In this edition of iFaber, we bring to you another tale from the floors of one of our clients, which is a reputed market player in fans, domestic pumps and lighting for over 20 years. We had a chat with Mr. Sanjay Khanvilkar – Head Quality and Business Excellence, Crompton Greaves Consumer Electricals Ltd. Excerpts of which are mentioned below –

Faber Infinite (FI) – We have a subscriber base of around 20,000+ readers across 8 countries, our readers would want to know more about Crompton Greaves Consumer Electricals Ltd.?

Sanjay Khanvilkar (SK) – Crompton Greaves Consumer Electricals Ltd. is a new company. It was formed at the end of the year 2015, after demerging from the original Crompton Greaves Group owned by Avantha Holdings Ltd. The reason behind this was the company was facing some drift issues due to its sick operation units. And the organisation decided to sell out the Consumer Products Business Unit to the new USA based Advent International Corp. and Temasek Holdings (Pvt.) Ltd. and this is how the complete demerger happened.

Due to the demerger, almost every department of the organisation was in a mess. The middle level management was struggling to put things in place. These were the kind of setbacks the organisation faced. After the demerger, the board decided to divide the organisation in separate verticals based on the product lines like lights, fans, electrical appliances and pumps. Earlier, there was just one vertical, but after the demerger, the product line was divided into these 4 verticals.

FI – We understand every industry has its own challenges. What are the challenges unique to your industry? 

SK – After the demerger, we had to create entire organisation from the scratch along with all the necessary departments in no time. And while doing this, the management took great care of the brand image which couldn’t afford to get affected by any means. We also had to make sure the availability of the products at all the places CG had been catering so far. To maintain all these things while building the organisation from the scratch was a biggest challenge.

There were no departments like IT, Production Planning, Manufacturing, Forecasting or other departments. There were no standards or systems in place. There was no IT support. So, initially, everyone had to work on the manual basis. To overcome these challenges, the company began with SAP implementation on urgent basis. But it took some time to get in place. So, these were the cumulative challenges the management faced at that point of time.

There was no right organization structure in place. Positions like Central Quality head, central planning head, etc were absent. Also, the teams were working in silos and there was no cross communication happening due to lack of standardisation. The rewards and recognition system were absent, due to which the team morale was down. Not only the organization structure but the right competent people were also not on boarded. These were few of the challenges that we experienced.

FI – As we know you have manufacturing setups in Goa, Baroda, Ahmednagar and Baddi. You are operating in such diverse locations. How do you manage to operate from different locations? What are your suggestions for organizations that are operating across such diverse locations?

SK – Correct, we are working from different locations but working at different locations in different cultures isn’t new with Crompton. Since the systems are now in place. When I say systems, I mean building the right DNA. We did this with gap analysis at all our manufacturing locations. With gap analysis, we found out how each of the plant locations is different from the ideal set of parameters. We started from scratch and took a years’ time to standardise and put in place all the processes.

Crompton always wanted to create its own DNA. Which would have been possible only with the help of implementation of the standards. So, the company came up with specific standards to be maintained and followed in every department of the organisation. So, this is advice for organizations which operate from such diverse locations. Standardisation helps in maintaining the same set of standards by following the same protocols at each location.

FI – Over the years, the consumer electricals landscape has seen a lot of changes. Companies are working on innovation, improving operations and driving efficiencies across the supply chain. Can you share more about the continual improvement initiatives at Crompton, to be ahead of the curve? Especially, with LED industry coming up so quick and it being dynamic, how does it impact the entire supply chain?

SK – So basically, there are three aspects; any organisation is firstly driven by the cost parameter. Once the pricing is set, the next aspect is the availability of the product. There are other organisations as well, which are into manufacturing of similar products like us. So, when the consumer goes into the market to purchase our product and doesn’t find the same, he is not going to wait for the availability of our product. He will quickly move on to another brand. Hence, the availability of the product is very necessary.

Later once the person has purchased the product and started to use it, then the quality comes in the scenario. So, these are the three aspects we must keep in mind from the buyer’s perspective. And to meet all these three parameters, the organisation needs to be agile in terms of switching over the production line to achieve the demands. Secondly, we should be flexible, and we should be more productive in terms of the value conversion from the raw materials to finish goods, and the third thing is to make sure that whatever is being produced is able to match the quality standards.

And to make this all achievable, there must be minimum number of errors. So, in our case we have seen the constant dynamism in terms of exponential growth. And to stay competitive in this market, we cannot only deploy more and more manpower, we also need to take care of the takt time, the product quality, and allocate right people at right places from quality perspective, may be some mistake proofing techniques on the production line to eliminate errors.

FI – As a part of the continual improvement initiatives, Crompton has been working on improving material velocity, improving throughput and overall productivity across different sections. We would be glad to know your views on Faber’s role in strengthening the LED value stream.  

SK – We have been working with Faber since a long time. We have had great trust, confidence and belief that team Faber will help us achieve phenomenal results by implementing Value Stream Mapping. This project was implemented in our Baroda unit in B2B as well as B2C department at our corporate office. Team Faber has helped us achieve such phenomenal results. They helped us in different ways including mentoring our people, helping them in adapting the new culture, proper brainstorming using right methodology, and deriving to the right conclusions via continuous improvement initiatives and many more. We had an amazing experience and I am proud of Team Faber. The entire process was very well defined and structured. It has helped build the confidence of Crompton on Team Faber Infinite. The top management is highly appreciative of the efforts by the team. In future whenever any new assignments would come up, team Faber will definitely be our first and primary choice to work with.

We sincerely thank Mr. Sanjay Khanvilkar and team Crompton Greaves Consumer Electricals Ltd. for being a part of iFaber – the official newsletter of Faber Infinite and sharing his valuable insights.

Compiled by Faber Priyal Shah