Sugar Industry

Lakshya has requisite knowledge, competence and deep understanding of the sugar industry in all its facets in India. . Lakshya will work with the company management team and provide requisite business leadership, business understanding and build professional management capability. Lakshya also will establish systems , processes and controls required for running the company as a system dependent organisation than a person dependent company.

Lakshya will study cane development and management aspects including skills and competencies of people for cane and will evolve a cane development strategy plan, implementation plan and review mechanism as below:

1.   Base Line Study 

A base line study of the cane vertical will be done by Lakshya in the areas of cane development and management, and organisation structure of the cane department. The base line study will cover:

1. Weather parameters
2. Sugarcane varieties
3. Land and irrigation infrastructure
4. Land holding pattern
5. Cane planting pattern
6. Land preparation, planting, manuring, plant protection, harvesting, and transportation operations.
7. Cane and sugar productivity levels.
8. Cane vertical structure, manpower numbers and functions.

2.   Three Year Micro Level Cane Development Plan

Based on the gaps/ opportunities identified during the Base Line Study a detailed “Three Year Micro Level Plan” will be developed by Lakshya with the objective of:

1. Maximisation of cane volume
2. Maximisation of cane and sugar productivity to the potential level of the factory’s operational area
3. The 3 Year Micro Level Plan will focus on “Village Wise Development Plan” comprising of the following:

• Cane Planting Area
• Cane Varietal Composition
• Cane Planting
• Three Tier Nursery Program of Sugarcane production
• Intercropping Technology
• Nutrient Application and Management
• Irrigation Methodology including drip irrigation
• Plant Protection – Pest and Disease surveillance and management
• Inter-culture operations
• Harvesting and Transport Plan
• Ratoon Management Practices

Lakshya has a strategic tie-up with Sadhana Agritech which breeds Sugarcane varieties, provides biocontrol solutions and agronomy practices.  For more information click here.

3.   Reorganisation Of Cane Vertical

Based on the Micro Level Cane Development Plan, if need be, the current cane organisation structure / people will be redrawn covering the cane planting and procurement  and cane development functions. This will facilitate in the implementation and achieving the targets of the Micro Level Plan.

4.   Review

The Cane Department prepares the Annual Cane Development Plan based on the Three Year Micro Level Cane Development Plan which will be deployed to the cane team and will be reviewed on a monthly basis . Lakshya will ensure monitoring for implementation.

Business reviews help keep plans and execution on track.  Business reviews should be a mixture of quantitative and qualitative inputs and achievements.  Everything cannot be numbers and everything cannot be intangible.  Striking the right balance between both is essential for a good review.  And more importantly the inputs and achievements are decided beforehand and hence serve as a reference and guide.  The business plan would obviously include various scenarios of achievements and thus review is very important to reach the vision.

Lakshya will initially do an operational  diagnosis of the plants on its efficiency parameters, the current cost of production of all plants of  and develop strategies to improve the plant performance in terms of efficiency and viability.  During the diagnosis study Lakshya will  identify:

• Operational Efficiency Strategies
• Cost Reduction Strategies
• Fixed Assets Analysis (CAPEX)
• Asset Reduction Strategies
• Revenue Increasing Strategies

Operational Efficiency Strategies

Lakshya will assess the current operations to identify opportunities for improvements, effective utilisation of existing plant and machinery.

The gaps between current performance and industry benchmarks to be identified for better practices and to target areas for improvement. Some improvement opportunities will be incorporated into the on-going performance improvement process of the plant.

Here Lakshya will focus on understanding the existing cost structure – the fixed and variable operating cost at a line-item level within each cost center  this will enable:

• Identify opportunities for improvement in relation to industry benchmarks,
• Establish overall performance improvement targets for the plant.
• Improvements of efficiency parameters like increasing crushing rate, mill extraction mill imbibition, reduce sugar losses, reduce moisture etc.

Cost Reduction Strategies

Reduction in  cost in  short/near term is an easiest way to earn profits in the short run. At the plant level Lakshya would focus on the throughput analysis in identifying the bottleneck in the operations and how to maximise throughput by focusing closely on operations of the bottleneck. Lakshya will focus here on:

1. Reduction in the repairs and maintenance cost and improvement in the uptime of the machineries.
2. Consumption and optimisation of Chemicals and Consumables
3. Energy conservation methods and reduction
4. Material Procurement / Purchase (other than cane) – Procurement cost, issue process and optimum material inventory levels.
5. Warehouse / Inventory – analysis the operations and ensure optimum/low inventory levels without damaging profitability.
6. Identifying  potential areas in the operations that can be outsourced for competence, productivity and achieving efficiency parameters

Fixed Assets Analysis [Capex]

This would focus on analysis of the post audit of CAPEX implemented . The focus would be compare the actual earnings and savings with original proposal and ascertain deviations if any and to review what steps to be taken to improve the post project performance.

Asset Reduction Strategies

This would focus on reducing the Non-Performing Assets/ Assets to be scrapped or eliminate redundancy.

Revenue Increasing Strategies

This would focus on identifying potential areas of operations  for improved revenue  generation.

Lakshya has a team of experts who have done extensive work in carrying due diligence on integrated sugar complexes on all aspects of technical, cane and people for clients perusing , setting up of sugar factories (green field), modernisation / expansion of plants (brown field) and acquisitions.