Gunavatta aur Aftab
Balaji Reddie

“I think we’ve tolerated this enough” , said Mr. Kirodimal the CEO of Arthik Production Private Limited . The discussion was about one of the employees who was very sincere and honest , but had a very bad track record of attendance . He would invariably exhaust his leaves for the year by the end of October , and then would be charged with ‘Leave Without Pay’ for he rest of the Calendar year .

All his colleagues liked this affable employee and his impeccable work , but now the CEO was looking to terminate his employment because of his ‘misdemeanours’ . This was brought to the notice of the Quality Director of the company – Mr. Gunavatta in whose department he worked . “Aftab is a good man . Why does he have such a bad track record otherwise ? I believe in blaming the process and not the person . There must be an underlying problem we’re not able to see . Let’s look at the data .”

His absenteeism records showed that he remained absent either a day before despatch to a major customer – or a day after . It was always the same customer ! “Now that’s a coincidence ! Why the same customer every time ?” asked Mr. Gunavatta . “Well we despatch material to them every other week as per their requirement” , said Aftab’s immediate Supervisor Mr. Khadoos .

So , in effect , Aftab was inspecting a fortnight worth of despatch in a matter of two days every single time . If some other requirement from any other Customer came in the interim , it meant that much more work and tension .

Upon digging deeper , it came to light that Aftab would be stuck at his table the whole day inspecting sampling lots of the material which was quite cumbersome . If there were multiple despatches , it would lead to boredom and fatigue , and Khadoos would not want anything to slip through – he would come down on Aftab like a ton of bricks upsetting him no end . It was then that they discovered that Aftab had a hypertension problem . It had nothing to do with his age (he was in his mid thirties) – it was hereditary . So that was it !

“Why did you not tell me of his frail health before ? People with hypertension need to be on the move and need a ‘change in scene’ regularly” , said Mr. Gunavatta . “I’ll talk to the Manager in charge of Provider-Network Design and get Aftab to visit the Providers’ premises and carry out checks at the Providers’ end . He can also improve their processes consequently . I think this is going to work” .

Aftab was given this responsibility to improve Provider Quality at source . What a transformation that precipitated ! He loved going to Providers’ end and carrying out checks there . He also trained them and improved their processes . Arthik Production no longer had to rely on incoming inspection now . The most beneficial outcome was that his attendance soared . He loved his work ! He felt important now . His family said that his attitude and self worth improved too .

 

Happy to Chat
eClerx Services

Sometime in the third week of October last year, I was crossing the operations floor on my way to the desk. All I could hear was the cluttering of keyboards and occasionally, voice of a team leader interacting with an agent— usual environment in Chat customer care.

Half way through, I was called by Vaibhav (my manager) for a meeting. The team was waiting for me in a conference room. Vaibhav said, "I have an important update. One of our competitors has lost business to a new vendor in Chat".

We were not surprised as this was usual due to increased competition. Vaibhav continued, "Our client's business is growing and they are thinking about expanding Chat customer service. This is a good opportunity to get additional business, but how do we differentiate eClerx from competitors?"

The meeting concluded with an open-ended statement.

Next day, in the senior managers’ meeting, there was a heated discussion over Repsat, which had taken a hit in the last week. Repsat represents the positive responses in a survey triggered by client to customer at the end of a chat session.

After the meeting I asked Vaibhav, "Why not focus on Repsat? Our client has always wanted to increase customer satisfaction by investing in new technology and by upgrading their systems. I am sure that if we improve Repsat, our client will be happy. Moreover, it could be a factor that differentiates eClerx from others”.

After giving it some thought, Vaibhav said, "Let's aim for increasing Repsat."

A DMAIC project was initiated and a team was formed. The project was sponsored and directly monitored by Amit, Vertical Head of Customer-Service-Operations. In the ’Improve’ phase, we faced a few roadblocks— agents reluctant to follow the improved process, many changes in Workflow tool, and changes in training related activities. We grouped solutions into three buckets— software, process, and training— and assigned separate teams to these areas. The new process designed with Poka-Yokes, made it easy for the agents to follow process steps.

After we implemented the solutions, we started seeing improvement in Repsat figures. Needless to mention, our client also observed this rapid increase in eClerx Repsat figures.

About four weeks later, Amit called for a meeting and said, “I just received a call from client. They are so impressed and delighted with the initiative that we took to improve the Repsat numbers. Congratulations to Vaibhav and his team on the successful completion of this project. Hope we receive some good news soon”.

In our weekly review with client, we explained the actions taken at eClerx for Repsat improvement.

The client appreciated our in-depth analysis in the project and our commitment towards improving the end customer satisfaction.

