In the mid 1980s, when quality surfaced as a differentiating factor, leaders were eloquent at seminars and conferences about the criticality of quality for exports. Unfortunately, the emphasis was only on quality control. The real differentiator, they realized through experience,  was quality improvement. It offered strategic advantage.

Amongst the first to embrace quality improvement were Tata Steel, Mahindra & Mahindra (Tractor Division), Punjab Tractors, Bombay Dyeing, and a few more. The left-brain quality improvement discipline was applied largely to chronic problems in operations. Middle-level managers learned the Juran on Quality Improvement structured methodology that delivered huge savings in terms of cost of poor quality (COPQ). This needed showcasing. This needed sharing. With that was born the QualTech Prize Competition in 1989.

By 1994, quality improvement was also seeded in a few service organizations: Jet Airways, the Taj Group of hotels, and a few multi-national banks. They made a habit of quality improvement, in the eyes of their customers. The focus was on faster, better, cheaper, as well as, customer delight.

At the turn of the century, when Indian organizations chose to become multinationals, left-brain logical thinking was not considered sufficient for success. Indian organizations needed right-brain creative thinking for innovative solutions to their chronic problems. With that the QualTech Prize Competition evolved into four parallel streams:

• QualTech Prize for Improvement: Manufacturing & Service Categories
• QualTech Prize for Innovation: Manufacturing & Service Categories

We are pleased to note that over the past decade, hospitals have commenced participating in the Improvement and Innovation competitions. Some of these hospitals are being benchmarked by hospitals in Asia.

So what next?

It is a universal reality that structured problem solving does not follow a vanilla path. There are challenges faced by project teams. These challenges are addressed by senior management. The actual stories behind the project challenges offer tremendous lessons.

In order to capture these lessons, we have now added a Quality Fables Competition. We do hope this story telling competition captures the imagination of QualTech Prize participating organizations.