Quality Fables Competition

In an English breakfast of bacon and eggs, which is more committed? The pig? Or the hen?

Organizations desire commitment at all levels.

But how do you get commitment for quality from the top management? It isn’t that they are not committed. What I mean is committed-committed.

The Chairman of a large steel plant, in the 1980s, resisted any formal quality intervention on the grounds that even the 3 percent seconds (read – rejects) of steel from his plant had a pent-up demand. Is seconds an opportunity or a threat? By translating the 3 per cent seconds into the language of top management, the opportunity converted to a threat. The language was that of money.

The alarm for 3 percent seconds was 30 percent of total cost! This is referred to as the Cost Of Poor Quality.

The Chairman compared that figure with his profit. He instantaneously became committed to drastically reducing the seconds. He assembled other members of the top management and declared war on waste! The Commander-in-Chief was none other than his legendary Managing Director. All the rank and file from all functions stood committed to the declared war.

Why had the Chairman not seen it this way before?

Ten years later the same steel plant became the lowest cost, steel producer in the world. A further decade on it acquired an ailing steel company in the UK. The UK company is a turnaround story today, importing the best practices from the Indian parent.

Finally, the answer to the original question on commitment is – the pig! He sacrifices his life.

It was January of 2018 and the talks for making strategy for FY19 were on. Everybody was happy with the current performance level they were achieving. However, looking at the current market scenarios, coming financial year was supposed to be more challenging for Pharma business.

Then arrived the Strategy Meet 2019, team was cherishing their achievements so far however the eyes were set on The President of Manufacturing, who is always passionate about new challenges.

“This year’s numbers are coming up pretty well. But, what yield number are you going to hit next year?” asked the President looking at the Site Head.

“Sir, Most of our yields are already in 90’s but we can try to attain some incremental numbers” responded the Site Head, with a confident smile.

“Since you’ve made an impressive change in the yield this year, I would like you to go 3% higher this time, after all, we are committed to improve on costs under our Cost Leadership Initiative too.” proposed the President.

“I know it’s a challenging task. However, this API Product A contributes significantly to the site revenue”

President further added.

“All right sir! We will give our best shot in this.” Site Head accepted the challenge. He knew it was quite an uphill task however he had confidence on his team.

The Site Head formed a cross functional team, the approach was chalked out & responsibilities were assigned. Last financial year batches were mapped for yields. Batches having higher yield as well as lower yield were studied for different parameters using Pareto, DOE & various other quality tools.

It took 4 brainstorming & review sessions for the team to derive a clear cut action plan. It was time to start implementation.

The days were moving & the implementation too. However, the yield number improved only marginally.

“Team, I think we need to do something more. What areas are we missing on?” asked the Site Head in quarterly review.

“Sir, there are certain fluctuation in vacuum & pH which we should control through automation” answered one team member.

“Okay! Let’s explore this area, but it should be a Low Cost automation.” responded the Site Head.

The Area Effectiveness Team of that block involving the shop floor employees and managers, came up with three best ideas related to Low Cost automation. It had strengthened the implementation plan further.

During the second quarterly review, the numbers were awaited & people were eager to see how they did.

“Brilliant! We have got 4.01% against the 3% target. We finally did it, Fantastic work!” announced the Site Head with joy.

Soon, during the next Reach Out session, where all the Site leaders had joined -

“Congratulations Team Digwal, Well Done! This is a great example of your commitment towards improvement. This definitely calls for a celebration.”  Appreciated the President.

The team not only achieved the target but also was sustaining the same for all batches in the monthly report.

It was May 2015 when the Market Intelligence Data Solution process migrated to eClerx.

During the first business review of this process, Andrew (the client) said: "We are being one of the largest e-tailers and suppliers of more than a million products. Therefore, remaining competitive in the market is our primary aim. Also, eClerx should be able to meet the maximum product coverage without any quality issues in a cost-effective manner as we will also have other solution providers with whom we are in discussion."

Andrew's expectation was a challenge, as our team was struggling to deliver a little above 30% coverage with 70% accuracy. If we have to maximize, it meant revamping the entire process end-to-end.

Post returning from the business review meet, Saurabh (Senior Manager) called for an urgent meeting. He said, "Folks, we have a task at hand. The client is not ready to accept anything less than 85% product coverage and 95% accuracy."

