Published on March 28, 2026
Tata AutoComp Systems’ (TACO), staggering growth at 27% CAGR from 2017 to 2026, offers a clear example of how disciplined quality systems can scale across diverse businesses. This journey and the practices behind it formed the focus of the Tata Manufacturing Quality Forum (TMQF) held on February 19-20, 2026, at TACO, Pune. Forty participants from 17 Tata companies attended the meet.
Opening the forum, Sudipta Marjit, Chief Human Resources Officer (CHRO) and Head, Business Excellence & OSM, TACO, spoke about how the organisation has embedded Total Quality Management (TQM) across its 23 business units. He noted that the company’s Deming Prize-winning journey and alignment with the Tata Business Excellence Model (TBEM) have strengthened credibility with global customers, many of whom now engage with TACO to learn from its practices. He also shared recent steps towards building global capability, including new manufacturing and R&D footprints to serve international original equipment manufacturers (OEMs).
The sessions explored the management processes that support this journey. Speakers from TACO businesses shared insights on how TACO has embedded TQM into policy management, daily work management, cross functional management, capability building and total employee involvement, thus aligning strategy to shop floor. By making TQM an operating system and not a mere overlay, these practices have helped create common ways of working across business units and sustain TQM at scale at TACO.
This is particularly relevant because, as Tata companies scale rapidly across geographies, technologies, and customer expectations, they face common challenges such as inconsistent ways of working across plants and business units, which makes it difficult to sustain quality improvements at scale. Further, there is limited visibility into how TQM translates into business results, and gaps between strategy, daily execution, and employee ownership.
The TMQF participants also gained first-hand learnings and insights on how TACO’s quality practices supported the Deming Prize achievements of three of its units: Tata AutoComp Hendrickson Suspensions (THSL), the Composites Division, and Tata Ficosa Automotive Systems. This underscored that excellence is repeatable when systems, discipline and culture are aligned.
The speakers included Akancha Shukla, Lead - TQM, TACO; Niteen Naik, CEO, Tata AutoComp Composites Division; Ashutosh Sharma, General Manager, Human Resources, Tata Ficosa Automotive Systems; and Ravinder Guleria, CFO, Tata AutoComp Hendrickson.
In his closing remarks, Devraj Chattaraj, General Manager, Tata Business Excellence Group, encouraged participants to apply the learnings from the visit to drive improvements across their organisations. The forum received a Top 2 Box feedback score of 81%.
