ADDRESSING THE NEEDS OF

Hearty Welcome to
BEL’S PRIMARY CUSTOMERS

Shri. G. Mohan Kumar

Secretary - Defence Production
Agenda
 Introduction

 Engagement - Collaboration with Foreign R&D houses for

development of Technology

 Agile R&D

 NC-NC Demo

 Study of Stage Gate in Development Process

 Conclusion
 Introduction
 Strategy Meet held on 12th Oct 2018 at Navi Mumbai

 Three topics were discussed

• Addressing the needs of BEL’s primary Customers
• BEL’s current business model vis-à-vis the Growth Plan
• Investments in R&D

 Team comprising of CS, CRLs and GM, PDIC was formed to deliberate on
4 topics related to R&D

 Papers were drafted and submitted to GM(SP) on 7th Dec 2018

 Presentation being made in this MCM for the following papers

• Engagement - Collaboration with Foreign R&D houses for
development of Technology
• Agile R&D
• NC-NC Demo
• Study of Stage Gate in Development Process
Engagement/Collaboration with Foreign R&D Houses
for
Development of Technology
 Introduction
 The current technological environment, globalization and intense
competition have created a scenario of uncertainty in business
environment for Defense PSUs like BEL.

 To maintain its relevance in Defense market, BEL needs to adapt to the

changing expectations.

 This requires exploring new avenues for collaboration and Business

Diversification.

 There is also the need to focus on either futuristic technology which do

not exist or to develop innovative product ranges based on upgradation of
existing technologies in India.

 With the foresight of the trends in market needs, collaboration seems to

be an optimized approach to deal with technological advancements and
competitive forces.
 Proposed Policy
 BEL has to draft & Finalize Policy for attending & visiting foreign R&D
houses & Technology seminars.

 Inviting foreign experts to give talks to teams and in R&D conclaves/Tech

Symposiums so as to spread awareness of new technologies among
greater technical manpower.

 Specific Foreign R&D houses catering to newer & cutting-edge

technologies not available in India needs to be identified.

 MOU’s, Technical Collaboration Agreements (TCA) and Teaming

Agreements need to be signed to partner with relevant foreign R&D
houses.

 Many IITs have collaboration with foreign universities. These

collaborations to be explored and exploited.
 Proposed Policy Contd…

 Collaborations to be explored with foreign companies having R&D setup

in India to harness their technical expertise outside India.

 Demonstrate in Def Expo forums and setup demo stalls.

 IPR issues needs to be solved so that these technologies can be utilized

after realization by BEL.

 Mechanism of transfer of technical capability to be finalized.

Agile R&D
Five Trademarks of an Agile Organization
 Presence of “north star” i.e shared purpose and vision embodied across
the organization.

 Work through a network of small, empowered Teams.

 Use rapid decision and learning cycles

 Have a dynamic people model that ignites passion

 Use next-generation-enabling technology.

 Proposed Policy
 Identify Chief Technology Officers who can foster their associated
technology work.

 Have a technology oriented work force who are independent of

Projects/Products & Work on R&D only but can be deployed to projects
on need basis.

 Teams to break down technology areas in smaller sub-areas which can be

realized in shorter duration.

 Accelerated procurement process of Components/Tools/Infra required for

R&D activities to setup.

 Capability building of teams to be faster through provision for online

training to be facilitated.
 Proposed Policy Contd…

 Team to be setup which identifies new technologies in line with BEL’s

Vision & Mission which the R&D teams shall research.

 Under recommendation of D(OU), D(R&D) to designate one of the R&D

heads to oversee agile R&D groups in the D&Es of Units/SBUs.

 Cloud based dynamic resource sharing among D&E expert groups for
addressing specific developmental needs.
NC-NC Demo
Issues and Challenges of NC-NC Demo
 The trials are often highly expensive and a strategic decision has to be
made whether to participate in the bidding process.

 Also, if it is known that a ready solution is present which is better than the
competition, then effective strategy has to be utilised to pass the lowest
bidder test.

 In some cases, no formal Trial Directive is issued which leads to addition

of requirements during conduct of PoC.

 The Orders may vary depending on its size; no standard policy exists for
conducting PoC.

 The number of resources and the duration for their deployment for PoC,
logistics support for difficult sites are other issues which needs to be
formalized.
Issues and Challenges Contd…

 Allocation of Funds for conduct of PoC is a time consuming process and

the fresh procurement of hardware to be used for it along with the
software tools involves lot of time, if required.

