Tata Motors

Tata Motors has the Tata Business Excellence Model which drives the whole process of excellence across the group. Operational efficiency or excellence is a continuous process in the company. It has been working on the Flow concept for over a year now. The production planning and procurement processes have been improved resulting to appreciable reduction in production losses. It has worked on standardised work resulting in productivity improvement and line efficiency enhancement. Production to schedule and to fill up has helped reduce the inventory and control costs. Variable cost management is considered to be a challenge when one is operating at 35-40% of capacity. Control of power consumption, use of wind energy, solar energy, innovating measures of power savings etc. have helped it control cost.

“We all work in a VUCA world and market demand changes even within a month. For this reason, all its product lines are multi-model lines, catering to a high level of variety ranging from BS1 to BSIV in the domestic market and from Euro 1 to Euro 5 in the overseas market,” he adds. It is important to be flexible and ensure no loose volumes or capacity. Frequent demand changes affect supply chain the most. Tata Motors have reconciled to this volatile market conditions and have been working on new consumption based on procurement system. Its production planning has migrated from batch based to one-by-one concept (every next product is different), to adopting leveled production concept (Heijunka concept) and have flexible labor force ably supported by its internal union. Additionally, it has an extensive training program for the flexible workforce to ensure quality is not affected due to frequent demand changes.