The gains that have emerged out of the pilot TQM at SBLs passenger car cell includes a reduction in changeover time, a reduction in rejection rate to 1,500 parts per million from 10,000 parts per million, down-time reduction from 4,000 minutes to 1,000 minutes, and a reduced scrap rate etc. The productivity levels for the cell grew to30 per cent as against the 20 per cent rate of the rest of the company.

So much so that SBL has extended the learnings of its experiment with DWM to include all of its five cells early this year.

-- Chandan Dubey

Case 2: INDIA PISTONS

Maintaining maintenance
Maintenance of operations was one of the toughest challenges faced by the Rs 200-crore India Pistons Ltd (IPL), which manufactures and exports pistons, pins, rings, and liners for passenger cars, commercial vehicles, tractors, etc. In February 1998, the company decided to extend Daily Work Management (DWM) to support functions including maintenance.

Maintenance of machines-at its Maraimalai Nagar plant -- involved addressing three areas: reducing the total breakdown hours or availability; increasing mean time between failures (MTBF); and reduction in MTTR.

Says G R Janarthanan, vice-president, manufacturing, IPL: ``DWM is a method of taking corrective action on a timely basis so that the corrective action is notdelayed.'' So IPL began holding sunrise and sunset meetings between shifts for proper feedback from one shift to the other. For standardisation of maintenance operations, the company decided to introduce a Daily Log Book in which frequency of breakdowns noted and recurring problems identified. These were then first reviewed on a weekly basis to formulate corrective action and later on a monthly basis to take preventive action.

The aim of the exercise or Gap Analysis was to find the gap between the plan Vs performance and manage production in the subsequent hours to reduce the gap in order to meet the target production by the end of the shift.

Besides better awareness of problems, the breakdown level or availability has come down to below 10 hours per month from the earlier 60 to 80 months per month; the MTBF has been increased to 40 hours per month from the earlier 20 hours, while MTTR has been reduced to just 1 hour from the earlier two hours. In the next six months, it aims to reduce the breakdown hoursfurther to five hours per month; increase MTBF to 60 hours and reduce MTTR to just 30 minutes.

-- Pummy Kaul

Case 3: MOTHERSON SUMI

Reducing WIP and set-up time
When Motherson Sumi Systems Ltd's Deep Analysis team walked through the company's entire process, it found that only 11 per cent activity was value-added, 58 per cent non-value-added and 31 per cent was waste. Also, 83 per cent time was spent waiting on the shopfloor. Three core problems were identified: poor schedule adherence; low inventory turns; high discomfort levels. The reasons were identified as: a work-in-progress of 16 days; large batch sizes; frequent customer changes; manual sequence at capacity constraining resource points like cutting & crimping and inspection areas.

The company chose to focus on reducing WIP and setup time. This was achieved by: bringing exactness, simplicity and ease in planning by using sequencing software; using video films on 29 change-over activities, setup time wasreducedfrom 12 minutes in 1997) to 4 minutes; operator work was eased by placing inputs sequentially to reduce movement; batch sizes were reduced from 1200 to 300; a defined measure of performance has been drawn up for each cell and unit; by electronically linking its production plan to its main vendors delays were reduced; layout of the shopfloor was changed to streamline flow of activity; managing point and checking points were evolved; finally, daily work management (DWM) is being implemented since thelast three months to achieve retention of activity levels.

The results? Schedule adherence has gone up from 56 to 95 per cent; WIP is down from 16 days to 8 days; customer rejection PPM has come down from 2,200 PPM to below 300 PPM; input components inventory has been reduced from 15 days to 6 days for vendors.

-- Mukta Magazine

Case 4: ASAHI GLASS

Making a mark in marketing
Spread the use of DWM through the organisation laterally to cover all functions and vertically to coverall levels. And it will have a significant impact on your sales,'' recommends Arvind Singh, vice-president, Asahi India Safety Glass Limited. But how is quality implemented in a function like marketing? According to Singh, for effective TQM in marketing, Indian organisations should look beyond adopting the standard measures for quality.

