Published on February 28, 2021
The 288th EDGE webinar was held on February 17, 2021, by Tata Motors to explain the methodology used in different departments of the company for their processes and drives. Santosh Gore, Senior General Manager and Prashant Sagar, General Manager, from Cost Engineering explained the Generate to Evaluate, Approve to Realize (GEAR) framework, stage gate process and governance, execution disciplines and transformative benefits. The webinar also covered the GEAR framework’s KPI linkages of profitability and cost competitiveness, the amazingly simple and seamlessly collaborative execution discipline.
GEAR is the backbone of transformations helping Tata Motors perform large-scale cost reduction programmes. It provides a granular understanding about cost-reduction objectives across the organisation. It involves four gates or stages:
- The Generation stage where new ideas are collected, harnessing the knowledge, experience and data. Engagement of stakeholders across the length and breadth of the organisation ensures every idea is captured
- The next stage is the Evaluation stage. It involves evaluating the ideas while keeping the cost-value and quality perspective intact
- The next gate for the ideas is the Approval stage where engineering requirements and engineering change management is assessed and finalised
- The last gate is the Realization stage where the changes materialise across the value chain
GEAR has driven amazing organisational-level benefits. In the last three years, more than 1,00,000 ideas were received, out of which 10,000+ got materialised into projects at Tata Motors. Some projects involved more than one idea as clustering ideas together is directly related to cost reduction. More than 50 competitor vehicles have been torn down and a mindset of always doing ‘better than our best’ has been fostered.