Tata operations excellence assessment guidelines 2014: a handbook for assessors; Tata quality management services

Abstract

Operational Excellence is an important aspect of today’s best-in-class organizations’ competitive strategy. Drive for revenue growth, search for newer ideas and newer ways of doing things is transforming manufacturing function. The operations excellence is a dynamic and continuous ability of firm to build superior capabilities to deal with critical operational challenges in an ever changing environment. Operational excellence is needed to attain improved efficiency, workforce safety, productivity and high business performance. In a highly competitive world, the requirement of continuously improving products and services is hygiene in nature. Past TBEM assessments of various Tata Companies have revealed the following: Companies have process improvement approaches for both Cost and Quality tied to classic scientific management principles, but only a few are exemplary users. Companies drive cost reduction through a variety of cost initiative programs. Such programs tend to be highly visible with specific tracked goals. However, in most cases, these do not extend across the value chain. Strong desire to get competitive data and benchmarking for improving operational processes is not evident in many companies. External knowledge in not generally used for target setting or prioritization of improvement opportunities. Apart from the above, customer experience across Tata companies varies based on the product and services provided and varying language and maturity of the Operational Excellence practices across the companies. Considering the above, there is a felt need to provide a simple and an effective Operations Excellence Framework to support and facilitate various companies of the Tata Group in their operations improvement journey. TQMS carries out deep dive assessments for various Tata companies. Deep dive diagnostic assessments are an initiative to drive Operations Excellence across the companies which are assessed. Hence a guideline is needed for the assessors who assess the company as it serves three purposes. It aids assessors in carrying out operational excellence assessments, ensures that the critical aspects are covered and enables a structured assessment process covering relevant questions.