Published on July 19, 2016
A regional meeting of Business Excellence (BE) Heads was held in Kolkata in the third week of May 2016. The meeting was attended by more than 10 BE Heads from various companies in the Eastern Region in India, including Tata Metaliks, Tata Bluescope, Tata Steel Processing & Distribution, Tata Sponge, mJunction, Tata Pigments and Indian Steel & Wire Products. BE Heads of Tata Motors and Tata Interactive Systems also participated in the meeting, which was presided by S Padmanabhan, Executive Chairman, Tata Business Excellence Group. Abraham Stephanos, Managing Director, Tata Steel Processing & Distribution also participated in the meeting.
Mr Stephanos welcomed everyone to the meeting and articulated what he felt the ideal role of a BE Head should be. "The BE Head should be the CEO’s right hand and has to keep the passion and energy alive in the organisation. BE Heads need to support business, create value for the organisation and develop the right culture. It is a very critical role for strategy deployment."
Two Best Practices sharing sessions followed Mr Stephanos’ remarks. Pankaj Kumar from Tata Steel shared how Total Preventive Maintenance helped the organisation derive rich business benefits. He also spoke about the zero ABCD (Accidents, Breakdowns, Complaints, Defects) target in Tata Steel. Next, Rajeev Singh and Ms Shalu from the Jamshedpur plant of Tata Motors shared the practice of having Self Directed Teams, which has been helping Tata Motors a lot. Sanjay Daflapurkar, BE Head, Tata Motors, also shared his perspective on this.
NK Sharan, Vice President, Tata Business Excellence Group, spoke next on the importance of having a Business Excellence Plan in every organisation. Then, Monika Agarwal, BE Head, Tata Steel Processing & Distribution, and Somnath Raghavan, BE Head, Tata Sponge, presented their respective BE plans in the meeting.
The meeting ended with an open house with Mr Padmanabhan.