Quality experts helping SMEs in UP to grow

Today over two dozen SMEs in the leather clusters of Unnao and Kanpur have quality experts working for them. After the students of Masters in Total Quality Management (MTQM) of Lucknow University, now the Institute of Applied Statistics & Quality Management (IASQM) has made the availability of quality experts easy for the SMEs.

At present around 100 pass outs of quality management courses are working in the SMEs in leather, brass and Chikan industry. Enthused with the response from the SMEs, the IASQM has sent a proposal to the Uttar Pradesh government asking them to provide students of state-run Industrial Training Institutes (ITIs) and Polytechnics for three months training in the quality management.

"In fact the quality managers are of great help for the SMEs and they are the one who really need experts to boost their business," said AK Srivastava, professor of Statistics, Lucknow University, and a quality expert.

According to him, the Uttar Pardesh government has been considering the proposal of providing training to the ITI and Polytechnic students and very soon a decision in this regard would be taken.

How the quality experts are helping SMEs, when asked, Srivastava cited the example of Ruksh International, Suri Shoes and Equi Plus leather companies. "All of these have appointed quality managers in their companies few years back and their export volume become doubled," he said.

To excel in the international market the quality certifications such as SA 8000, ISO 9000 and ISO 14000 are must, which generally the SMEs do not have, informed Mohit Srivastava, a quality expert, who started his career with Kanpur based leather company Ruksh International.

Maroof Khan of Allied Leather, a company mainly in the saddlery business, confirmed this and said that business volume had gone up by 1.5 times after obtaining quality certifications.

He said that SMEs in the leather sector were ignorant about waste management but now there is atleast some level of awareness. Supporting this Srivastava said that once the workers understand the quality standards the business volume would go up automatically.

The Chikan industries in Lucknow and adjoining areas were initially hesitant but now some of them have started approaching quality experts. "As Chikan industry is in the unorganised sector, they are ignorant about the quality standards and certifications," said director, IASQM.

He, however, said that social organisations working for the Chikan workers should take an initiative in this direction as quality awareness would improve the productivity as well as the value of the product.