RPGCOM :: October 2009

The Lead
The quest for Quality

Chandrasekhar Ajgaonkar on the quality movement at RPG, the steps being taken by the various group companies, and the road ahead.

The RPG Group had initiated its quality improvement journey almost a decade ago and has, ever since, been at the forefront of the
quality movement in India. Quality initiatives were adopted to help group companies achieve and sustain “best in class” levels of excellence.

Most organizations have initiated the excellence journey by implementing Total Quality Management (TQM) initiatives like 5S of housekeeping, structured problem solving – CFT, kaizen etc. These initiatives help in creating a strong foundation of employee involvement, culture of continuous improvement and perceptible improvements. To achieve the sustained profitability in a highly competitive global market, organizations are now looking forward to attaining quantum leaps in performance through breakthrough improvements

At RPG, continuous improvement initiatives have been well established through several quality management methods. Many group companies have initiated breakthrough programs of Six Sigma & TPM. At a group level, the process of policy deployment has been initiated through the program of Business Balanced Score Card (BBSC).

RPGCom spoke to companies across the group to understand the quality initiatives undertaken and what the journey has been like.

"We have come a long way and many milestones have been surpassed. A long journey
that is far from over. Ever changing global levels of quality and competence keeps moving our target further away. If at all there are traces of a few winning edges that India has against its neighbour China, it must be in the perception of India as a quality manufacturer than as a quantity manufacturer.

As a group we have achieved somewhat noticeable levels of excellence in the key factor
of “Continuous Improvement”. But then at a global level the quality scenario is accelerating
very fast and we have to keep pace. In fact as a pioneer of the quality movement in India, we should be the onesmoving the scales higher. The National Level of Excellence is our immediate beacon and we need to quickly reduce that gap. I am hopeful you can achieve this.

Most importantly, we have to ensure these initiatives actually transcend into our business practices effectively. They must reflect and influence our operating parameters. It should be a movement. Not an exercise. It should be visible on products, services and profits.

I would urge you to adopt these challenges and aim our quality initiatives to these broader objectives as well. I would like to compliment companies which have been consistently at the forefront of our quality initiatives. I would like to see all our companies rise to the challenge and I hope to see a close fight amongst all the companies for the top spot in Quality."

Harsh Goenka
Chairman, RPG Enterprisess

Corporate Quality Centre

The journey towards excellence for the past ten years has been quite rewarding. It has three distinct phases: firstly, an inward looking phase aimed at establishing quality systems, processes and human responses across the group companies, followed by an externalizing phase by proactively looking at customers, markets and societal issues. Lastly, it aims at addressing the appropriate global “Organizational Excellence Model.” Most of our group companies have adopted the RPG OE framework as a way of life. Various integrated quality initiatives are getting implemented and full time resources have been deployed for RPG OE & TQM. OE steering councils are also in place to periodically review the progress. Some our group companies like CEAT , CESC , Raychem , KEC & Zensar are moving closer to the national level of excellence and are aiming at creating a “national level foot print” by 2012.

CEAT

CEAT had initiated a quality focused drive in 2002, to upgrade its quality of products, manufacturing processes and systems thereby making it the “best in class”. To standardized the gains and take it to an international level, CEAT had accredited itself with the highest Quality Management System (QMS) TS16949 in 2003.

To face the challenges of international competition and achieve accelerated growth emphasizing customer excitement, CEAT embarked on a Quality Based Management (QBM) movement. It was drawn on the lines of TQM with a target of achieving the Deming Award by 2012.

CEAT has progressed quite well in creating a companywide awareness of QBM, employee involvement, autonomous maintenance and shop floor upliftment projects. It has also revamped its Quality Assurance (QA) to encompass a complete value chain. CEAT is concurrently training its young managers to master statistical quality tools like 7 QC tools, DOE and advanced problem solving techniques.

With reference to CEAT’s manufacturing processes, Tom Thomas, executive director (technology and projects) of CEAT, says: “Our product development process is moving on a product forward to a customer backward approach. The QBM journey has just begun and we have to climb this arduous mountain of “journey to excellence” to hoist the flag of a “World Class Company.”

CEAT’s current level of consumer satisfaction is only up to about 15% levels. The company, however, is striving to take this up to 85%. CEAT is also in the process of implementing new production planning and controls system based on the Pull model. It has reduced its planning
horizon from a month to a week and is also evolving new metrics for success. The tyre maker is currently implementing initiatives such as set up time reduction, Value Stream Mapping, sales skew reduction and range selling. Overall, it is expecting a sharp spike in dealer satisfaction.

