In pursuit of excellence

Manufacturing Today
February 2014

The Corporate World Class Manufacturing programme devised by Aditya Birla Group identifies best manufacturing practices

With India Inc. going global, ensuring quality of products at the international level has become a necessity. In this scenario, adopting good manufacturing practices that would not only help companies increase efficiency and production but also cleanse it by eliminating waste and creating more value for customers with fewer resources, becomes essential.

The need for inspection is also intimately linked to the success of quality assurance systems. Without a competent inspection system operating to high professional standards becomes difficult. Taking care of all these aspects and more is the Corporate World Class Manufacturing (CWCM) programme devised by Aditya Birla Group for its manufacturing and service business.

After its inception in the year 1995, World Class Manufacturing (WCM), as part of a group-wide initiative, started engaging with the group's businesses to implement the best manufacturing practices incorporated from Japanese Total Productive Maintenance (TPM) concepts. In 1996, the CWCM cell was formed to bring in a framework of excellence across the group companies, with certain goals.

The programme operates with the aim to bring a common language of manufacturing excellence across the group. It also seeks to enable the group companies to measure themselves according to the maturity of their business processes, keeping in mind world class standards and practices. Apart from making it possible for the group companies to assess and identify opportunities for improvement as a business, in a structured fashion, the programme also allows companies to learn from each other's best practices and enables cross-pollination of practices and people across the group companies.

Every company focuses sharply on achieving their strategic objectives and to attain these goals, CWCM develops some routine initiatives through the application of manufacturing excellence tools and performs its duties. A team of specialists from various disciplines such as TPM, Total Quality Management (TQM), lean, Six Sigma, value engineering, Reliability Centred Maintenance (RCM) and business excellence are a part of the CWCM team. They support businesses in the identification of improvement opportunities and execution of high-impact projects, to achieve sustainable competitive advantage through on-site and off-site facilitation, assessments and audits.

CWCM works closely with the group businesses in building a culture of teamwork, continuous improvement, and behavioural transformation. It builds capabilities in businesses to sustain excellence-building processes by imparting skills and competencies through various improvement initiatives and self assessments. The initiatives aim to achieve manufacturing excellence by working towards a culture that involves zero: defects, losses, accidents, breakdowns, pollution, and customer complaints through a 'zero abnormality movement'.

The essence of CWCM is the formation of high performance ownership teams, which continuously strive to delight their customers (internal and external) through enhancement of performance, which is measured through Quality, Cost, Delivery, Innovation and Productivity (QCDIP). Each team defines its QCDIP from the perspective of their customers. The cell builds an external network of professional institutions from across the globe to seek out contemporary best practices and to provide internal platforms for sharing and learning.

For any programme to work, certain tools have to be identified and practices have to be followed. The above endeavours of CWCM comprise of eight dimensions, pursued with 14 key manufacturing focussed areas. The dimensions include: waste (MUDA) elimination, work environment and sustainability (5S), Just-in-Time (JIT)/supply chain management, equipment effectiveness/TP customer driven: internal and external, quality first: SQM and best practices, liaison, team force and skill development and information, systems/BPR, technology' and cash flows. The company has successfully identified the essential elements that would ultimately help it build an external network of professionals/institutions. Apart from providing internal platforms for sharing and learning, CWCM also designs, develops and manages the chairman's WCM awards to recognise businesses for their progress in the excellence journey.