Impact of technological changes on manpower

Abstract

Ordnance Factory Khamaria, Jabalpur, is one of the major ammunition production unit sunder Ordnance Factory Board, Calcutta. It forms an important dedicated production base to meet the requirement of the Indian Armed Forces with immense demand for sophisticated quality ammunition. The production facilities, which were inherited after independence, are outdated and outlived their lives. To be competitive in terms of quality, cost and delivery, the production technology has to change. In this context, a modernization plan has been made to replace the present production technology by the latest one. The other important factor in case of OFK is that there is going to be a continuous future loss of human resource because of retirement. Out of 9331 employees 3153(34%) is going to be retired in next 10 years. All the above factors have led to a need for human resource planning. In this project, an effort has been made to study the impact of technological changes on manpower. The scope of the project is limited to the Ammunition Component and Engineering division (ACE div.) and the impact on Industrial Employees (BEs).The methodology adopted is To study the present age and qualification profile of the Industrial Employees (IEs) in ACE div. To study the future loss of manpower in next ten years. Impact of technological changes due to modernization plan. Survey of 11 production sections in ACE div. based on present production load. To arrive at conclusion what would be the requirement of manpower i.e. Industrial Employees in coming 10 years and what should be their skills. The study has led to the interesting observations. 40% of the present strength (1358) is going to be wastage in next ten years. The present modernization plan has to be faster and to be further strengthened i.e. more number of machines have to be replaced by the state-of the-art one. It also shows ACE div. needs recruitment of 215 Industrial Employees (50% of wastage) in next ten years to meet the present trend of production requirement and they should have superior knowledge and skills, for example, knowledge of operation, maintenance and programming of the (Computerized Numerical Controlled) CNC machines(multi-skills). It also offers valuable input to the management about further strengthening of modernization process and human resource planning. The study can be extended to the whole factory.