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Cynthia Rodrigues, Rajiv Singh, Candida
Moraes, Jai Wadia
There is no one formula for success in
driving business excellence in an organisation, but
knowing the route others have taken helps in getting
there faster.
"We are what we repeatedly
do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit."
— Aristotle.
The words of an ancient Greek philosopher may seem outmoded
in reference to the pursuit of business excellence,
but in this case, it's a perfect fit. Making the quest
for excellence a habit is the objective of every Tata
company; they just reach there through different routes
and at different times.
Four companies that are
already close to the first milestone (600 points) on
the Tata Business Excellence Model scale — Titan
Industries, the ferro alloys and minerals division (FA&MD)
of Tata Steel, Tata Wire and Tata Chemicals — make
for a good study of how innovative strategies can help
ingrain quality into the fibre of an enterprise.
Titan Industries
The time machine
Lord Chesterfield's maxim, that if one takes care of
the minutes, the hours will take care of themselves,
is a motto for Titan Industries, India's premier watchmaker.
Committing itself to small, continuous improvements,
Titan believes, will ensure big gains.
Titan's business excellence
(BE) process is managed as a distinct entity, with a
separate team reporting directly to the company's managing
director, to drive initiatives across all divisions.
N. Kailasanathan, vice president, chief information officer
and head of business excellence and knowledge management,
wants the quality initiative to become an indivisible
part of the company's day-to-day activities.
"TBEM influences everything.
It makes an organisation think about how it goes about
its business, aligns the company's goals — from
vision to strategy to the products and services you
offer customers — and ensures that no department
works in isolation," Mr Kailasanathan points out.
"What are your key processes
and how do you address them? Do you benchmark yourself
against the best in the class?" he asks. "Ultimately,"
he declares, "everything is visible through your
results, which tell you where you are on the journey
to business excellence." N. E. Sridhar, senior manager,
business excellence, says Titan's BE team is careful
to ensure that the processes it initiates are scalable,
measurable and replicable. Only if a process fulfils
all three criteria is it considered worthy of implementation.
The biggest benefit of
TBEM, Mr Kailasanathan feels, is the opportunity it offers
companies to learn from one another. "We spoke
to Tata Motors to learn how it deals with some processes.
We produce watches and they make cars; but our processes
and controls are similar. Both companies interact directly
with the end customer," he explains. "Thanks
to TBEM," Mr Sridhar points out, "processes have
become very transparent across Tata companies."
Titan has never been averse to
studying the best practices of companies outside the
Group and even the industry. "We studied the best
practices of Asian Paints," points out Mr
Kailasanathan.
"Like us, they have a large number of product variants
and their sales are highly seasonal. We felt that we
could learn a lot from their distribution network."
As the country's market
leader, Titan has to look beyond local competitors for
benchmarking. "We look at Swiss and Japanese brands
like Swatch and Citizen for factors such as fashion
trends and product quality," says Mr Sridhar. The
company has always tried to stay a step ahead of the
competition. Its designers have won awards and earned
a solid reputation for talent and versatility.
As the company learned from its
benchmarking and adoption of best practices, it realised
the need to organise information better. This has led
to the creation of a knowledge management system, with
several portals. Says Mr Kailasanathan, "It's very
important that we capture knowledge about markets —
information about the territory in which a sales officer
operates, the competition in that territory, the relationship
with franchisees." The portal would also serve as
a back-end information tool for new recruits to
understand company processes.
Pride of place in the KM system
will be reserved for localised best practices. Some
of these may even be simple improvements on the shop
floor that have cleared production bottlenecks. Currently,
such ideas are shared through Kaizen Small Group
Activity presentations.
Disseminating information
is one side of the coin. The other is getting feedback.
A suggestion scheme, called Idea Plus, serves as a forum
for airing good ideas. The suggestions are sent to department
heads, who analyse them. Those that are feasible are
implemented, and the department head explains why the
rest are not workable. The total employee involvement
(TEI) team administers the process and looks at best
practices and suggestions, as well as what other companies
are doing in quality circles.
Titan trains employees in quality
control tools, and guides them to solve problems. On
completing a project, employees make a presentation.
These are judged by the TEI team and by key people across
functions. The best presentations are entered in external
competitions, and those responsible for them get mementoes.
Tanishq, the jewellery division,
has its own improvement process. The division holds
a programme every month, in which each group has to
compulsorily work on one improvement in its processes.
