Aligning Operational and Growth Strategies with Supply Chains in Cement Industry

Globally, cement industry has very large per Capita consumption. Per capita consumption of cement as compared to other products is the highest in all countries of the world. Thus, it is an important industry for a country as well as for the world. In India, per capita consumption of cement is still not significantly large in comparison to other countries. This is due to constraints existing in infrastructure of the supply chains which hinders the effectively supply to the final consumer. There are some industry specific characteristics of the industry which traditionally efficient shaped the scale of operation and expansion plans of the industry only in large scale. Cement industry itself is highly pollutant and needs technological innovation to reduce pollution. Basic input of the industry is lime stone which is bulky. Hence, earlier industry's location used to be chosen near the supply site of lime stone. Globally, the nature of cement industry is changing from large scale operation to small scale due to change in the nature of production through product differentiation. Now, the choice of location of the industry is not to the bulky raw material sites, but to the customer base/market. Indian Cement industry is adopting modern practices. Yet in order to reach the end user, infrastructure of supply chains of Indian Cement industry needs to improve.