 With regard to the PoC which is to be conducted in foreign land, the

equipment is required to be sent for trial evaluation. This puts additional
financial burden and risk of hardware getting defective in transit.
 Proposed Policy
 Following needs to be considered to decide how to deal with the NC-NC
PoC.
• Cost to Company
• Duration between start of development and Demonstration
• Importance of Customer

 Vendors participating in the procurement process could factor in the cost

of trials in their commercial quotes.

 Separate fund allocation for PoC based on the percentage of turnover

should be year marked along with a separate policy for sanctioning PoC
files

 We need to establish criteria for the POC, and agree with our customer
that if these criteria are met, a deal will take place. We need to establish a
timeline for this to happen.
 Proposed Policy Contd…

 Product Support team to be extended to Marketing Support which in turn

will manage and assists in PoC in long run.

 Policy for procurement of hardware centrally be made and allotted for

PoC.

 The team will maintain a common pool of hardware for use in PoC and
work in tandem with the concerned SBU.

 Usage of available hardware and software tools should be made use of

wherever possible, until unless a dedicated hardware is called for.

 To reduce cost of demonstration for large software system, initial one-time

investment could be done in terms of deploying latest technologies such
as centralised cloud or virtualised platforms infrastructure in our premise
so that computing resources for demonstration could be provisioned
quickly.
 Proposed Policy Contd…

 For all future NC-NC software demo the same infrastructure could be
used by re-provisioning the virtual machines.

 This virtualised infrastructure could be used for multiple purposes such as

building test setups, development setups, system administration needs
etc.
Study of Stage Gate in Development Process
Concept of Stage-Gate System Contd…

 Stage gate process is a project management technique in which a project

is divided into distinct stages or phases, separated by so called “gates” or
the decision points where an assessment of the quality of an idea is
undertaken.

 Analogous to a production process for a manufacturing unit wherein each

process is sub divided into sub-processes and in between each sub-
process there is quality checkpoint or the gate.

 A quality criterion is set for each gate and deliverables of the sub-process
must pass it to move to the next sub-process.

 Hence the stages are where the work is actually done and gates are
validation checkpoints that ensure that quality is maintained.
Concept of Stage-Gate System Contd…

 The stage gate process breaks up the innovation or development of any

project into various manageable stages that could be individually
reviewed in sequence.

 Decision points, also called ‘Gates’, are put up at the end of each stage.

 A process at particular stage is required to meet the passing criteria of its

gate before it could progress to the next stage.

 At each gate, one of the following decisions is made:

• Go: Project is good enough to move on to the next stage.
• Kill: The project is not good and should be shut down
• Hold: Project to be put on hold for now and to be resumed later.
• Recycle: The project is good enough to develop further with some
changes.
Concept of Stage-Gate System Contd…

Gate Gate Gate Gate Gate

1 2 3 4 5

Stage 2
Stage 0 Stage 1 Business Stage 3 Stage 4 Stage 5
Discovery Scoping Plan Development Testing & Launch &
Concept Validation Implement
ation

Generate Concept Project Design and Integration Product to

Idea Development Planning code of Testing market
product System Testing
Field Trials
Customer
Testing
Proposed Modified Stage-Gate Approach

 Proposed modified Stage-Gate Model for BEL’s Development

Gate1 Gate2 Gate3 Gate4 Gate5 Gate6

Stage 0 Stage 1 Stage 2 Stage 3 Stage 4 Stage 5 Stage 6

Discovery & Business Preliminary Module Critical Testing & Launch &
Scoping Plan Design Design Design Validation Implement
Concept ation

Generate & Concept Preliminary Module Critical Design Integration Product to

Develop Idea Development Design of product Design of and code of Testing market
product the product System Testing
Field Trials
Customer Testing
 Proposed Policy
 Merging of discovery and scoping of project.

 Splitting the development stage into three distinct stages of preliminary

design, module design and critical design.

 SBU head of the product may nominate at the start of the project, an
external review committee comprising of TP and SP senior rep along with
the concerned CTO for stage gate review of all product development.

 This external review team may have reps of marketing and finance also.

 The external review committee should have access to a list of items at

each gate which can be reviewed to take a decision.
 Proposed Policy Contd…

 At each stage gate, the Stage-gate Review Committee shall take a

decision whether to approve the project for the next stage or not.

 In case the decision is not favourable then corrective action can be

recommended.

 This corrective action may be to restart the project to the beginning of that
stage and after some duration if still the stage gate decision is not
favourable then the project needs to go to an alternate plan.
Conclusion
 Conclusion
 The four papers are presented in this Management Committee Meeting
for approval.

 After approval, a high level team may please be constituted for final
recommendation to Director (R&D) for implementation.