Says CEAT executive director Arnab Banerjee: “As a part of CEAT’s QBM journey, we are now working on establishing a critical process of delivery- “right tyre to the right customer at the right time and place”.

Raychem RPG

Sirish Bhargava, head–corporate operations, Raychem RPG, says: “Raychem has always believed that Quality is in everything we do”. Raychem has always aimed to improve its systems and move towards organisational excellence. “We aim to become a process based organisation, in which people have a focus on continuous improvement of processes and resources.”

"At Raychem RPG , we have always considered Quality as a Way of Life , an integral part of all business processes , and not from a narrow perspective of Product quality confined to Manufacturing . This thought and belief has been internalised over a period of time with all the people who have been part of this journey over the last several years . Embarking on a company wide Initiative called as " Mission 700 " , an attempt to set National Standards of Business Excellence , is an endorsement of this belief . The challenge for leadership is to ensure that all the newer members of the family also embrace this belief ,whole heartedly , which in my opinion, is key as we gear up to deliver superior business results in the coming years."

Ramani Kasi
Raychem RPG

Raychem has taken the route of TPM, process mapping, structured problem solving tools and lean manufacturing techniques have been adopted to accomplish this vision. Self managed teams (SMTs), a recent initiative (as against the traditional functional structure) has been implemented at its new plant at Nalagarh.

Awards are major milestones to ascertain its position in the journey of Quality and excellence. Raychem RPG, which had been continuously winning the RPG OE award, now aims to achieve the CII Exim award in 2012. It has also targeted achieve the TPM level 1 award in 2012.

KEC

For many years, the logo of KEC bore the words “Quality - Our Towering Strength”. True to these words, the company has maintained an enviable record of product and service quality with its customers, both in India and overseas. It had won several accolades for quality from demanding countries like USA. For KEC, quality has always been a journey and not the destination. It became the first company in the RPG Group to win the RPG Quality Excellence Award. Following this, it became the first transmission company in the world to be certified for OHSAS18001. Last year, for the first time, the International Projects team participated in the RPG Organizational Excellence – Service Category Awards and was adjudged the runner-up.

"The Quality Based Management initiatives have helped us work on a wide spectrum of business processes, namely optimization of Planning, Design and Prototyping, Sourcing and Manufacturing Engineering. We expect significant improvements in production cycle times, inventory and cost. We are also making our tower test stations and quality laboratories world class to achieve international accreditation."

R. D. Chandak
KEC

To ensure continuous improvement, KEC has undertaken several initiatives mainly in Small Group Activity, Kaizens, Benchmarking and TPM. These have brought in tremendous improvements in KEC’s services. KEC’s Jaipur plant improved its productivity from less than 4 tons per man per month to more than 6 in a span of just two years. The zinc consumption in its Nagpur factory reduced from 5.5% to 4%. Also a phenomenal improvement was seen in the galvanizing plant productivity. Quarterly Best Practice Sharing sessions, further ensured that improvements achieved in one plant are horizontally deployedin others. These ongoing TPM initiatives deliver significant savings in terms of cost and space. The factories are much better organized and visually better looking now.

Speaking about the quality initiatives in KEC, Anant Goenka, executive director (supply chain) says: “We have strived to become a “preferred supplier” to all our customers. Surveys done by independent external agencies during the last 10 years have put KEC ahead of its competitors in delivering high quality product and services. We are also aiming at the TPM Level 1 Award by 2012. In the long term we would like to see ourselves as a world leader in quality – manufacturing and service. We would like people to visit our factories and project sites and learn about the best practices in manufacturing and construction.”

Zensar

Zensar had started executing large offshore projects from Pune in the early 90s. In order to assure quality to its overseas customers (at that time mainly from UK, Hong Kong and MEA) it had adopted the ISO 9001 standard in 1994. Meanwhile, in the US, the Software Engineering Institute (a Department of Defense initiative) formulated the Capability Maturity Model (CMM), which soon became an industry imperative for anyone operating in the US market. Zensar kicked off the CMMI program in 1996 and soon achieved the highest level i.e. the Level 5. In the mid 90’s, Zensar was introduced to the EFQM’s Organizational Excellence Framework. Soon after, Zensar introduced Six Sigma- a process improvement tool in 2004.