Titan is aware that good organisations need
to refine themselves, and assessments play a vital role
in this process. Mr Sridhar says: "The pressure for
staying ahead in the business excellence journey in
the Tata Group also helps." The Titan BE team is
determined to make its quality systems develop clockwork
precision, in its race to get better. Its ultimate target:
to improve the overall performance of the organisation
and, of course, to bag the JRD QV Award.
Tata Wire
Wired for a big leap
"If a window of opportunity appears,"
said business management guru Tom Peters, "don't
pull down the shade." For Tata Steel's wire division,
these are times of opportunity. The company's investment
in the Singapore-based NatSteel, one of the largest
steel producers in the Asia-Pacific region, makes its
wire business the fifth largest in the world.
Equally, they are times
of challenge. Not only does this position have to be
sustained, it has to be improved on if the company is
to match the product quality and service excellence
of the best in the world. The Tata Wire management is
determined not to pull down any shades. On the contrary,
it is working to expand the window and make it a door
to the world.
Breakthrough improvement is Tata
Wire's catchword. As executive-in-charge Harish Pathak
puts it, "In our company, if you set incremental
goals, chances are that you're not doing enough."
So, audacious goals are set. "An out-of-the-world
target, in itself, sets the tone for creativity,"
says Rajiv Mangal, chief, technical services. "A
leap towards excellence will not come just from day-to-day
activities."
Obviously, setting targets
itself does not guarantee results. Tata Wire has set
up dedicated project teams for implementation. Backing
them up are management action teams (MATs), with cross-functional
change acceleration teams (CATs) stepping in as force
multipliers.
The old adage — things that
get reviewed get done — is a wire division doctrine.
Structured reviews are part of the work process. They
are fed into a management information system (MIS),
resulting in a structured reporting system that builds
responsibility and ownership into the work process and
making sure that things move quicker.
The senior management at
Tata Wire has spared no efforts to provide the division's
workforce with the best work tools available around
the world, and the training to use them. The topmost
technical consultants in the industry provide state-of-the-art
benchmark tools and resources. The deployment methodology
is user-friendly, so that people understand and are
able to use these tools effectively. The division is
now in the final stages of tying up with the American
Productivity and Quality Centre (APQC) for benchmark
data that can equip its employees to match the best
that the world has to offer.
Innovation is an important part
of any business and, at Tata Wire, it starts at the
grassroots. Everyone is encouraged to contribute to
developing innovative practices and techniques, and
the best ideas get implemented. In this vast churning
of ideas, every workman, section and department pitches
in. Head of quality assurance, S. V. Desai,
explains: "Since
we involve everyone, from the worker to the top management,
innovative thinking is all-pervasive."
Breakthrough improvement means
that even as one set of targets is realised, Tata Wire
is already looking ahead at the next set of goals. Achieving
higher targets in progression requires a change in employee
orientation. "We are changing the employee mindset,
gradually, from managing routine processes to managing
improvement," says Mr Desai.
Since Singapore's NatSteel
has joined the fold, sharing of best practices has accelerated.
With two wire units — one in Thailand and another
in China — NatSteel has strategic importance for
Tata Steel's international foray. Keeping abreast of
the latest technology and trends is no longer an option
but a necessity. Customers demand global quality, and
expectations have to be met. A disappointed customer
always has an easily available alternative — imports.
International customers look
not merely for product quality but also a basket of
services from their suppliers. This can include, for
example, the ability to meet the requirements of lean
manufacturing. "They stretch us to see that they
get not just the very best products, but services to
match," says Mr Mangal. Tata Wire has upgraded its
processes to cater to the supply chain and inventory
control sensitivities of its customers.
Thanks to the division's
rigorous learning programme, even in this extremely
exacting environment, Tata Wire has more than succeeded
in meeting its customers' expectations. So, when TBEM
assessors visit, Tata Wire is not found wanting. From
the top management down to the shop floor, in its work
processes and its people, TBEM deployment and implementation
is clearly discernible. The division's impressive TBEM
score validates this. It is aiming to cross the vital
600-mark in 2006.
Today, even as the big boys of
global steel are looking at India and Tata Steel is
making its mark in the world, Tata Wire is setting itself
ever more audacious goals. Mr Pathak points out, "Our
competitors are not just local players; they are the
best and biggest in the world."
As long as you are moving
ahead on all cylinders, you might as well propel yourself
to the top. And what's the 'top' for Tata Wires? It
wants to be No. 1 or No. 2 in the world in the next five years.
In for a penny, in for a pound…
Ferro Alloys and Minerals
Division, Tata Steel
Spice in the steel
The Bible says that even if you have faith as
small as a mustard seed, you can move mountains. There
is little doubt that the people at Tata Steel's ferro
alloys and minerals division (FA&MD) have the faith.