Two weeks after our client review, we received the much awaited email from client proposing to increase the head counts by nearly 30% in a span of three months.

Hard work to Smart work - A story of change
Brillio Technologies PVT LTD
Excel and PowerPoint are good colleagues, theyunderstand each other and coexist very well. They’re supportive, hardworking and collaborative.Due to this, they believed that they’re the only ones who can provide any sort of analysis and visualisation. And our homo was in love with them, albeit a lot of struggle.

The stage is set for our annual ‘Customer Satisfaction Survey'. Tonnes of customer data over years flows into the analysis. Excel boasted of interesting formula and charts which the homo really liked. But, in the end, excel and power point had a bit of rivalry going on—bothwere jealous of each other’s features making it tough for the homo to seamlessly flow the data between. Excel was flexible but lacked visual appeal. Power point had lustre but lacked flexibility.

Our homo spent sleepless nights to ensure that data is correct and well formatted. But, during the presentations, there were mismatches. CSAT had many dissections and needed multiple viewsfor different stakeholders. Working on the same visualizations for different teams was the reason for this data mismatch. This dentedthe credibility of the entire process. This entire effortwas two months of hard work for both, and our homo. The homo started getting frustrated about the relationship and asked the duo "Why don’t you talk better to each other and make my life better?”. The Excel-PowerPoint duo had their own reasons not to.

After six years of struggle, a new person walked into the company. He looked stylish, well-built and had confidence in him. He was a fresher. Our homo noticed this smart guy and decidedto give him a try. He fundamentally questioned why should PowerPoint be the pair to excel? Why can it be a Power BI. He started a pilot. Every day, he brought in new charts, new patterns, to which the homo gave a try. Thus, Power BI and Excel teamed up with the past two years’ data to understand how quickly the analysis can be set up. Power BI grabbed everything and projected it almost live.

Now Power BI has the design of views even before the start of survey. It takes more and more data dimensions and provides brilliant correlations.Once the survey window closes and excel pushes the survey data, homo receives a first draft quickly.Power BIalso gives homo the comparison views with previous years. Hurray! The data is correct and can be drilled down at will. All the leadership gets data at the same time as per their span of control.

The difference this made? Work that used to take 2 months of effort came down to just 2 days!

How a needle changed lives
Apollo Gleneagles Hospitals, Kolkata

In 2006, a young nurse, Junie Xaviour freshly passed out from a renowned Nursing college in Kerala came to work in a super-speciality hospital in Kolkata. Motivated by Florence Nightingale, she was eager to be a part of the patient care process.

One month into her duty in CCU, she got a deep needle prick from a hypodermic needle while withdrawing after administering an injection to a patient. Not knowing what to do, she casually approached her supervisor Lily. “Madam, I got a prick from a used needle and its bleeding”, said Junie. “Junie you should not take this casually at all. This prick can act as the entry of deadly organisms and lead to diseases like HIV, Hepatitis B or C”, exclaimed supervisor Lily.

“Madam, I am scared. What should I do now? Said a bit startled Junie. “Listen Junie, Meet the Emergency Medical Officer.” Junie met with the EMO, Dr Jatin. Dr Jatin asked, “You are quite careless? Were you not taught in Nursing school how to give injections? Junie replied nervously “Sir, I have accidentally pricked myself with a used needle”.

Dr Jatin replied quite apathetically, “I will give you first aid. I will take your blood samples.” Go and get the billing done with this prescription. Get me the patient’s sample also.”

Junie ran all the way panic-stricken to her supervisor to get the patient details. Ms Lily mentioned, how can we ask the patient for the sample? Who will bear the cost?” Junie replied in a trembling voice “Madam, I will bear all the cost.” Lily replied “Go and convince the patient and draw the sample.” Junie had a tough time explaining to the patient to get the sample. She bore the cost herself, deposited the samples with the laboratory and went back to Dr Tarak. “Do I need to do anything else”, Junie asked. Dr Jatin mentioned “we will inform you”. Junie waited for a week but no one got back.

She approached a relative of her who was a nurse in the School of Tropical Medicine, Kolkata who guided her through the next course of action.

“That incident totally shook me up. Fortunately for me the follow ups were negative. I decided, I will not let this happen to anyone in the future”’ recalls Junie. She changed her career path and shifted to Nursing administration. She undertook the Infection Control course from TISS and joined Apollo Gleneagles Hospital Limited, Kolkata, a multidisciplinary tertiary care JCI accredited hospital in 2010 in infection control.

