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Since commencing operation in 1962, SCL has achieved many milestones and
emerged as one of the preferred solution provider in machined and sub-assembled
aluminium castings.
Our contribution commences from early design stage to development and supply of
finished product. Over the years, we have built strategic partnership with global OE /
Tier one.
With the robust manufacturing driven by TQM, TPM, Lean practices and investments
in state of the art technologies, SCL is poised to serve the future needs of the industry
in light metal castings.
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INTERVIEW VENU SRINIVASAN, CEO, SUNDARAM-CLAYTON
But you must be proud of being a TQM pioneer. After all, you started
working on total quality in the mid-1980s, well before the first
companies in the country did. How were you able to identify the need
for total quality, and push ahead to achieve it?
When you have worked in a family like the one that runs the TVS Group,
when you have worked with a set of extraordinary uncles, when you have
grown up with stories of excellence, you just try and match those standards.
Even when I was doing my MBA at Purdue University (US), I tried to link
whatever I was learning with the value systems of excellence, and to figure
out how it could be linked to our businesses to achieve excellence. If it is not
excellence, it is not TVS. I have been brought up with so much of this that
there is just one way of doing things. In TVS, the system is even more sacred
than the owners. The organisation is sacred, and its values are sacred.
This is the question your peers must be waiting for an answer to. What
exactly is Sundaram-Clayton's definition of total quality?
Quality is a multi-faceted body and, in some ways, is like the story of the blind
men and the elephant. It means different things to different people, and there
is no one definition. However, in the context of total quality control (TQC),
what total quality means is trying to achieve excellence in everything you do.
To me, that's the ultimate definition of quality. Because quality is difficult to
define, people find it difficult to implement. It has to be supported by an
excellent human resources package for communication, motivation, and the
development of people who, then, take ownership of quality and everything
that is done and, only then do you try to implement quality in all activities.
We found that TQC had a structure which, in many ways, resembled the way
TVS was run in the 1940s and the 1950s. For instance, we had zero-
breakdowns of TVS buses in the 1950s. Every TVS bus was on time, to the
minute; there was complete ownership by the employees. So, you can
imagine the kind of values that the management had inculcated in its people;
everybody worried everything. Now, all that I have seen in TVS is excellence,
right from the time I used to work as an assistant mechanic during my
summer holidays when I was in college. The only other place where I could
see excellence organised the way it was in TVS was in Japan.
That brings us to the central issue: how is Japanese TQC different from
other forms of quality management?
The biggest misconception that people have about TQC is that it is about
product quality. It is not. It is about the quality of all the business processes--
and not just about the quality of the product. That's why I prefer to call it
TQC--and not TQM--because TQC is the old Japanese way of involving
everybody in quality. From the moment you step into the plant, everything
must be right: the grass must be cut properly, the canteen floor must be
cleaned properly TQC is an all-round excellence effort, and is not about one
aspect of the company.
One person who has been closely associated with your quality journey
is Yoshikasu Tsuda. In fact, you refer to him as Sundaram-Clayton's
guru. What exactly has he done for your company?
Initially, there was a lot of unhappiness about it. But when the professors saw
that we were committed and doing what they told us, they also started giving
us the leeway to do it our way. Others helped us too. For example, when it
came to technology, product technology, business strategies, and human
resources, we took help from the University of Warwick's S.K. Bhattacharya,
S. Ramachander of the Academy for Management Excellence helped us with
marketing. But full credit goes to Professors Tsuda and Washio. They worked
with us directly.
Did you find TQC a little alien to the Indian context? Should an Indian
company build its own set of quality practices around the concepts of
TQC?
That's another thing Professor Tsuda asked me some time ago. He said: "It is
fine that you have adopted TQC. But, ultimately, you must have a Sundaram-
Clayton Way the TVS Way. You can always incorporate the elements and
principles of TQC, but your company has a history, a culture, values You
have to ensure that your system incorporates those. It cannot be the Toyota
Way. Toyota is a different company, it is a different way You may start with
Japanese TQC but, at the end of the day, there has to be an Indian-ness, a
Sundaram-Clayton-ness, and, most important, a TVS-ness in it for it to
succeed, and for your people to own it internally"
What, then, is the Sundaram-Clayton Way of total quality that you went
on to craft?
I don't think I'm the only one who can answer that question. You have to ask
the people who work on the shopfloor, because they will give you a better
answer than I can. But I can relate one incident that brings out the TVS Way.
I happened to meet a retired chairman of Cochin Refineries on board a flight
recently. Apparently, as a young boy, this gentleman used to take the TVS
bus to go to school. One day, the bus was late by 5 minutes because the
conductor overslept. Enraged, one of the passengers slapped the conductor.
When a few other passengers chided the angry person for having hit the
conductor, they were surprised to find the conductor himself intervening,
saying that he deserved the slap he got. For, he had brought disrepute to the
TVS name. Now, what is this if not ownership of quality?
Now that you have won the Deming Prize, does Sundaram-Clayton
consider itself world-class?
Winning the Deming Prize actually creates expectations which are beyond
your present abilities. Internally, we are very pleased. It's like giving birth to a
child. No matter how great the labour-pain, once the child is born, it is pure
joy. But everybody equally realises that there is a long way to go. Excellence
is a moving target. Somebody defines excellence and, within 2 years,
somebody else has redefined it by moving its horizon. Excellence is
something you have to strive for every day. The moment you stand still, you
have lost it.
