The digital channels of the company are generating more than ₹500 crore of sales every month, which illustrates how effective this model has proved in winning and retaining customers despite enhanced competition.
These accomplishments have been enabled by early investment in digital core infrastructure. Tata Steel has upgraded cloud and security infrastructures, connectivity, and fitted sensors across its whole network of units. The platform enables sophisticated applications like AI-based monitoring, condition-based maintenance, and digital twins. Integrated Remote Operations Centres (iROC) have been another advancement that enables remote operation of mining and plant operations hundreds of kilometers away.
Also significant is the use of digital technology to increase safety for workers. Geo-fencing and video monitoring powered by artificial intelligence now track compliance and identify risky behaviors. Intelligent identity cards like “Suraksha” cards keep workers well attired in safety gear, limit access to restricted areas, and alert in the event of accident emergencies. All these have highly improved workplace security and working practices.
The advantages of this shift towards digitalisation include increased production efficiency, reduced energy consumption, and rationalisation of supply chain costs. And while Tata Steel appreciates the above-mentioned advantages, it also understands that the true challenge is inculcating a digital mindset within its people. In order to achieve long-term success, the organisation will have to drive data-driven decision-making into everyday processes such that digital technology gets ingrained in its organisational DNA rather than as a standalone exercise.
About the Author
Abhishek Roy
Abhishek Roy is a Managing Editor at Business Minds Media India.