"Himanshu…I want a plan of action immediately, we can’t lose this business ", our senior manager re-iterated.

My team along with a Black Belt got into a discussion and decided to take up a DMAIC approach to tackle this problem. In the first meeting itself, it became quite clear that this was going to be a challenging project to crack as the problem was deep-rooted and inherent to the process.

He said, "The problem at hand is the cumulative effect of multiple problems that are inherent to the process."

He conducted a brainstorming activity with our team to identify the various causes; it was like opening a Pandora's Box.

It was now understood that how deep rooted this problem was.

My team decided to attack this problem in phases. In the first phase, they came up with automation for each of the extraction, transformation, and loading processes. It improved the coverage and quality of the match to 70% and 90% respectively.

The client was informed to which he replied "You guys have done a superb job but a lot needs to be done. Keep up the good work"

There was a sigh of relief in our team. For the second phase, the machine learning approach was adopted, which improved the coverage and accuracy to 85% and 95% respectively.

When the Master Craftsman (MC), Mr. Rao was promoted to be the Plant Head of India’s leading Automotive Company, it was well-received by the organization’s employees. The fact that he had risen to the position of MC fairly rapidly through the ranks, was also cited as proof of his competence.

For a Technician to become a Master Craftsman was uncommon, especially since only the very best made the cut. In any given year, not more than two – out of 20 or more finalists, chosen from a cohort of eligible candidates -would ever become MCs.

A few months into his role as an MC, word began to get around that Mr. Rao was somewhat impatient with his subordinates; as also with his peers from other departments. If any of his colleagues had a different perspective than that of Mr. Rao, he would raise his voice and usually get his way.

As Plant Head, Mr. Rao had meetings at 8:00 am every morning. This was in an era when video calls and meetings on-line were unavailable, so every person who reported into the Plant Head, had to be physically present in the large conference room. The morning meetings were anything but amicable. Mr. Rao demanded instantaneous answers to why problems had occurred at all. If his subordinates were unable to provide answers that he liked, they were asked to call their deputies and to get the answers before the end of the meeting. Increasingly, less and less information was shared with Mr. Rao.

Mr. Rao was becoming more imperious with each passing day, and seemed to have an opinion on anything and everything! His colleagues started to avoid him, and the junior associates – who bore the brunt of his fury every morning – would make excuses to avoid the morning meetings. Many senior managers were now used to getting a dressing down in front of all the other officers and managers in the room.

By now the General Manager sensed that something was grossly wrong. He called the Head of Industrial Engineering and asked him to conduct a root-cause analysis of why the plant wasn’t functioning well, and why employee morale too was down. When the analysis was submitted, there were three causes that were spelled out: 1. Fear of Mr. Rao was hindering free and open communications with all concerned. 2. There was a hurry to 'whitewash' and gloss-over plant problems, with no concern about rectifying what was wrong, to avoid a recurrence; and 3. The front-line technicians and engineers felt disempowered since they were given none of the resources they needed for their work.

The General Manager read the Analysis and decided to act. He relieved Mr. Rao of his duties as Plant Head and transferred him to the Engineering Research and Development Division.

Then he went about straightening out the lapses that had occurred.

Amar was driving Quality and Excellence in a manufacturing company in Pimpri-Chinchwad and was concerned that the number of ideas that were being generated were neither enough nor the  standard needed to make an incremental or fundamental difference.

Amar discussed this issue with a Qualitist.

Scene 1: Ground zero

Amar: The staff are not giving any ideas despite teaching them brainstorming

Qualitist: What have you done with those ideas?

Amar: We have a committee to evaluate them!

Qualitist:  Hmm. Why don't we train leadership teams on how to drive innovation and excellence first? How about starting with six thinking hats and lateral thinking as interventions.

Amar: Tell me more.

Amar started this intervention with the CEO and direct reports and got their commitment for cascading these innovation tools. He started with a tracker on people trained, challenges, ideas generated and implemented.

Scene 2- after 3 months

Amar: We now have leadership readiness and clear target areas, what should  we do now?

Qualitist: Let's have CFT / FAT- CATS and assign challenges to them BUT with targets and R & R process across the organization

Amar: Great! let me get HR buy-in first

The company trained over 1000 staff on the tools  and implemented CFT's to come up with ideas. Most teams set a quota of 1001 ideas on a single challenge statement and exceeded it!

