News from Notch Consulting, Inc.

August 20, 2020

Phillips Carbon Black Limited successfully embeds technology

Filed under: Carbon Black, General — Notch @ 11:01 pm

With a market presence in 35+ nations, Phillips Carbon Black Limited is India’s largest carbon black producer, with manufacturing units in Durgapur (Eastern India), Kochi (Southern India) and Palej and Mundra (Western India.) Phillips manufactures and supplies carbon black found in eyeliners, laserjet printers, Iphones and even BMW cars. During the pandemic, Phillips faced challenges maintaining operational efficiency, however the company successfully addressed these challenges with the support of technology.

“With our vendor support by IBM, we have embarked on a long term journey with successful projects such as cloud migration, SAP S/4 HANA deployment, remote monitoring setup and counting more. Amid the initial stage of lockdown pan India, we were able to address overnight hardware and software requests of our employees. Our partnership together has strengthened the business with many technology driven benefits…”

Dipan Sengupta, Head- IT, Philips Carbon Black Ltd

To protect users during remote work from home, Phillips invested in a layered security approach to ensure there were no intrusions or threats, and maintained 100% availability of the infrastructure, even safely conducting annual board meetings and audit committee meetings online.

We are a listed company and recently all our major transactional decisions were made online, which were supported by the core IT setup. As we were fully equipped with IT support and availability of applications which are secured, our workflow became seamless. All of this was possible because of our early investments in right technology and infrastructure”

Dipan Sengupta, Head- IT, Philips Carbon Black Ltd

Technology also plays a role in helping manufacturing plants operate efficiently with a system that helps monitor any abnormalities of process. With the collaboration of internal IT and IBM teams, the plants were fully operational, and the company maintained sanitation, thermal testing and social distancing regulations. Phillips has embedded technology at every functional process, resulting in growth and operational efficiency during the pandemic.

Continental earns praise for EcoRubber garden hose

Filed under: General, Rubber — Notch @ 10:43 pm

Continental A.G. has earned high marks from leading polymer and rubber experts for its EcoRubber garden hose that uses sugar cane ethylene rather than petroleum-based, reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 85 percent.

“Continental is consistently evaluating renewable oils and reclaimed or recycled materials that will reduce our reliance on petroleum-based products while also reducing emissions and landfill of end-of-life rubber products. There were few EPDM rubber grades available with bio-renewable content, so we saw an opportunity….[I]t was our goal to increase the overall amount of renewable material in garden hose construction while maintaining hose performance.”

Andreas Gerstenberger, Executive Vice President at Continental and head of the Industrial Fluid Solutions business unit

Goodyear responds to Trump tweet

Filed under: Tires — Notch @ 2:42 pm

Yesterday, Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company issued a press release responding to President Trump’s tweet calling for a boycott of the company’s products. Below is the text in full:

AKRON, Ohio, August 19, 2020 – A Message from Goodyear to Our Customers, Partners and Associates:  

Yesterday, Goodyear became the focus of a conversation that created some misconceptions about our policies and our company.  For those not aware, a widely circulated image sparked a strong reaction, and we wanted to take the opportunity to provide some important context to the visual and our policies. 

First, the visual in question was not created or distributed by Goodyear corporate, nor was it part of a diversity training class. To be clear on our longstanding corporate policy, Goodyear has zero tolerance for any forms of harassment or discrimination. To enable a work environment free of those, we ask that associates refrain from workplace expressions in support of political campaigning for any candidate or political party, as well as similar forms of advocacy that fall outside the scope of racial justice and equity issues.

Second, we appreciate the diverse viewpoints of all of our more than 60,000 associates, which are at the heart of many of the policies we establish. Fostering an inclusive, respectful workplace is important to establish teamwork and build culture, which is another reason we ask associates not to engage in political campaigning of any kind in the workplace – for any candidate, party or political organization.

Third and finally, Goodyear has always wholeheartedly supported both equality and law enforcement and will continue to do so. These are not mutually exclusive. We have heard from some of you that believe Goodyear is anti-police after reacting to the visual. Nothing could be further from the truth, and we have the utmost appreciation for the vital work police do on behalf of our shared communities. This can’t be said strongly enough.

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