There are 3 things that I would look for. One is customer satisfaction. If you
are not customer-focused, you cannot be world-class. I don't know any
company which ignores its customers and is still world-class. You have to
think of the customer as God. The second factor is people. Without people,
you cannot achieve anything. If your customers have to be happy, it is your
people who have to make them feel that way. The third element is
technology. Fundamental to any world-class company, of course, are
management vision, goals, and values. It is these that ultimately drive TQC.
Customer satisfaction, people development, technology development all
these are driven because there is a top management that has vision, that has
goals--including intermediate goals--and has values.
Any company which does not have values will not live long or make a mark in
history. Companies without values are like footprints in the sand; they get
washed away with the next wave. One of the reasons why we succeeded is
that we are a values-driven company. We deeply believe in our values, and it
is this conviction which gives you the strength to fight adversity. In 1991,
when we had the labour conflict at TVS-Suzuki, there was a lot of vandalism.
There was a lock-out in the company, and we were on the verge of ending up
at the Board For Industrial & Finance Reconstruction. People said that we
should open up and make peace with the trouble-makers. I said that I don't
mind if there is no capital left in the company, but I am not going to
compromise with the way TVS manages its business, which is through good
values and good industrial relations. And if there was going to be a group of
vandals who wanted to wreck the company, we would rather close down than
make peace. You cannot compromise on values and still attain long-term
success.
How have you been able to create this sense of ownership? Is it your
company's people-orientation that is responsible for this ownership?
The elephant succeeds because it has a long trunk, right? If only one facet of
quality could achieve business success, many more people would be
successful. The real reason it is difficult to compete with TQC companies is
that they have many facets where they are very good. And there are a few
key areas where they are excellent. So, you have to achieve that all-round
level, and that is what quality and ownership is all about. It is true that we are
people-oriented and that we spend a lot of time training our people, but that's
only one aspect. The technology, the manufacturing processes, the
customer-orientation all are equally important.
Looking after people is fundamental because your suppliers are people, your
employees are people, and your customers are people. If you don't have a
people-orientation, you'd better get out of business and do something else.
There has been a tremendous amount of commitment from the top--starting
from my grandfather, through my uncles, who had a single-minded vision of
quality--which was driven and handed down the generations that you stand
for quality, that TVS stands for quality. It is this that has driven us to do this
kind of thing.
How does it help to have a target like winning the Deming Prize when
you are trying to galvanise an entire organisation?
In fact, that's one of the questions that Professor Tsuda asked me. He
wanted to know what value I thought the Deming Prize would add to
Sundaram-Clayton. I told him that I thought that the Prize would tell our
people that they have achieved something. And that sense of achievement is
important because I know that while the company is continuously moving in
the right direction, people need to know that; they need to take home that
message. The Deming Prize has brought kudos to each employee who has
put in 10 years of hard work. He can go back and tell his family: "You've been
wondering why I've been away day and night working for the company, but
now you know. We are a company of a different quality. We are up there. We
are the elite."
Is that why you are taking the president and general secretary, as well
as the past three presidents of the Sundaram-Clayton workers' union,
along with you to Tokyo to receive the Deming Prize?
My father used to tell me: "You take care of your workers, and your workers
will take care of you." For the past 10 years, everybody has put in a lot of
hard work. Without them, this wouldn't have been possible. It's a company-
wide effort; it's not just a management effort.
We may. But let me tell you something: winning awards is not our objective.
The Deming Prize was not an objective, the Japan Quality Award is not an
objective. I do not know whether we will apply for it nor am I saying that we
will not apply. But the point is, the medals are not the goal. The Japan Quality
Award does not improve your profits; it is the processes that you put in place
in the course of applying for it that make your company's profitability,
capability, marketshare, and volumes grow. So, we must never lose sight of
the real objective.
Yes, a new goal like the Japan Quality Award is important. But once an
organisation reaches a certain level of quality commitment, it then becomes
an internally-fired thing. And Sundaram-Clayton, even without the Japan
Quality Award target, will continue to move on the TQC front. It's like the
starter on a car: you need it to start the car, but you don't need it once the
engine is running. Similarly, the Deming Prize is a starter-mechanism--the
ignition for the jet-plane.
I honestly don't know. You can only deal with your microcosm. I am not a
preacher, I am not a person who is going to create a quality wave in India. I
have no such delusions. If everybody tried to improve the microcosm in which
they operate, the country would be a better place
But, obviously, you will spread the movement within your group
Definitely. TVS-Suzuki has been practising it for the last 6 years, TVS
Electronics has also been practising it for the same duration. We'll all get
there. Whether we get the Deming Prize today or tomorrow--or don't get it at
all--is not the issue. They will all practice TQC in the same TVS Way; at least,
the part of TVS that I manage. This is the way we have defined it.
That's one of the reasons why we got out of the TQM movement of the
Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) although we were one of its early
members. They started going to the American Malcolm Baldridge Award and
the European Federation of Quality Award--and they lost their way. For about
5 years, they did not know where they were going. Now, they have settled on
the European Federation of Quality Model, and on Professor Tsuda as the
counsellor for the Japanese model. It is only in the past year that we have
started getting back to the CII movement since Professor Tsuda is also
working with them. We have only one way. We have always stood for that. In
fact, we have been faulted for being inward-looking, and not being part of the
greater macrocosm of industrial society. But we are like that. If we believe in
something, we continue to do that.
Mr Srinivasan, thank you very much for your time. We sincerely hope
that, despite your modesty, your success in winning the Deming Prize
this year does trigger off a much-needed total quality revolution in
corporate India.