New Delhi: The automotive market both in India and globally is undergoing a rapid transformation. The sector is getting impacted by various sets of forces such as evolving customer preferences, demand for sustainable mobility solutions, digitisation across the automotive value chain and the emergence of Industry 4.0. For automotive component makers, while cost and time-to market are important, without quality, the success rate of the product (and the organisation) is restricted. And here’s where TQM assumes importance. The TQM philosophy adoption can be used to scale, improve or sustain partial or complete business operations. But TQM is not limited to just Operations. It is a business excellence philosophy that helps the organisation focus on sustaining existing performance and improving the performance through strategy development. To achieve the desired results, the TQM approach should involve the entire organisation and needs cross functional involvement.
Key principles of TQM
Policy Management: This principle facilitates strategy development and deployment across all levels of an organisation, aligning with business objectives and the company’s vision. While TQM is the responsibility of all levels of management, it is driven from the top and the role of coordination lies with the top management. Effective policy management helps create the vision and allows leadership’s expectations to be cascaded to the appropriate team members. The “Catchball” method is an important process within this practice. It refers to continuous communication, exchange of ideas and target setting between different levels of an organisation.
Daily Work Management: This ensures that quality improvement efforts are integrated into the daily operations of an organisation. Setting quality principles, policies and targeted outcomes are a crucial first step and Daily Work Management is vital to ensure they are successfully practised and implemented. It also ensures that the policies are engaging for the employees and ensures that they foster a culture of continuous improvement and accountability.
Total Employee Involvement (TEI): One of the important aspects to achieve TQM is emphasising motivating people through TEI. This initiative encourages all employees to take an active role in quality management and improvement efforts by adopting the Kaizen, Quality Control Circles and Suggestions framework. While continuous improvement in manufacturing goods and services is essential to maintain competitive edge, it is equally important to keep the employees involved and motivated at all levels including the shop floor. TEI motivates employees across all levels to enhance their creative and logical thinking process and develop a problem-solving attitude using statistical tools and techniques. This ultimately leads to creating quality products and services.
5S Methodology: The 5S methodology is a key component of TQM that focuses on taking steps to organise and manage the workplace effectively but also extends to having lean manufacturing practices. Having a lean manufacturing process leads to the reduction of waste and operational inefficiencies, resulting in cost savings and improved resource utilization. This flexibility and adaptability enable organizations to respond swiftly to changing market demands. The 5S’s stand for Sort, Set in order, Shine, Standardize, Sustain and they contribute to operational excellence, quality enhancement, and a more engaged workforce. Employees are urged to participate actively in maintaining workplace standards and contributing to a quality-focused environment.
Implementing the TQM framework for the automotive industry
TQM principles are particularly important for the automotive industry where quality is paramount due to the industry’s complex, highly competitive, and safety-sensitive nature. TQM in the automotive industry would translate into a company-wide approach to ensuring that every vehicle or vehicle component produced meets high standards of quality. It would involve everyone across divisions working together to improve processes, reduce defects, and cater to customer needs by delivering reliable, safe, and well-made vehicles or vehicle components.
Here’s how the management framework can benefit automotive industry stakeholders.
Growth & Profitability: The TQM framework enhances operational efficiency, reduces costs, and improves product quality, benefiting stakeholders in the automotive industry. By refining New Product Development processes, TQM reduces time-to-market and expands product offerings. Techniques like Value Stream Mapping (VSM) and Value Analysis & Value Engineering (VAVE) optimise resources, boosting EBITDA and profitability. This approach also attracts a broader customer base, fostering sustainable growth and ensuring long-term industry success.
Identify inefficiencies and reduce costs: TQM promotes a systematic approach to quality improvement across all processes and promotes leveraging of tools such as root cause analysis, process mapping, and performance metrics. These enable automotive suppliers to identify areas of waste such as excess inventory, production delays, and defects. Encouraging a culture of “kaizen” or continuous improvement that involves active participation of employees can lead to reducing costs and inefficiencies.
Align with regulatory requirements: Safety is paramount in the automotive sector and adhering to automotive regulations ensures the quality and safety of vehicles and vehicle components. TQM helps embed compliance into the quality management processes. It focuses on the importance of complying with safety, environmental, and quality certifications and a core part of the management approach involves implementing systematic procedures, regular audits, and employee training.
Focus on new product development: Understanding customer needs and getting first-time right are critical for new product development in the automotive space. TQM supports this through a multi-pronged approach that involves promoting a collaborative environment among employees, encouraging creativity, and integrating customer feedback into the design and development process. Instilling a culture of quality and accountability is essential in ensuring that new products meet market demands.
Fewer defects with rigorous quality control: TQM supports establishing rigorous quality control measures throughout the production process with an aim to reduce customer rejection rate & PPM – a performance indicator that measures the quality of a company’s products by counting the number of defects in a given number of parts. The management approach emphasises proactive identification and resolution of potential defects through continuous monitoring, employee training, and adherence to standardised procedures, reducing the likelihood of defects, and minimising the risk of costly recalls.
(Disclaimer: Arvind Goel is the Chairman of Tata AutoComp Systems Limited. Views are personal.)