Over the years Junie worked hard with support from Hospital management and Quality Cell to build a robust process of Needle stick injury and other sharps related injury preventions. From as high as an average of 6/month NSI has been reduced to “zero” in current months.

According to Junie “Through team efforts, we have achieved what we wanted in our hospital. But, we have miles to go before we sleep. We need to strengthen our National Policies and bring in mandates to protect staffs from Occupational Exposures to Blood borne pathogen like abroad.” Junie’s initiative still continues to touch the lives of many.

Impala.. Leap Over Barrier
Kansai Nerolac Paints Ltd.

Idea Pursuing
Last Sunday it was pleasant weather and my family was excited to enjoy weather by visiting the Zoo near to my home.
We visited the Zoo, My daughter exclaimed! Wow, a beautiful lake in which some water-birds like ducks were swimming. Enclosure in which flying birds were kept. They ranged from sparrows, parrots to pigeons of various colors. The birds were chirping, In the next enclosure lions, leopards and tigers, whose roaring’s were deafening, Impala’s were enjoying in their Boundary. It was seemed that every living creature was enjoying the weather.
We enjoyed a lots of fun and took high tea together after returning from zoo. Daughter was narrating the visit in her own words. She questioned PAPA, I had read that Impala can jump up to 12 feet but I noticed that Impala was walking inside the boundary height of 3 feet only. I replied- , the Impala will not jump if they cannot see where their feet will fall.
It was time to sleep and I gone through received message on mobile. In mean while watching video clip of Ramayana serial in which Mantri Sumant was saying that King should plan the event time to time for his Praja to creating the Excitement and keeping Moral high.
Idea from Impala behavior and Ramayna scene was whispering that why it cannot be implementing in the company to take bold step to go beyond and incremental improvement can be left behind by breakthrough improvement by taking leap jump over barriers.

Idea Alteration in Deed
Next Day, I went to company and idea discussed to core Committees and consensus made to create the positive wave in the company . Now Question was How??
Lots of Idea Generated with if and but’s but finally management decided to hire external agency as change agent in perception to get new Problem solving approach for his employee
Agency hired and communicated to all employee that he along with us problem will be identified from your work place KPI and will guide to solve the issue.

Deep Dive and Harmony
To make team blend, Team and Project named “Uday” and now from Top to Bottom each one is part of Uday. Team created harmony in the organization and started journey in funny way for involving the all by asking the question like Tare Jamme pe (Think- Trees udsakte hai , do brain storm and tell how it can be)
Lots of idea generated that were not expected from process experts and many trial conducted and implemented as feasible.
Trainings supported to develop the capability of Plant employee to behave a change Agent for way forward.

Opportunity Realization
Incremental result jumped to Breakthrough result and Knowledge bank respiratory made with recognition of change agent in the plant team. Deploying the learning horizontally in other process area is ongoing.

Innovation Seals the Victory
Titan Company Ltd.

Our tale unfolds in the mighty Vijayanagara empire ruled by the incomparable King Krishnadevaraya.

The King was taking stock of the readiness of his armed forces to wage war against his chief rival Adil Shah, the Sultan of Bijapur, who had provoked him for several months with guerilla attacks on the frontier settlements. The Sultanate would conduct raids with lightning speed and retreat before the army could be mobilized.

Krishnadevaraya knew that the enemy was not just motivated, but also cunning. They hadn’t openly declared war yet against Vijayanagara, but resorted to proxy war with mercenaries to deny their involvement. He took the counsel of the wise Tenalirama to buttress the ponderous army of heavy swordsmen and spearmen with faster cavalry archers, who could rapidly gain ground and rain arrows upon the fleeing enemies.

The Chief Armourer Gaurava, who was in charge of supplying armour, spears and swords for the soldiers, needed to ramp up production of iron arrowheads to provide for the newly enlisted cavalry archers. The enemy was growing bolder each day and Vijayanagara needed to give them a fitting reply soon.

The traditional method of open sand casting which required a lot of hammering to finish the arrowhead profile wasn’t suitable for use now. Hence, Gaurava opted for the quicker method of investment casting with which he could make wax profiles of the arrow heads, cover them in a plaster mould and then pour iron into it to get the arrow heads.

While Gaurava got this process in place, the results were not very encouraging. His problem was that the arrows had a lot of chipping and other defects owing to improper sealing of mould which caused molten metal to ooze out, resulting in a lot of rework and rejections.

Gaurava tried different methods of sealing but to no avail. The wise Tenalirama who happened to visit the despondent Gaurava, patiently listened to his problems and suggested that he try the fine river clay in place of the ordinary clay being used by him. Tenali proposed that the fine clay would provide an airtight seal to all his travails.

