Quality is No Pushover Now

For the Japanese, quality is next to godliness, quite literally. In Japan, quality maintenance engineers of an aircraft fly the first flight with the passengers, post maintenance. But not long ago, Japan was known more for its counterfeits and cheap imitations. It was like what China is today, cashing in on low-end markets. It took a World War to make Japan realize that quality was no laughing matter. That realization has set an example which every developing nation should get one’s teeth into. Japan is today the third-largest industrial producer in the world and its product line is as impressive as its growth graph. But things didn’t come served on a platter for this Asian giant. It followed the guidelines of leading management guru’s like W Edward Deming and Joseph M Juran word for word. Perseverance and dedication worked like siblings with these teachings to take Japan to the pinnacle of success. In fact it invited these learned fellows to their country to train their middle management a lesson or two on quality management.

This teaches us one thing: Quality is not about top-line products, but also about tip-top human resources engaged in delivering what it takes to rule the consumers’ buying list. But how seriously do Indians take quality? Well, you will be surprised, hundreds of big names in the Indian industry stick to taking their lessons in quality management. In fact, we have a college fully dedicated to providing that extra edge to our executives in quality assurance. Qimpro College, a private institution formed by Qimpro Consultants, imparts training and non-formal education in this area for anyone from senior managers to middle managers, from engineers to internal auditors, from process owners to ordinary employees with at least 5 to 6 years experience.

“It has become a universal trend now that companies, especially from US, wishing to outsource their manufacturing activities to India, inquire about the number of certified quality assurance professionals.  That’s the reason why leading corporate houses, are sensitizing their staff to acquire a world-class training in quality."

Quality Affairs
Suresh Lulla, Founder & Mentor of Qimpro Consultants Pvt. Ltd., is a member of the American Society for Quality ad has pioneered the quality revolution in India. Qimpro has trained more than 700 professionals in quality management in since its inception in 1991. It has concluded assignments India, Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, Pakistan, Sultanate of Oman, and Kenya and has over 100 years of management consultancy experience.

The Qimpro College which provides training follows a curriculum prescribed by the American Society for Quality and has an alliance with the Quality Council of Indiana (QCI). The examinations are conducted by the QCI at Qimpro Colleges and all the study materials are available at the college library for reference or can be from QCI’s online bookstore. The certifications are also awarded directly by the QCI. Though it is an open book examination, the questions cover the minutest of details of the very vast syllabus. Usually, quality control organizations conduct in-house training sessions for their employees, but individuals wishing to take up the certification course can either opt for the Qimpro Tutorials or self-study. There is also an option for a person to become a Certified Master Trainer and conduct tutorials independently once he passes the examination himself. But in this case also the examinations would be conducted at Qimpro College under the guidance of QCI.

Quality has become an increasing trend also because of the skyrocketing BPO industry. BPO’s are very strict about quality and adopt the various quality tools like Six Sigma, to improve its functioning.

The Chief Executive of ITC, Chennai, R Srinivasan, vouches for Qimpro “Over the course of three years 1998, 1999, 2000, Mr Lulla was a consultant for ITC and was instrumental in influencing the entire top management and thereafter a cascade of managers on TQM and particularly the Juran trilogy of Quality Design, Quality Control and Quality Improvement”. The company leveraged its training and the training of Qimpro along with the Juran cassettes and work-books to educate its managers on quality and to get them to adopt projects using JQI teams(Juran Quality Improvement). ITC set up a measurement to track the cost of poor quality(COPQ), which they still use to drive projects and to knock out their own complacency. Further, ITC also adopted the IQRS(International Quality Rating System), the precursor to the IQMM offered by Qimpro today and achieved progressively Level 6, which was the highest in the country at that time with Vikram Cement.

“We also sent managers to attend the Qimpro College programmes at Mumbai from time to time as that gave them external benchmarks and the opportunity to see that others were moving rapidly as well, besides motivating them to learn about multiple applications in other arenas using the same methodology. We have continued to build on the learnings and to this day continue a revision of practices learned. The Senior Management Committee spends a day once a month reviewing quality and inculcating the same in the units of the packing and printing division”, Mr Srinivasan said.

V C Bedi, Vice President of Larsen and Toubro’s Hazira plant, acknowledges the contribution of Qimpro to L&T. “L&T got associated with Qimpro in 1995, and the latter helped the company to train its engineers, executives and managers in the structured methodology of project by project improvements through the famous Juran trilogy of planning, controlling and improving quality in a continual spiral. Qimpro trained 298 employees who took up 49 improvement projects.

Qimpro also helped L&T engineers in Statistical Process Control. All these projects had an estimated combined COPQ (cost of poor quality) of more that Rs 14 crore, which L&T has been able to reduce substantially on successful implementation of the projects. L&T has also been taking part in the quality events of Qimpro called QualTech, which gave an opportunity to many of L&T’s successful JQI (Juran Quality Improvement) teams to present their case studies in these events.

There are pros and cons to globalization, but the most debilitating disadvantage is the fact that in the struggle for recognition only the fittest will survive. India needs to blindly follow the gospels of quality, and make the ‘Made in India’ brand speak a triumphant tale of high standards so that in the quest for success, it survives, without a doubt.