Teams presentations had the CEO and the direct reportees as an audience and instant commendation certificates issued to all.

Scene 3- after 6 months

Amar: Lets have some tools for the shop floor

Qualitist: Try 40 principles of TRIZ

TRIZ tools were used at the plant level for technical contradictions and ideas generated.

Scene 4- after 9 months

Amar: We need more ideas from the shop floor. Suggestions systems are not working.

Qualitist: Why don't we train the blue collar workers on ideation?

Amar: But some don't understand English

Qualitist: Why don't we do it in Marathi?

Amar : We don't have time on the shop floor!

Qualitist: Hmm, why can't we find some other time?

And then the inventor in the qualitist appeared. The idea was to use the staff BUS  on its travel time of 45 minutes from Pune railway station to factory which was currently used  for gossip, company politics, nap or playing cards!

The BUS was proposed to be used for ideation in a  stress free environment !

Thinking pads were designed for use on the bus and a champion was assigned to each  bus especially on the inward journey. The champion would spell out the daily challenge  i.e "How to reduce machine wastage"  and the passengers in the bus who were all blue collar workers would pen down ideas. As the bus reached the main gate, the champion would collect the ideas!

They achieved the highest number of ideas using this innovation as nobody had thought of travel time in the staff bus as an opportunity to generate ideas!

This  unit of the MNC became a global centre of excellence and reliability.

An interaction of Sathish, a first time spectacle user, with an optician, after selecting a frame.

Optician: Based on your lifestyle and prescription, you should take photochromatic lenses with hard-multi coat (HMC).

Sathish: What’s that? What is photochromatic and hard multi coat?

Optician: Photochromatic lenses turn dark - like Sunglass - when you are outdoors and will provide you comfort and protection from UV light. HMC is an antireflection coating and EMI which will help you to see clearly indoors.

Sathish : I am even more confused, What is EMI? Can you show me that?

Optician: EMI is electromagnetic interference. Since you use laptop, this coating will protect your eyes from harmful emissions from the screen.

Sathish: Oh… I see! How much will it cost?

Optician: Lenses will cost you around Rs.5600/-.

Sathish: Sounds very expensive! Do all lenses cost so much in other shops too? My friend purchased a new pair of spectacle for only Rs.2000/-!

Optician: Yes Sir. The price will be in the range of Rs.5500 to 6000/-. Cheaper lenses may not have the above mentioned properties.

Sathish: So, how does one know what properties the lens has?

Optician: Sorry sir! I will not be able to demonstrate this to you.

Sathish: I see!

38% of Indian population (456 million) need primary eye care intervention and require vision correction and eyeglasses have served as one of the oldest vision correction aids, since the 13^th Century.

While there has been much advancement in lens products, coatings and technology, there has always been a need to differentiate between features of different lenses, such as hard coating, anti-reflection coating, UV protection, EMI, photochromatic, blue filter, etc. Eyewear industry in India is unorganized and fragmented, leading to a lack of transparency on features, benefits and price. This does not match and what they get in return.

Titan Eyeplus realised that there exists an opportunity to come out with a device on the lines of Tanishq “Karatmeter” (machine to test gold purity in a non-destructive manner) to showcase the properties of lenses and coatings to customers at the point of delivery.

The team took on a challenge to develop a low cost, portable and accurate instrument to demonstrate lens features at the point of sale. The Lens Analyser Version 1 was developed, prototyped and piloted for one year before being launched in the market.

The Lens Analyser has been well received by both store staff and customers. 89% of customers have found it useful to make an informed decision and 90% of store staff have found it to be an effective sales tool to exhibit transparency, which has led to higher C-SAT scores on value for money.

