Driving Quality

The Deming Prize was instituted in 1951 by the Union of Japanese Scientists and Engineers (JUSE) in honour of Dr W Edward Deming, the pioneer of the quality movement in Japan.

The prize is awarded in three categories: Deming Application Prize for Division, Deming Application Prize for Small Businesses, and Quality Control Award for Factory. Non-Japanese companies became eligible for the prize only in 1991. There is no restriction, however, on the number of companies that can receive the award in any given year.

The award is given to a company that has implemented Company Wide Quality Control (CWQC) based on statistical quality control and the ability to sustain it in the future. This does not take a narrow view of only assured quality of products and services but a comprehensive control of cost, productivity, delivery, safety and any other activity pertaining either directly or indirectly to the quality of performance, says

R Dayal, general manager, R&D, Maruti Udyog.

The Confederation of Indian Industries (CII), along with Maruti, has set up a cluster of seven Maruti vendors to implement the Deming Prize guidelines over the next five years. These include Asahi India Safety Glass, Brakes India, GKN Invel Transmissions, Jay Bharat Maruti, India Pistons, IP Rings and Sona Steering Systems. The companies have been selected by Professor Yosikazu Tsuda of JUSE for their ability to implement and innovate on quality systems. Another criterion was that the chief executive officer of the company should not change over the next five years to ensure continuity.

In the first phase, the emphasis has been on shopfloor management. In November 1997, Tsuda visited the companies. He observed their shopfloor practices and suggested ways for attaining exactness in operations and daily work management for production quality and quantity. All the companies have to follow one simple guideline: simplify the operators job.

In this country we are still far away from the basics. As a first step, we want to ensure that minimum and precise instructions are given to the operator, says Marutis Dayal.

Based on the observations of Tsuda, each company has initiated steps to ensure better shopfloor management. For instance, every morning the senior management of Sona Steering, an auto component manufacturing company, troops out to inspect one of the production lines or cells as they are called. The quality patrol does a quality audit of the cell and suggests remedial measures. Attention is given to small details.

We are actually looking at very simple things like what an operator is doing and then defining what exactly he is supposed to do, says K Deshmukh, director, technical, at Sona. In the afternoon, another group goes out to inspect the cells that had some problems a day before. The group talks to the supervisors, workers and mechanics to understand the nature of the problem and take measures so that they do not occur again.

To facilitate the free flow of ideas, a meeting of the Deming cluster is held once a month at one of the vendors plants. Two coordinators from the top management of each company review the implementation of the suggestions made by Tsuda.

The host company has to make a presentation about the steps it has taken and this is followed by a visit to the shopfloor culminating in a brainstorming session.

The interaction helps them to draw on each others experiences. The seven companies selected are not supplying the same components, hence are not competitors. This promotes a free exchange of information at the monthly meetings, says Sarita Nagpal, technical advisor, CII.

The objective here is to learn as much from each other as from Tsuda and not having to learn from scratch what others have already done, adds Sonas Deshmukh.

So far, the cluster has held two meetings. In November 1997, the first meeting was hosted in Chennai by India Pistons. Last month, Sona Steering held the second one. Tsuda is expected to visit each of the companies once in six months to monitor the progress and suggest a future course of action.

But it is not just the award which is driving the companies. They all claim that they want to benefit from the quality movement. Says Deshmukh, The award is secondary. We are trying to become world class companies. Adds J V Jain, executive vice president, Jay Bharat Maruti,

Deming is not the end of the road. We will bag that award sooner or later but we are looking at continuous improvement. Quality has a become a mission for them. Already, all the seven companies have an ISO 9000 certificate, and Jay Bharat Maruti is in the final stages of getting the QS certificate. But unlike these certificates, which are awarded for achieving specific standards, a Deming Prize involves improvement in all spheres of activity. And sustaining the enthusiasm over a five year period is going to be the acid test.

Companies are all charged up about the Deming Quality cluster set up by the Confederation of Indian Industries.