Gaurava, took up this idea and within a few trials, was able to successfully seal the moulds with river clay. With this new process, he could produce perfect arrowheads through casting in the first attempt without any rejections or rework required, thus meeting the requirement well within the stipulated time.

Adil Shah, confident over the muted response from Krishnadevaraya, had mobilized his main army to attack Vijayanagara. They were in for a rude shock as King Krishnadevaraya was fully prepared with a big contingent of cavalry archers. The battle was a massacre of the Sultanate forces, who had no answer to the hail of arrows. King Krishnadevaraya secured yet another victory, thanks to the creative thinking of Tenalirama and the effective execution by Gaurava.

King Krishnadevaraya recognized the contribution of Gaurava to the victory by awarding him a hundred gold coins and appointed him the Chief Engineer. Gaurava was also made in charge of training a team of workers to make arrowheads using the new process, ensuring that Vijayanagara will be ready for even more formidable adversaries.

Leadership for Shade Correction
Winsome Textiles

People see our VP as a levelheaded person. On that day all the staff members were shocked when VP lost patience. At that instance the team got restless and literally on the verge of knocking down the development team. As a team leader I was shrieking “Why the shade matching being done is not OK” .What is happening – Why the shade matching is not getting OK at First Instance. We cannot produce the yarn as per customer requirement and the order will get delayed again. We have to identify the reasons for shade matching not OK, analyze them and work on finding and implementing solutions to help increase Right First Time (RFT)

Continuous delays in delivery of orders attracted for a presentation on various reasons for such delays. Data of shade correction in melange mixing was presented to top management and its figures were consistently lower than standard for quite a few months. Also it was affecting the bottom line of the organization.

Shade correction in Melange Mixing was such a pain, which was leading to loss of potential orders in addition to financial loss .Everyone agrees in Spinning that the Shade correction in Melange Mixing is high as compared to the standard and has direct as well as significant impact on the bottom line of the organization. Also, it was leading to delay in execution of orders and problem of line balancing which directly affects the loss of production and customer dissatisfaction. Optimizing the cost of production was of prime importance to WTIL leadership team and to prove the aspects of growth, customer satisfaction without giving up the excellence in manufacturing by establishing new standards of performance

All the improvements that were done followed the 'Management of change'.
All relevant SOP’s were modified and on - site trainings were given to employees
Knowledge sharing was done through One-Point Lessons.
Do and Don’ts board prepared and displayed on site for better control over the gains.

Project closing survey conducted by the team to understand the fulfillment of the “Voice Of Customer” and share actions taken as per their requirement.

A project is only as successful as the people behind it. The person who felt the most pain in Shade matching Process was nominated as Project Leader (Mr. Sudeep Mondal) and team members were selected from different departments concerning the problem. In all CFT (Cross Functional Team) was formed to solve the problem

The top management reviewed the progress of the project in the Monthly Review meeting. Daily MIS being circulated internally for shade matching.

Project resulted in savings of Rs 32 lacs per annum, recurring.

This project team was awarded as the best TQM Project on the Annual Day by the Top Management.

Let there be Light..!
Reliance Jio Infocomm

The earth was formless and void, and darkness was over the surface of the deep waters, and the Spirit of God was moving over the surface of the waters. 

Then God said, "Let there be Light"; and there was Light!

One Monday morning while we reported to work, we had more than half of the INDIA reporting network failures…the sites were down and the teams were in total darkness nobody knew what went wrong!

The operations team gave up saying “network down”!

The maintenance guys said, “ISP cards failure”

In turn, service engineers said “High down time “meaning high “Mean time to Repair” (MTTR)–more than six hours..! (The time when the Service was down...)

Also, business heads said, “High Customer Dissatisfaction...!”

Total disaster….Darkness…!

Everyone was searching for a ray of hope...!

The Centre of Excellence team came to the rescue. On investigation they theorized that the problem was due to the temperature rise, close to the cards, owing to improper functioning of Precision Air-conditioning (PAC).

The team along with the equipment manufacturer implemented the solution. They removed the root causes by reducing the hotspots in the server rooms and thereby saving the failure of cards. And, finally, restored the site operations and network...!

In the next three months the solution was implemented at all the 59 large facilities, resulting in zero card failures hence Zero MTTR, due to the card failures.

The results were amazing in terms of improved customer satisfaction; the power utilization factor has reduced from 2.0 to 1.5 now, and resulted in high energy cost savings. More specifically, more than 64.24 crores/annum (only for 59 facilities).

This was a winner for the long term. It will give optimum results even if we expand the network capacity.

Thus as God said, "Let there be Light" and……there was Light…!