This article was originally published in 2023 and was last updated on June 27, 2025.
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Tension: Companies want to digitally transform, but legacy culture and skill gaps within I.T. departments stall meaningful progress.
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Noise: Buzzwords like “cloud-first” and “digital twin” are applied without foundational alignment—leaving teams overwhelmed and systems fragmented.
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Direct Message: True digital manufacturing transformation begins not with tools, but with people, trust, and aligned purpose across departments.
To learn more about our editorial approach, explore The Direct Message methodology.
In 2023, Jasmeet Singh wasn’t brought into HUSCO just to “modernize I.T.” He was tasked with something deeper: transforming a reactive tech support department into a strategic enabler of digital manufacturing.
This wasn’t about swapping out outdated systems for shiny cloud software. It was about reshaping the culture, restoring trust in tech, and building a data-driven future in one of the most operationally demanding industries—automotive supply.
Two years later, Singh’s transformation blueprint still serves as a masterclass in how digital manufacturing should be done.
And in a world where enterprises are racing to infuse AI into every process, his case reminds us: the path to innovation runs through the basics—alignment, people, and the courage to rewire how things get done.
From obsolete to optimal: resetting expectations
When Singh first stepped into his role, the I.T. landscape at HUSCO was bleak.
Systems were aging out, employees were stuck in outdated routines, and business users saw I.T. as more of a bottleneck than a partner. Trust was at an all-time low, and production teams were grappling with chronic downtime.
But instead of jumping straight to technical fixes, Singh started with something radically human: trust repair.
He recruited external talent with fresh energy, re-skilled internal teams, and partnered across departments to get immediate wins.
One of the simplest changes—cleaning up alert spam and instituting real SLAs—resolved critical downtime issues. The point wasn’t complexity. It was accountability.
The Direct Message
Real transformation doesn’t start with tech—it starts by rebuilding trust between systems, people, and process owners.
Why trust is the digital transformation multiplier
It’s easy to think of digital transformation as a tech problem. But when systems fail, it’s often because no one’s clear on who owns what, or because alerts go ignored after years of false positives.
Singh’s team realized that without psychological safety and shared goals, even automation becomes noise. By fixing these invisible frictions first, they created space for real momentum to build.
And that made the bigger leaps—like cloud adoption and AI modeling—not just possible but welcomed.
What “digital manufacturing” really means
Digital manufacturing isn’t just about installing smart robots or sensor-laced assembly lines. As Singh reframed it, it’s about full-spectrum integration: from sales order to quality testing, supplier coordination to packaging, shipping, and calibration.
Every event across the production chain needs to speak the same digital language—and do so in real time.
That vision required unifying every system—from ERP and MES to supplier portals and test stations.
The turning point came with the decision to adopt a cloud-first strategy, using Azure Data Lake as the backbone.
With globally consistent access, suppliers could upload critical data before parts even arrived—preventing delays, reducing returns, and giving predictive systems the clean data they needed to work.
Breaking silos with a cloud-first architecture
HUSCO’s move to a cloud-first model wasn’t about being trendy. It was practical.
With a global footprint and an urgent need to streamline supplier interaction, the cloud offered what on-prem couldn’t: scalability, consistency, and speed.
Singh’s team built secure external portals using Azure Active Directory and exposed key apps via APIs or, where APIs weren’t available, via secure backend workarounds.
This gave hundreds of suppliers a standardized interface to deliver data. What once involved late-stage quality checks and frequent returns was now a proactive, data-driven process—automated and consistent.
By integrating MES with ERP and quality systems, Singh made it possible to respond in real time to production issues, remotely adjust factory output, and even prevent problems before they occurred.
When resistance is data-driven, so is the solution
Not everyone was excited about change. Early on, initiatives like robotic process automation (RPA) raised eyebrows—even among I.T. teams.
Singh met that resistance with transparency: showing small wins, tracking metrics, and turning skeptics into advocates through real data.
This wasn’t transformation by executive decree. It was change through demonstrated value. For example, machine learning models didn’t just forecast material needs—they helped HUSCO avoid shelf blockages and save money on shipping.
Suddenly, automation wasn’t a threat. It was a tool.
Lessons in digital leadership: Start with systems, end with synergy
By 2025, HUSCO’s transformation had produced a single dashboard that tracked every production line in real time across continents.
Anomalies could be caught as they developed. Production lines could be shut down or reconfigured based on live insights. Supplier scorecards updated themselves. And M.L. models optimized everything from inventory to shipping frequency.
What’s remarkable isn’t just the technology stack. It’s how Singh sequenced the transformation:
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People first: Rebuild trust and capability
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Process next: Identify friction, eliminate noise
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Systems last: Integrate intentionally and iteratively
This order of operations matters. Many digital transformations fail not because of technical flaws, but because they try to start with tech and ignore culture.
Why this still matters: 2025 and beyond
Today, buzzwords like AI, digital twin, and industrial metaverse dominate manufacturing headlines. But Singh’s transformation at HUSCO reminds us: none of that matters if your alerts still get ignored or your supplier data’s inconsistent.
Companies chasing AI maturity often skip the trust, people, and process work that makes those systems reliable.
Singh’s blueprint shows that real digital manufacturing transformation isn’t about moonshots—it’s about thoughtful evolution rooted in alignment and usability.
Conclusion: Singh’s legacy is a roadmap, not a one-off
Singh didn’t just update HUSCO’s systems—he rewired how the company thinks about production, accountability, and innovation.
His story shows that digital transformation isn’t a software purchase. It’s a shift in how teams collaborate, how decisions are made, and how quickly an organization can act on what it knows.
And in a world moving faster than ever, that kind of alignment is the real edge.
