SME clusters to benefit from 'Lean Manufacturing Scheme'

Having faced the heat of economic slowdown, the Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) in North India can finally breathe easy with the Government of India launching a scheme to improve their productivity.

The ‘Lean Manufacturing Scheme’ that focuses on increasing the competitiveness among SMEs has identified 11 clusters in North India under the scheme.

The clusters identified in states of Haryana, Punjab, Jammu & Kashmir and Himachal Pradesh include cricket bat manufacturers (Anantnag), furniture manufacturers (Srinagar) from Jammu & Kashmir, scientific instruments manufacturers (Ambala), agricultural implements manufacturers (Karnal) from Haryana, textile cluster (Ludhiana), auto-components and foundry( Ludhiana) agricultural implements manufacturers (Moga), hand tools ( Jalandhar) and sports goods ( Jalandhar) from Punjab and pharmaceutical (Nalagarh) and food processing (Solan) from Himachal Pradesh.

The schme aims at enhancing the manufacturing competitiveness by applying lean techniques to identify and eliminate waste in the manufacturing process and thereby streamlining the system. The techniques employed would comprise of Just in Time (Jit) Inventory, Quality Cost Deployment, Poka Yoke, SMED and Quality Systems Implementation among others.

Talking to Business Standard, Deputy Director (Chandigarh) National Productivity Council, S S Bhullar said the ‘Lean Manufacturing Scheme’ which aimed at enhancing the productivity and competitiveness of MSME sectors would be implemented in 11 clusters in North India. He added the schme was the policy manifestation of National Manufacturing Competitiveness Council (NMCC ) focuses on the development and increasing the competitiveness of the MSME sector.

He added, National Productivity Council (NPC) under the ministry of commerce and industry, had been entrusted the task of implementation of the scheme for MSME Cluster and had been designated as National Monitoring and Implementing Unit (NMIU). In this context about 100 clusters all over India have been identified by the Government of India (GOI).