CEAT Ltd. of India became the first non-Japanese tire company to win the prestigious Deming Prize for business transformation by implementing Total Quality Management (TQM).CEAT Ltd. of India became the first non-Japanese tire company to win the prestigious Deming Prize for business transformation by implementing Total Quality Management (TQM).
This nine-year effort has brought tremendous benefits not only to their products, but to their employees and their local communities. Instrumental to their journey was their QFD Green Belt® training taught by the QFD Institute.
Anant Goenka, Managing Director of CEAT Ltd. commented:
Achieving this customer-centricity was attributed, in part, to QFD Institute training. Said Shekhar Ajgaonkar, Senior Vice President of TQM:
CEAT Ltd. had also recently been ranked first in India for OE Tyre Customer Satisfaction, by the J.D. Power 2017 India Original Equipment Tyre Customer Satisfaction Index (TCSI) study released in March 2017.
Blitz QFD® aligns both the marketing and engineering functions to seek out opportunities to beat the competition where it matters most to the customer. Beyond the confines of traditional quality thinking that looks for the "minimally viable product" or MVP, Blitz QFD® looks for the "minimally merchandisable product" or MMP, that customer want to buy because it solves their most important problem, enables an important opportunity, or enhances their image to themselves or others.
Followers of the Blitz QFD® approach know that limited project schedule and budget is better spent in the gemba (the customer's world) collecting evidence by listening to and observing customer problems and opportunities, than in completing big House of Quality matrices in order to figure out which 1% of product requirements on which to focus.
While classical QFD assumes clear and precise customer needs have been thrown over the wall by marketing to engineering, modern Blitz QFD® recognizes that in today's global market, competitors who get closer to the customer have a real and distinct advantage in both time-to-market and in product features. In fact, even if a comprehensive House of Quality is required, preceding it with a Blitz QFD® study will make the House that much stronger, and no wasted effort.
In the previous issue, we discussed these differences with case study examples.
Congratulations to CEAT Ltd. QFD teams, and kudos to the top management who courageously embraced the new quality initiatives and supported their employees throughout the journey.
For more on modern tools of Blitz QFD®, please contact the QFD Institute.
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