Garware
On a mission
AT Garware’s Pune factory on a bright November morning, the corporate culture is very much in evidence as a group of men gather to chant the lines of the company mission statement. Standing in a semi-circle, three employees recite each of the four core values and the rest of the team repeat, from memory, the words now embedded in the Garware community.
The cultural changes in the group have been significant, according to long serving senior managers.
The principles of ‘lean’ management, for instance, that originated in Toyota but are now used by many first class organisations, have been part of the Garware philosophy for nine years.
The concept ensures that everything in the factory flows seamlessly, and it has made a big difference, said Rajendra Shivaraikar, a Garware veteran of 20 years, vice president (Manufacturing Excellence) and head of CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility).
‘It works by reducing wastage whenever it happens,’ said Shivaraikar. Waste can be materials, time, an idle net machine, and re-work when a job is not done right the first time.
‘We skill people to identify waste and then train people to come together in a functional team and do ‘kaizen’.’
This is the Japanese term for continuous improvement and another major plank of Garware’s management practices.
Everyone has to submit ideas to improve performance – it’s a way of motivating the workers as well as improving the business.
Multiple kaizens happen every day, at all different levels – there are simple ones, to reduce back bending, for example, and major ones, requiring whole teams identifying bottlenecks and applying ‘breakthrough kaizens’, in the course of week-long conflabs with a senior manager in charge.
A recent example was a job changeover on a machine, where the time taken was reduced by over 70 per cent. The staff worked out what tasks could be done before the machine was stopped and what could be done after it was started again, to minimise the time the machine was shut down.
The success rate of kaizens is very high, said Shivaraikar, and all workers are encouraged to participate in them.
There are rewards and incentives for the best idea, usually given to a team, which can use the money for a celebratory lunch or dinner.
In the factory in Pune, there were more than 5,000 kaizen ideas generated by the workforce last year.
There are boards everywhere, inside the factory sheds at both Pune and Wai and at their entrances, where suggestions are posted, and the number that have been accepted and implemented recorded.
The boards also promote SQDC, the four pillars around which the factories are organised: safety (and cleanliness); quality; delivery; and cost- with measurable indicators of how each department is being run.
‘The boards talk to you, instead of someone telling you what to do,’ said Shivaraikar. ‘They are a visual indication of what is going wrong at any moment and people are trained to look out for waste and identify what is value added and what is not. It
is management by exception, and energy is focused where it needs to be focused.’
Each supervisor is empowered to manage their own area, and meetings are held every day on the factory floor. Sometimes managers (conspicuous in their crisp blue and white striped shirts) will meet for an ‘escalation’ meeting when an issue hasn’t been handled on the factory level.
It all sounds like common sense but Prabodh Kamat, president (Operations), said any cultural change is not easy.
‘We are not inventing anything, we are taking the best practices of the world in manufacturing,’ he said. ‘Everyone has been told that this is nothing new, it has worked in so many places and you are not different from those people. It takes time to change habits but it happens.
‘But unless the top man is committed, no cultural change takes place. The organisation looks at the top man and takes the signal from there. Mr Vayu Garware has supported all these movements wholeheartedly.’
Vayu Garware has also driven the company’s Corporate Social Responsibility programme.
‘My grandfather spent the first half of his life building wealth and he spent the second half giving it back,’ he said. ‘So he built colleges and schools in Pune, and we continue to support them even today.’
Education is one of the company’s four key CSR areas, and projects in Wai have included providing basics such as drinking water and hand washing facilities, e-learning modules for classrooms, and hundreds of bicycles for girls to get to school.
Other CSR initiatives are in healthcare, where donations include a cardiac ambulance for Wai, a dialysis machine for the hospital, and staff medical check-ups; the environment, with tree plantation schemes; and supporting R&D in institutions such as agricultural colleges.
One of Garware’s core values is to enhance the family bond and this covers everything from running summer schools for employees’ children to team building exercises among the workforce.
There are marathons and biking, but most popular are the Sunday treks, organised by Prabodh Kamat, and involving hundreds of staff. Once a year, they all get together to make a day and a half hike, starting at night, across a score of hill tops.
‘It’s a family company even though we’re listed,’ said Vayu Garware. ‘We are like a family and that bonding is very important, and this includes the family of our employees.’
“We are not inventing anything, we are taking the best practices of the world in manufacturing”