Take a walk around their office and you can actually
feel the team spirit and the adrenaline surging through
everyone present there.
The FA&MD team calls itself
the 'spice' in Tata Steel — because the products
they make add that special quality to steel and also
because of the zest with which they work. Perhaps that
is why FA&MD is the only division in Tata Steel
which has been EVA+ (economic value-added positive)
all along. It surpassed all previous records in 2004-05,
and expects to scale newer heights in coming years.
The division is engaged
in the open cast mining of chrome ore, pyroxenite and
manganese ore, as well as the production of ferro-chrome
and ferro-manganese in submerged arc furnaces.
Like a proud father, executive-in-charge
P. Roy is convinced that his division can continue on
its growth trajectory, in spite of the vagaries that
afflict the steel industry. It has a strategy in place
to cope with the upturns and downturns of the market.
Apart from slashing costs, compressing its working capital
and maximising its top line, it has formed what it calls
the 'Brains Trust' across Kolkata, Bhubaneshwar, Sukinda
and Delhi, to help solve the problems of the industry.
FA&MD's turnover nearly touched
the Rs 1,500-crore mark in FY2005, and the management
is set on taking it beyond Rs 2,000 crore by 2010. The
division was responsible for launching Tata Steel's
first overseas manufacturing venture, in the form of
a ferrochrome project at Richards Bay in South Africa.
It has also incubated a titania project in Tamil Nadu
in India, which is said to have a turnover potential
of about Rs 1,000 crore.
The company adopted business
excellence in 1993, before TBEM became a framework for
the Group. States Roy, "Our ultimate aim
is total customer satisfaction with faster response
times and world-class performance." The division's
leadership system, perhaps its most important programme,
is designed to create leaders at all levels.
The division has earned the ISO
9001 certification for quality, ISO 15000 for environmental
measures and OHSAS for occupational health and safety.
It has also received the SA-8000 certification, for
commitment to social accountability.
"Strategy plays a very important
role," P. N. Gupta, head of Tata Steel's excellence
initiative, ASPIRE says. The marketing and business development
group keeps the focus on continuous scanning of the
environment and competition. It proactively examines
the changes required for short-term and long-term action
plans, and has developed a strategy map. "The balanced
scorecard deploys this strategy across units and to
individual officers in the form of key result areas
(KRAs)," he adds. "Individual section heads
communicate the KRAs to employees in the form of annual,
monthly and daily targets."
The division has also adopted
the 'information analysis and knowledge management'
tool, which connects all its units through Lotus Notes,
while the information systems are integrated through
an enterprise resource planning (ERP) system. Management
information system (MIS) reports are prepared for financial
as well as technical performance, and are reviewed regularly.
Every employee of the division
uses the knowledge management system on the company's
intranet to contribute suggestions for improvement.
A combination of the reward and recognition system and
the performance measurement system ensures that knowledge
acquired in the workplace, best practices identified
through visits and conferences, as well as learnings
from experts and consultants, are recorded in the knowledge
management system. "Workers can share their experiences
through our 'Knowledge Manthan' initiative, which helps
in the horizontal deployment of ideas," Mr Gupta explains.
FA&MD has institutionalised
some unique HR processes. The WIN process trains workmen
in the entire value chain concept. A core team prepares
an exhaustive manual, and selects and trains a few workers
in a 'train-the-trainer' process. These worker-trainers
then transfer the learnings to their peers in the local
language, thereby enhancing source credibility.
Customers and the market are
both key elements in any success story. FA&MD has
a unique segmentation process in its Importance Performance
Analysis, which assesses the division's performance
in areas that customers consider important. Customer
satisfaction is measured internally and by a third party,
and becomes a critical input in improvements. A Customer
Relationship Index monitors the strength of the division's
relationship with its customers. Regular customer meets
indicate how effective these processes have been.
The company has streamlined the
system of process control, using in-process measures
as well as output measures. The ASPIRE programme has
been institutionalised as a common umbrella, covering
all improvement initiatives such as Six Sigma, total
productive maintenance (TPM), small group activity (SGA)
and constraint management (TOC). "Continuous upgrading
of technology, introduction of control systems and new
projects are taken up through the investment management
process, which is aligned with our division's strategy,"
adds Mr Gupta.
But, in the final analysis,
it is always the people behind the processes that make
the critical difference. And so it is with FA&MD
— it's recipe for success would not be as good
without the special 'spice' its people add.
