The American Society for Quality (ASQ) Ahmedabad Local Member Community (LMC) organized its fourth Annual Conference on Quality in association with Institute of Management, Nirma University today. The objective of this seminar is to spread importance of Quality awareness among industry and academia. The theme of the conference was “Quality Improvement for Organizational Excellence”.
The conference was attended by more than 300 participants, wherein there were more than 10 top management speeches; more than 25 live case studies presentations; 15 posters on based on quality implementation projects were presented; some of the cases were on various quality management issues such as “Quality Management System for Politics and Bureaucracy” – A case study of CMO, Gujarat, Case study of implementation of 5S in Apollo Hospitals, Quality Improvement in Small Scale Industry.
Introducing the conclave, Mr Amit Chatterjee (MD – ASQ India) said that for India to become a world power, quality consciousness has to permeate the Indian mind, character and will. Education must move from quantity mind-set to quality mind-set to create employable people as well as make the new Harvards and MITs of the world. In his inaugural address, Dr Johannes Grobe (MD – Bosch Rexroth India Pvt. Ltd.) that it is necessary for companies to strike a balance between investments and cost reduction strategies. Managers should put in the spirit of continuous improvement in all processes of the company to maintain quality. He emphasized that companies have to change their mind-sets from leadership to entrepreneurship, training employees for out-of-box thinking and changing the focus from culture to discipline. If companies want to grow in the new economic environment, they have to be FAST – Flexible and Active with Speed and Timing.
Chief Guest of the Conference Mr I.V. Rao (Executive Advisor of Maruti Suzuki India Ltd.& Director of Maruti Center for Excellence) said that companies become known for quality only when the top management is focused and committed on quality. Maruti was focused on quality right from the beginning and became market leader and continues to be a force to reckon with. Today, India needs FDI – First Develop India. He ended with a clarion call – “Let us Unite, Imbibe the Quality, Strive for Excellence and Let India Lead the World”.
Dr Manu Vora (Chairman and President, Business Excellence Inc, USA) who joined the conference through video conferencing shared his insights on the need of leadership in bringing out change. Dr Jaimin Shah – Co-Founder and MD of Dev Infotech (India and Canada) spoke on the challenges faced by the MSME sector. He looked at a couple of points regarding leadership such as setting goals, setting the ethics of company, teamwork and the need of leaders to take feedback. The conference was also addressed by Mr Jon Fletcher, Sr. V.P., KEC International who spoke on the linkage of safety and quality.
Dr Debashis Sarkar – ASQ Fellow and Global Head for Reengineering at Standard Chartered spoke about change management in large organizations. Companies often fail to realise the effects of behaviour, leadership, strategic alignment and contend themselves with creating change through processes and rules. He concluded that change in organizations is beyond processes and rules, it is about psychology of employees.
Quality is now a top priority national strategy, evident by the clarion call made by India’s PM who has articulated a lucid vision for a national culture based on “Zero Defect & Zero Effect”. A book titled “Quality Management for Zero Defect and Zero Effect” edited by Dr Rajesh K. Jain and Dr Himanshu Trivedi, was released which is a compendium of real case studies and best practices presented at the Quality Management Conferences so far organized by ASQ LMC Ahmedabad, providing pointers on how to reduce waste, failures and defects.
(Content Courtesy: Jijo George; Photo Courtesy: Uday Patel)
Institute of Management, Nirma University 