Watch: How CK Birla Group firm NBC Bearings is fast-tracking digital transformation

CK Birla Group’s National Engineering Industries (NEI), which manufactures a variety of bearings under the NBC Bearings brand, has expanded its partnership with IBM to upgrade its IT (information technology) infrastructure with the latest POWER9 servers, FlashSystem 5000 storage. 

In an interview with TechCircle, Vishan K. Pamnani, IT- general manager, NEI,  provides an insight into the collaboration with the Armonk, New York headquartered giant, including how the upgraded hardware is helping the company optimize processes, reduce the utilization of paper in day-to-day activities, and gain better visibility into operations. 

Pamnani said the hardware upgrade was undertaken to drive the company’s migration of ERP (enterprise resource planning) workloads to SAP HANA, which was critical to support the company’s digital initiatives.  

IBM POWER9 servers deliver up to three times higher performance in SAP environment with respect to other platforms available in the market, IBM said in a statement. Meanwhile, the storage solution offers 10X scalability, zero downtime migration, hybrid-cloud readiness, and 50% cost savings due to AI-enabled easy tiering, it said. 

In addition, the executive also shared about infrastructure upgrades, digital-first projects planned for the near future and the efforts the company has taken to boost its cybersecurity amid the pandemic. 

Founded in 1946, Jaipur headquartered NBC Bearings manufactures over 200 million bearings each year in more than 1450 sizes for the automotive, industrial and railways sector. The company exports products to 30 countries and has got five manufacturing plants located in Jaipur, Newai, Manesar, and Vadodara.