Successful Journey to Zero Defect in Manufacturing through Process Improvement Project in LTCG Division of Crompton Greaves at Nashik that Led to Achieve Profit in Loss Incurring Prime Product

A Prime Product of Low Tension Control Gear (LTCG) Division belonging to Control Equipment
Product Group was - DOL Motor Starter- enjoying 6% Market share in the country. Marketing was
executed through Regional Offices and Branch Offices spread over India and further through Dealer
network of Crompton Greaves. The Division was infusing its major resources to maintain the
production set up to improve Market share. However, this was not achieved inspite of best efforts put
in besides this Prime product was not yielding profit.
With the background of this situation, the General Manager of LTCG Division thought on different
lines. He invited Corporate R & D team’s intervention to study the situation and offer solutions. Self
(Author) along with Corporate R & D’s Technology Head in collaboration with Heads of Divisional
Design and Quality Control persons formed a Cross Functional Team (CFT) to investigate the issues.
It was discovered that there was high level of generation of noise that used to be termed as nonconforming
product and that lead to rework. Level of generation of non-conforming product was of the
order of 25% of production and that on account one single cause of high level of noise produced when
the product was subjected to routine testing. Since this was prevailing for previous 4 to 5 years, people
had learnt to live this situation.
On creating simulation in Laboratory, with background having dealt with magnetic circuit in design of
Induction Motors, I was quick to identify the root cause of the issue. Magnetic saturation was taking
place and that used to create high noise. Quick solution that too immediately implementable was
recommended. When implemented and as the new system matured the level of generation of nonconformity
steeply dropped down from 25% to 0.3% when Process improvements were introduced in 3
phases. This was considered as Zero Defect in 1990s.