SGA teams are basically quality improvement teams appointed by the Godrej management to solve chronic or recurring problems that are considered ``pain areas''. Quality here implies satisfying the needs and reasonable expectations of the customer.

Citing an instance of an SGA, Godrej Soaps deputy general manager (TQM) William J Pinto said that a pain area can be as mild as a pigeon menace in the company's R&D factory-to a bigger issue on the shopfloor. ``The menace created by pigeons in the R&D factory was identified as one of the pain areas and this was later rectified through an SGA,'' he said.

According to Pinto, the savings quantified by the company would not have happened or would not have been identified, had it not been for TQM.TQM was ushered in by the company in 1995-96, and the firstyear was to create awareness programmes and to focus on generating enthusiasm for involvement of employees in TQM-related activities. The company entered the second year of TQM with learning and refining skills, tools & techniques.

The third year was largely to consolidate learnings from use of different tools and techniques. The effort during this year was to bridge the gap between business and TQM, said Pinto.

The company, now in the fifth year of its total quality management initiative, has introduced the CII-Exim Business Excellence Model for Business Self-assessment. While systems improvement has been identified by the company as the main focus area for the year 1999-2000, enhancing operational efficiency, capacity utilisation, demand creation and control, and reduction of working capital have been outlined as special areas of focus.

Critical processes for business self-assessment which have been picked by the company as per the CII-Exim Business Excellence Model are: new product development,quality assurance, order to cash, fixed deposit management and TQM implementation.

The company has given itself a deadline of 2003 as the year in which it plans to bag the CII-Business Excellence award. Enablers and results are given equal weightage in the CII-Business Excellence Award. Thus, for Godrej Soaps, even as the enablers are almost in place, the company will have to strive towards achieving positive business results which has been allotted a significant 15 per cent points in the CII model.

Godrej Soaps slipped into the red by making a net loss of Rs 29.93 crore for the year ended March 1999, as against a profit of Rs 8.53 crore last year. The company will have to take steps to climb back into the black to aim for the award.

Allocation of points in the CII model based on the European Model for TQM) are: leadership is given 10 per cent; people management, people satisfaction and resources is given nine per cent each; policy and strategy has been given eight per cent points; processes 14 percent; consumer satisfaction has been given 20 per cent; impact of society six per cent; and finally business results with 15 per cent.

Giving an example of quality initiatives taken by the company on the customer satisfaction front, Pinto said that the company has managed to bring down the response time across business categories by 50 to 60 per cent on an average.

This is measured as the time within which a customer registered the complaint and the complaint is handled by the concerned manager. ``We realised that improper documentation was leading to a lot of time consumption which had to be brought down,'' said Pinto.

The company so far has implemented as many as twenty key business processes, in new product development, quality assurance, sales forecasting, new product management, market research, technology development.