Manufacturing Magazine April 2018 | Page 87

ASIA

Number of employees at Nokia the product and when it ’ s ready for mass production , you go elsewhere .”

A global company with a local focus “ This will not only transform the supply chain landscape at large , it will also create opportunities for unique regional players ,” explains Bo Jensen , Head of Delivery Operations Asia Pacific & Japan at Nokia .
“ If we look at it from a local perspective , it also allows us to adapt to local requirements , so this would be advantageous for regions such as Indonesia , for instance , where there ’ s a lot of discussion about local content and requirements . It creates a lot of flexibility and it also provokes our customers to take a bigger step ,” he comments .
Sitting in Nokia ’ s gleaming regional office in Singapore , Giloth and Jensen passionately bounce back-and-forth as they talk about the latest exhibitions where they will showcase this ground-breaking concept . Sitting in the epicentre of the bustling business district , Nokia has firmly cemented itself as a major player in the manufacturing space . The ‘ conscious ’ factory may have seemed futuristic but it is possible - and Nokia made it happen .
However , this state-of-the-art concept didn ’ t come about in an instant . It is the result of over a decade ’ s work , and it is just one step in what has been a complete rootand-branch transformation of Nokia .
A high-level supply chain transformation On this journey , the organisation faced three successive challenges that created what Giloth called an ‘ existential moment ’ for Nokia – one which would bring about one of the biggest supply chain transformations in the industry . In the past two years , Nokia jumped from 101st to 15th in Gartner ’ s Top 25 Supply Chain ranking , an extraordinary turnaround that the research firm hailed as ‘ triumphant .’ It has been a lengthy process for both the company and its people but Nokia is keen to keep up this momentum .
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