Japanese World Class Manufacturing concepts- not new to Indians

Hi friends, as mentioned in my blog profile I am serving in Aditya Birla Group which is already in the Fortune 500 companies list and aiming to be in the list of 150. Our unit has adopted World Class Manufacturing concepts which were originated from Japan and harvested its benefits to a great extent. I feel any borrowed concept or tool aimed at increasing the performance of systems need not be copied as such, they can be modified as per prevailing situations. I have observed that many of the concepts included in the Japanese WCM system are being followed in Indian house holds since centuries and the sad part is that we blindly follow and imitate others. In this context, I remember an age old Kannada proverb “hittala gida maddalla” which means the plant grown in the backyard is not medicine. Any way I am publishing the following article which I have submitted for an in house essay competition aimed at promoting the so called WCM culture among employees.

Our achievements after adopting 5 ‘S’ concepts by P Kamath

There was a time when our business was operating on seller’s market but slowly we slipped from that advantageous position because of various factors like adoption of liberalized trade policies by government and entry of new players in to VSF manufacturing. In addition to this, expectations of the stake holders of our business including customers, employees and society has gone up considerably which not only resulted in reduced profit margin but also compelled us to think about producing product with better quality. So with an aim to achieve excellence in all walks of industrial activities, our management decided to adopt and implement WCM concept and I feel that was the best step taken at a right time which yielded multifold benefits. I am working in this organization since 30 years and happily associated with every development activity in my work place connected to WCM and observing the positive changes took place throughout the plant at large. It is proved beyond doubt that 5 ‘S’ is one of the main pillars of WCM and unless you follow all the 5 steps holistically, reaching the standards of world class may remain a dream for ever.

I would like to memorize those successful steps taken at GRD by which today we could be counted among World class manufacturing units and as a testimony to our claim of attaining rare position of manufacturing excellence, we have been awarded with Chairman’s Platinum Award. I would like to thank our management for not sparing any effort to make our journey to excellence a smoother one by furnishing necessary infrastructure and moral support. As “old habits die hard”, it was a Luke warm response to WCM in the initial days but with wide spread education on the benefits of 5 ‘S’ in the work place and beyond, employees started practicing it slowly.


Friends, remaining part of the essay will be continued as next blog post.