When questioned on Zensar’s quality journey so far, Raj Dhillon, head-process and standard organisation, Zensar, says: “ Since the early 90s there has been a ‘constant change’ in every aspect of our operational environment, whether it is the services we offer, the technologies we use or the people who get the job done. Also, the nature of our work is very ‘cerebral’ and hence there is a high dependency on people and less amenable to standardization through use of process or tools. Within this environment of rapid change, ISO and CMMI have helped us to establish a stable delivery platform, build “long lasting customer relationships” and demonstrate process capability equal to the best in the world. These standards have helped us to win business as they are the first criteria on which overseas clients shortlist offshore vendors.”

In the course of its journey, Zensar aims to make its “superior service quality” the reason why its customers do business with them and recommend them to others. For Zensar the ultimate accolades are those from its customers.

"In the dynamic software services industry where one deals with missioncritical information and applications, quality standards help establish long term customer relationships and demonstrate process capability. Businesses tend to benefit by meeting these standards as these promote effective research and development, and makes products and services easier to use and assures predictability of performance. Zensar is attaining the highest levels of excellence in quality and will continue to aspire for perfection."

Ganesh Natarajan
Zensar

CESC

The Quality movement in CESC has evolved under the guidance of the Corporate Quality Centre since the late nineties. CESC’s Vision, Mission and Quality Policy Statements were also framed during that time. The areas that were identified for intervention under the quality facilitators were continual process improvement, Six Sigma, application of Business Excellence Model, system standardization (ISO 9000, ISO 14000, and OHSAS 18000), TQM, 5S and Kaizen. Moreover, CESC’s participation in the RPG Organisation Excellence Model has seen it as a winner of the RPG OE Award for 6 consecutive years in the service sector.

"Quality is continual improvement of every aspect of business. Quality can revitalize an Organization when it is aligned fully with business objectives. Success in our quality journey is to master this integration of Quality and Business. People make Quality but Leaders enable them to do it."

Sumantra Banerjee
CESC

CESC has implemented various quality measures to ensure a qualitative growth. Cross-functional teams (CFTs) are in place for nurturing employee potential. Improvement of business operations, both in main processes and sub-processes, are also in order. Various process improvement projects have been taken up by employees through the CFTs, leading to savings in cost and time. It has also benchmarked with the best in performing utilities (national and abroad), both in Generation and Distribution areas. CESC aims to be the winner of the prestigious CII Exim Bank Business Excellence Award and also strives to retain its position among the top 10 power stations of India on a sustainable basis. Going forward, it wants to become the best utility in the power and distribution activity (as recognized by Ministry of Power, Govt. of India) and also aims at being recognized as one of the best employers (in a survey conducted by an acclaimed agency)

Says CESC’s executive director (administration) Amitabha Sengupta: “We want to make the system and process approach a way of life with a clear emphasis to transform the organization to a consumer-centric one. We look forward to making our operating efficiency comparable with the best in class. We aim to be a preferred electricity service provider and also focus on reward and recognition.”

Spencer's Retail

In Spencer’s, quality initiatives were focused primarily on two areas- improvement of customer satisfaction and improvement of bottomlines by reducing avoidable wastages. The RPG OE Model, 5 S and task-based KPI metrics were adopted as a framework for implementation to assure quality.

"In Spencer’s we recognize that the key business driver for our long term sustainability is High Level of Customer Satisfaction and Cost Optimisation. Our Quality initiatives are therefore designed to cater to that need, be it thru higher quality products or improved processes or reduction of various wastages."

Vineet Kapila
Spencer’s Retail

In the area of customer satisfaction, Spencer’s is focused on product quality improvement, store ambience and instore execution. All store personnel are periodically given training through standard training modules. Spencer’s also undertakes vendor trainings to ensure that they meet its expectations. These initiatives have resulted in high quality of products in the store and consequent high sales. In order to maintain store ambience, it has standardized its cleaning and hygiene processes and regularly audits the status through Product Safety and Quality audit methods.

To lessen the waste reduction, Spencer’s has recently rolled out an “Unsalable Stock Disposition Process” in its stores and had also introduced certain standards and processes for fruits & vegetables and fish & meat.

Points out Kunal Banerjee, vice president (quality), Spencer’s, “We believe that Quality has to help business. We have to improve sales through better quality offerings and reduce cost. We believe that the best accolade will come once we receive the highest level of customer satisfaction.”

(The author is Vice President – Corporate Quality at RPG Enterprises)