One of the managing points for the company for example is the Customer Satisfaction Audit Score, while the checking points include customer rejections and response to customer claims. Presenting a casestudy on how Asahi tackled its despatch problems, the company developed the business process flow from sales & operational planning meetings every month to monthly meetings with transporters.

For each sub-process, Asahi has assigned responsibility, checking points and standards.

To streamline despatch, Asahi has fitted AIS's trucks with radio transponders; ensured continuous feedback to a central tracking station; installed `booths' at every 50 km on main highways to trackthe consignment; and in put in an information management system via phone/fax and onto a Website on the Net.

-- Lalitha Srinivasan

Case 5: IP RINGS

Improving flow
IP Rings, part of the Amalgamation group and manufacturer of piston rings, focussed on reducing the travel distance of a product in the manufacturing process at its Maraimalai Nagar (near Chennai) unit.

Said N Govindrajan of IP Rings: ``Earlier, products used to travel 56 meters in the manufacturing process. Later, it was discovered through DWM that the space between two stages of the process was wider and needed to be compressed to avoid delays. After the company brought the machines closer to each other, the travel distance of a product was reduced to 24 meters,'' said Govindrajan. This also led to an uptrend in production.

Among other methods adopted to reduce gaps in the flow of material includes, displaying the do's and don't chart prominently at the place of work at the shopfloor and not just anywhere.Also, time delays have been prevented by strategically repositioning boxes and converting these into trolleys for faster travel from one point to another.

-- Namrata Singh

Case 6: BRAKES INDIA

Fixing finance
Brakes India Limited started the DWM journey two years ago. The company knew that finance as a department has both internal (production, materials, marketing etc) and external (government, suppliers, vendors etc) customers. So there is always the problem of satisfying the customer -- particularly the vendor.

Says Brake India's divisional manager P S Venkatraman: ``The general tendency is that payments are not made on time. As a result, the vendor is most of the time putting his efforts in getting paid on time.'' This problem is part of the responsibilty of the finance head. His other functions include, accounting of financial transactions, reporting results of operations, annual budget presentation and monitoring, payment to suppliers and employees and compliancewith excise formalities.

To solve the problem, the company is now using the `electronic clearing system', whereby money is directly credited into the vendor's account. So the timely payment of vendor has helped the finance head reduce the gap between a managing and checking point.

The company as of now has informal meetings in the finance department to review the work each individual does. It intends making it moresystematic now with daily, weekly and monthly meetings.

-- Anamika Rath

Case 7: JAY BHARAT MARUTI

Managing materials
For a company like Jay Bharat Maruti Limited, which is a single source for supply of more than 40,000 sheet metal components, welded assemblies and exhaust system to Maruti Udyog, doing the balancing act between stock-outs and stock-ins has been the most difficult problem. Till two years ago, the company also faced the problem of inventory pile-up in certain stocks which resulted in the money being locked due to lack of storage space.

So, thecompany went in for DWM in materials management. To start with, it defined the responsibility of each individual in the material department- from managing director to manager level. Meetings were conducted on a daily, weekly and monthly basis to review the action of each person. The review was based on managing (responsibilites given) and checking (to see whether the function is done) points. As part of the DWM, the company also adopted FIFO - First In First Out-to ensure smoothness in operations.

As a result of DWM, the company has now been able to reduce the raw materials inventory from 65 days to 24 days. It is now aiming for 14. The company has also reduced the storage space from 1971 sq ft area to 1336 sq ft in two years thus saving space by 42 per cent. It expects to further reduce it to 800 sq ft area.

With the results showing upfront, executive vice-president Jai Veer Jain says: ``If you want to move towards continous improvement and gain a competitive edge, DWM is the thing for yourcompany.''

-- Anamika Rath