Tata Chemicals
The right chemistry
Tata Chemicals (TCL) realises that you can't
do today's job with yesterday's methods and be in business
tomorrow. To achieve and sustain global standards, the
company has made continuous improvement its focus, and
business excellence its daily endeavour.
Operating India's largest
and most integrated inorganic chemicals complex at Mithapur,
as well as the country's most energy-efficient fertiliser
complex at Babrala, TCL is the market leader in two
of its key products — soda ash and branded salt.
The company has seen a steep 17-per cent growth in sales
this year.
Before it is a far more challenging
goal, the JRD QV Award. "Our focus is not just on
a number," says Vivek Talwar, corporate
quality head, Tata Chemicals, "but on processes
that make continuous improvement." Crossing the coveted 600 mark, he
feels, would be a reality check that the company is
moving in the right direction.
Aware that a chain is no
stronger than its weakest link, TCL has taken a conscious
decision to apply for the Tata Business Excellence Model
(TBEM) as an enterprise and not as separate strategic
business units (SBUs). "Applying for TBEM as a
single enterprise requires a strong alignment and integration
across our various units, and would create a stronger
organisation," explains Mr Talwar. "This would
enable us to rapidly replicate pockets of excellence,"
he feels.
The phosphates business
is a new entity, a result of the merger of Hind Lever
Chemicals Limited last year. Tata Chemicals plans to
bring the business on board the common TBEM application
soon. "Over
the last three to four years," says Mr Talwar,
"we have been doing frequent and honest diagnoses
of our work. I feel that quite often we are over-critical
of ourselves, but that's a good thing since it makes
people seek improvements." Mr Talwar wants the
company to do better in terms of benchmarking. "Babrala
is a world-class fertiliser plant. We need to benchmark
ourselves with other world class fertiliser plants on
many more aspects than we do at present," he believes.
The foundation of excellence
is built on processes. The TCL management aims to have
a structured enterprise-wide process model, which
would involve mapping its 1,000 or so processes. Mr Talwar
believes that when departments take ownership for their
own processes, it moves the organisation away from being
person-specific and towards being systems oriented.
"We are now working on improvements to this process,
as a result of our learning over last year," he
says.
The company is deploying
high-end quality tools to help it respond to business
challenges faster. The 'quality function deployment'
or QFD tool helps identify and cater to the needs of
customers across all segments, as well as track performance
vis-à-vis competitors. Mr Talwar feels that this
should result in higher customer satisfaction and loyalty.
A more structured learning process is also in the making.
TCL launched an IT-enabled knowledge management (KM)
process last year. It has developed an interesting and
unique methodology, encouraging its employees to share
'stories' that can build a repository of tacit knowledge.
Tata Chemicals believes that its KM system is a Group
benchmark in the making.
The company regularly taps into
the knowledge and best practices of other Tata Group
companies. A compilation of knowledge on best practices
that can be implemented by the company is being worked
on by the quality systems people and the company's external
assessors.
These assessors play a vital
role in benchmarking. Mr Talwar wants many more of them,
"even though the percentage of external assessors
to the total management cadre at Tata Chemicals is already
about the same as the best in the Group". He plans
to ramp up their number in the next two years.
The company's in-house
business excellence training programme has a carefully
selected aspirational acronym, BEST (Business Excellence
Stewardship Training). It utilises the latest TBEM application
of the company as a case study. The module looks at
the participants and the organisation as customers and,
in the best traditions of process design, has provided
features that address their needs. "What is heartening
is that a number of non-management cadres are also clearing
BEST, which means TBEM is permeating through the entire
organisation," says Mr Talwar proudly.
The company has deployed several
innovative initiatives. Unnati, a total employee involvement
programme focussed primarily on the non-management cadre,
empowers workers on the shop floor to take ownership
of their areas and work on continuous improvement. Manthan,
is a cost-reduction programme with a bottom-up approach
that uses the creativity and energy of employees and
stakeholders, to address four critical areas —
purchasing, manufacturing, micro-marketing and the supply
chain.
Umang uses theatre to create
awareness, commitment and organisational transformation.
It communicates the message in an energising, emotional,
participative and 'fun' manner, and has been used to
spread the message of KM, TBEM, code of conduct and
cultural pillars across the enterprise.
Over the last three or
four years, TCL has made tremendous progress, in its
performance, financials, processes and customer focus.
"We have simultaneously taken up a very large number
of initiatives. Organisational transformation is the
most significant sentiment that we encounter across
the enterprise," Mr Talwar declares. But Tata Chemicals
has already raised the bar higher; it's got its sights
on the JRD QV Award and on becoming a world class chemicals
conglomerate.
Uploaded
on March 9, 2006
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