'Culture of quality is key to survival'

Companies which do not follow a ‘culture of quality’ will not survive in the present economic slowdown, according to B Muthuraman, managing director, Tata Steel. “There is a need for companies to immediately adopt a three-pronged strategy — standardisation of process, continuous improvement and innovation — to deliver quality products,” he said.

Muthuraman was speaking at the 8th anniversary day function of the Institute of Quality set up by Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) here on Saturday. G Madhavan Nair, chairman, Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), said that quality has been the key to the agency attaining a leading reputation in the area of scientific research.

This year’s anniversary day lecture was focused on car maker Maruti Udyog Limited’s experience in assembly-line management, which the company claims, has helped it resist severe competition from domestic and international auto majors. Rajiv Gandhi, chief general manager, Maruti Suzuki India Limited, said in his lecture that by adopting over 1,000 foolproof critical processes, the company has achieved significant cost-cutting and improved quality of its products. He noted that right automation processes, employee-friendly HR policies and constant re-engineering and redeployment have helped the company steer its business ahead efficiently during the slowdown.

CII also launched an initiative called Safe Fleets on the occasion to encourage adoption of a voluntary code of conduct for road safety under the People Move People (PMP) initiative. This aims at preventing deaths and injuries by developing road transportation safety management standards.