Achieving "Make in India" along with maintaining product quality

In the manufacturing industry as well as the service industry, building a quality culture will be cost effective for an organisation in the long run, said panellists at the Business Standard Smart Business seminar on 'Achieving Make in India along with maintaining product quality', organised in association with Whitefield Area Commerce and Industries Association.

The panellists included R N Hegde, President of WACIA, M V Kannan, former ISRO scientist, R Sureshkumar, Engineering Director at GE Healthcare, S Krishnaswamy, Former chief executive of CEMILAC, DRDO, V Gopalakrishnan, former associate director of LRDE, DRDO, and P M Krishnan, Principal Counsellor, Business Excellence, CII Quality Institute. The event was attended by over 100 industry professionals, academics and students.

The panellists underscored the importance for organisations of constantly investing in training employees to adopt quality as part of their work culture without depending on a quality team to monitor their activities. It is essential to achieve consistent improvement in productivity with quality in order to achieve the Make in India dream, they added. "If there is no investment in a quality culture, organisations will not be able to succeed in a highly competitive market place," said R Sureshkumar.

According to V Gopalkrishnan, quality departments were like policemen. "If you imbibe a quality culture right from start, these departments would be irrelevant," he added. PM Krishnan advised manufacturers to improve their quality processes. He said that manufacturers need to understand the value they want to provide to their customers and build the quality metrics to ensure it is delivered.