As we hear about the spread of COVID-19 in India on every passing day,it is important to assess not only the physical and health ramifications of the pandemic but to anticipate the subsequent emotional impact it will have on the overall wellbeing of individuals.
Humans are naturally oriented toward other humans and are inherently built for social connection.Socialisation plays a key role in both, individual and societal learning,development and even survival.In times like these when we are forced to stay at home or work with restricted manpower,observe social distancing,wear face mask and hand sanitise frequently,the new normal triggers anxiety and emotional isolation for many.Under the changed scenario,it became imperative for organisations to prioritize the health and safety of its employees during these testing times.We understood the need to rebuild the lost trust of management with our workers Unions BMS & INTUC because of their 25 days long illegal strike during Nov-Dec 2019.As a Head of Plant HR we immediately swung into action and organised meetings with key people of the Unions to evolve a fruitful strategy to involve other union representatives and workers in various COVID specific activities to protect our workmen and their families from any possible attack of this virus.We, in consultation with representative Unions formed dedicated teams which was deployed in our workers residential colonies for door to door thermal screening, hand sanitisation,support to our Medical Team for health Check-Ups,meal distribution for stranded migrant workers prepared by pool of workers and their families.Unions also served meals from late evening till mid-night for in-transit common people passing through Maihar town. Apart, the teams kept a close watch on any foreign entry in-to their residential colonies.

As a result, anybody who came from surrounding districts, states or from Red/Orange Zone is immediately identified, checked and home quarantined for next 14-days.The Team also kept a close watch on the adjoining slum having population of around 1800 families & approx. 8000 residents wherein More than 40% of our contractual workforce resides and many workers young children who were working in metro cities were returning back to their homes during the lock down.In a special awareness drive on Covid-19,SDM,Tehsildar and HR Team led by VP-HR took rounds of on-the-spot awareness session in this slum, as a result no case was reported till date.Team also kept an eye on local market activities and support management and local administration. Unions ensured tight control on local shopkeepers & vendors during ongoing lockdown.
The ultimate objective of all these activities was to keep our workforce, their families healthy and safe enough to pass through this phase of difficult times and stand stronger physically/mentally.We closely worked with our unions,stakeholders & govt. machinery and have been successful in our mission of ensuring safety of our workers,their families & surrounding population as well as smooth resumption of full plant operations with almost 50% workforce deployment.

Once upon a time in the kitchen of ABC Hospital, there occurred a shift in department,which formed an indispensable ingredient in preparing an “Ultimate recipe of customer delight” .

The hospital facilitated in-house catering unit serving all inpatients,relatives and staffs. The departmental wagon was multi-wheeled requiring active interventions from multi-departments for running its core activities.This involved internal team;operations,dietetics and supply-chain management and outsourced team of kitchen and utility staff.

Sunil,the protagonist,acted as liaising between both the internal and outsourced team to generate best outcomes - fortifying the health- of patients and organization.Crucial support services are outsourced to unburden from the cumbersome task to third-party enabling administrators to concentrate more on their organization’s core business.This was adopted and staffs were externalized.

But, to Mr.Sunil’s surprise, outsourcing the staff offered no respite!

He summoned his subordinate Sakshi to dwell deeper for the root causes.

“Sir,there are issues in handling the negative feedback of the patients and lack of variety by visitor’s and staff regarding the meals served. Here, shared accountability is a concern.” Sunil contemplated the shift-Food was no longer a part of medicine.It became part of overall experience further adding to the customer delight factor highlighting the term: Value-based healthcare.Sakshi added  “There are other trials related with managing the daily-wage outsourced workers,containing wastage due to returned plates and adequate inventory management that involved risk of pilferage.” 

On further probing it was found that these invisible costs coalesced alarmingly into the shortest horror story ever-Cost of Poor Quality-amounting to approximately five lakhs a month.

Sunil saw himself intertwined in the input processes;monitoring and policing the outcomes took a back-seat. This was meant to be fixed!

The idea that changed everyone’s lives was to shift the focus from input to output model by completely externalizing the department to an “expert” vendor.There was resistance from the higher management,the risk was due.Sunil,unfazed in his pursuit, proposed the plan for expanding the scope involving newer alliance with the upcoming party and gaining profits through cafeteria royalty.

A planned risk backed-up with adequate change-management initiative was undertaken.Sunil now focused on the outputs and insisted on laid service level agreements (SLAs).The invoicing was based on number of plates served. Delegating and managing “manpower” and “materials” the two villains of any cost-saving tale, was out of the picture.Also, it drastically reduced the COPQ and increased the revenue through royalty received from the cafeteria. Positive testimonials did rounds due to increased variety in meals.Truly a win-win situation leading to yummier-word-of-mouth that resonated with the taste-buds.

The number of returned plates and wastage of meals dropped exponentially, a baby-step towards bettering the environment.

However,newer challenges followed with the new party;

There is more to be served on table but that will call for yet another quality fable!