Samsung's Prerna scored consistently on all the parameters. Says CII Counsellor, TQM division, R S Choudhry: ``Each step of their process was very methodical and incisive.'' Prerna's target was to reduce tact switch defects from 7.5 per cent to less than 1 per cent. The team tracked parameters such as the rejection rate, the cause of the rejection, the nature/kind of rejection, the costs involved, and how much it varies when a qualitative and quantitative analysis is done. ``Prerna shows a refreshing approach at tackling the issue,'' adds Choudhry.

Subsequent to this exercise, Prerna achieved total cost savings of Rs 1,01,000 a year: the sum of an operator's salary at Rs 40,000 a year, tact switch cost of Rs 4,000 a year, and averageexpenses for repairing CTV sets due to tact switch defects at Rs 57,000 a year. The total time savings a year was 1032 hours, or 129 man days.

Organised by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) northern region, the event had 20 Quality Circle teams competing. Companies represented included Bharat Electronics, Continental Device, Daewoo Motors, Gillette, Hero Honda Motors, Indian Sugar & General Enginneering Corporation, Honda Siel, Maruti Udyog, Modi Xerox, Munjal Showa, Samsung Electronics, Samtel Color and Shriram Pistons.

The competition is conducted at three levels-intra regional, regional and national level. The three winners from each of the cities of Delhi, Chandigarh, Lucknow and Rajasthan will compete for the northern region finals. The national finals, which would be held towards the end of the year, will involve three finalists from the East, North, South and West zones.

The CII conducts quality circle competitions to further the progression of involvement of workmen in the continuousimprovement process, which is a critical aspect of total quality management. ``In quality circle ingenuity, the ability of workmen to think for improvement and implement it by themselves is put to the fore,'' says Choudhry.

The Quality Circle movement, which started in Japan, philosophy is: quality has to start from the worker level. In India the concept arrived in 1981-82 with BHEL adopting it first, followed by Bharat Electronics. Today there are various forums propagating quality circles. Says CII chairman Arun Bharat Ram, ``The organisations that don't seize the TQM initiative will lag behind in the global economy. Employee involvement in Kaizen, suggestions scheme, and quality circles are the need of the day.''

The 20 participants were shortlisted on the basis of six parameters: problem selection (identification method, selection basis, and relevance to organisational needs); analysis (database, use of QC tools, team work, root cause identification and involvement of other QC members); solution(evaluation of counter measures, cost effectiveness, extent of problem solving); holding the gains as applicable (document modifications, tooling modifications, training and cooperation of other than QC members); presentation (slides and models, team work, clarity and response to questions); special features (creativity, innovation, and impact on audience).

Choudhry said that this year, there was a tremendous improvement in the quality of presentation, team work, and cost initiatives. ``Quality is a multi-disciplinary process of which cost is the most critical,'' Choudhry said. ``Cost saving is no longer the byproduct of quality improvement. The two move in tandem: to improve quality is to improve cost,'' he added.