Page 29 - DMGT524_TOTAL_QUALITY_MANAGEMENT

Total Quality Management

Notes So small that it consists of only three other companies: the $6.51-billion Florida Power &
Light, which won the Deming Prize in 1989; the $53.26-billion AT&T’s Power Systems
Division in 1994, and the $38.05-billion Philips’ Taiwan unit.
So small that even the great TQM corporations of the world, like the $48.88-billion Honda,
the $55.03-billion Sony, and the $190.84-billion General Electric, do not belong to it.
So small that, in the 38 long years since the Deming Prize was instituted – and the 15 years
since a separate Prize was offered to companies outside Japan – for 5 different categories,
only 163 CEOs and managers have ever strode up to receive the coveted medal on the dais
at the Union of Japanese Scientists & Engineers’ (a.k.a. JUSE) Centre Hall in downtown
Tokyo.
When Srinivasan joined their ranks on November 14, 1998 – tellingly, Children’s Day – it
was a small step for him to the podium, but a truly giant step for India Inc. What makes
Sundaram-Clayton’s winning the Deming Prize for total quality – Company-Wide Quality
Control (or CWQC, in JUSE-speak) – an extraordinary feat is the fact that no global award
for quality makes more demands of both the body and the soul of the winning corporation.
The Malcolm Baldrige Award for quality in the US is comprehensive in its coverage of
quality-related parameters too, but even its ruthless objectiveness excludes the fanatical
obsession with statistical quality-control and performance that the Deming Prize displays.
The European Quality Model Award is ingenious in its linkage of the enablers and results
of quality, but cannot match the depth of the Deming Prize’s probes. For, there is no
transaction, no speck of dust on the floor, no tightening of a nut, no disaffected worker that
escapes the scrutiny of the examination team.
In fact, the JUSE’s rigorous quality audit tests a company on not 2 or 3, but 10 parameters
which, between them, envelop each and every activity of a company. The one relentless
theme that is tested across every operation: the ability of a company to use statistics-
driven quality-control mechanisms to produce – consistently, economically, and reliably
– a product or service that meets the customer’s requirement in every possible manner –
not just once, not just sporadically, not just over a specified period, but time and again.
Explains Suresh Krishna, 61, the CEO of the ` 326.18 crore Sundram Fasteners, and a
fellow-traveller on the road to total quality: “The Deming Prize is not just a recognition of
product quality. It is recognition of the organization itself. Clearly, Sundaram-Clayton
meets the requirements of a world-class company.”
Ask a Deming Prize winner, though, and he will say – not from the public pulpit, but as a
statement of his intensely personal religion – that quality is a journey, not a destination.
That’s why Sundaram-Clayton will never rest on its laurels. Says CEO Srinivasan, a man
whose energy is only matched by the intensity of his compulsive pursuit of excellence:
“Internally, we are pleased. But everybody recognizes that we have a long way to go
before we become world-class manufacturers.” Those, of course, are words of wisdom,
gleaned from the teaching of Sundaram-Clayton’s Japanese gurus, the JUSE’s Yoshikasu
Tsuda and the late Y. Washio, who brought Buddha and best-in-class in equal proportions
into the company. Argues Ashish Basu, 34, COO, Institute of Quality Ltd (IQL) says, “The
Deming Prize is a good energiser, but it should not be the end-all goal.” At Sundaram-
Clayton, there are no fears of that happening.
Its climb to the top of TQM started way back in 1979, when Srinivasan took over from his
father, T.S. Srinivasan, as CEO after his return from Purdue University (US) in 1977, after
his MBA. The SWOT analysis he conducted, applying his B-school learning, revealed, to
the company’s horror, that a 90-per cent market share was no insulation against top-class
competition. Concluding that short-term tactics or defensive strategies would not deliver
what a long-term transition to excellence could, Srinivasan set his company off on Quality
Street.
Contd...

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