“An idle mind is a devil’s workshop”, so says an old adage. However, Ashok Leyland begs to differ. The last six months has possibly seen the worst crisis in the history of the Indian commercial vehicle industry, and Ashok Leyland has utilised the period to motivate its employees to come up with ideas for improving productivity and efficiency resulting in significant savings in cost.It all started in 1999, which was again during the recession that hit the commercial vehicle industry. The company then started an initiative called IMPROVE involving employees at all levels and departments. Employees form groups and quality circles that work on projects and processes which identify wastage and reduce it, increase productivity and enhance savings.
Today there are over 5,000 such groups spread across all the plants of the company, and every year a competition is held where each of these projects is assessed for its innovation, team spirit and financial savings for the company. The best six are selected to make presentations to the management, and one among them is picked as the winning project of the year.
The Ennore plant, which was the first manufacturing facility of Ashok Leyland to have started operations in 1948, has made many improvements and is particularly leading by example in this period of crisis. Mr. Sridharan Balaji, General Manager - Manufacturing of Ennore Plant, says that from October 2008, when the recession actually started, a total of 1,600 projects have been identified, of which 780 have been approved and implemented. All these projects have resulted in savings of Rs. 1.67 crores for the company.
In fact, by November 2008, the number of working days dropped to just 12 in a month. It was this slack period which was utilised by the employees to suggest areas of improvement to ensure enhanced productivity and cost reduction.
Normally the Ennore plant carries Rs. 120 crores worth of inventory at any point of time. This has been reduced to Rs. 90 crores, which is currently 16 days’ inventory. The company has managed to convert 1,305 vehicles which were lying in stock into saleable units by making minor modifications. This has led to reduced inventory of finished products and also reduced procurement of parts which would otherwise be required to manufacture those vehicles.
Ashok Leyland has also implemented Gemba, an initiative improve productivity and efficiency in the shop floor, few years back, which has helped reduce the cost and improve productivity. This employee involvement can go a long way in improving productivity and will also result in significant cost savings for the company.The following are some of the innovations and improvements effected :
Innovation: A particular drilling and reaming operation in the ‘H’ engine fuel injection pump timing gears became a bottleneck at peak volume: the maximum capacity was only 44,000, whereas the required quantity during peak production was 71,000. The team identified the time taken for the operation as the problem area. New machinery was too expensive to consider, and moreover this process would soon become obsolete with the introduction of the new BS III norms. The aim was therefore to find innovative ways to reduce the process time of 18 minutes for four gears.
The first breakthrough achieved was in the introduction of the 8.8 mm carbide drill in place of the HS drill, which brought down the process time to 12 minutes. After further extensive analysis and testing, the team hit upon the solution to replace the 8.8 mm drill with a 9 mm drill without reaming. This further brought down process time to just 8 minutes. Not only was the unit’s demands met, but this also brought down the cost of components by Rs. 30. And this is a real case of sweating out an asset (the drilling and reaming machine) that would soon become obsolete. This works out to a recurring saving of around Rs. 21.30 lakhs per annum (at peak volume).
Process value engineering: There have been two significant improvements made in this area, namely, achieving higher overall equipment efficiency and interconnecting the two cooling towers. To keep the furnaces up and running in the renovated heat treatment shop, there are three cooling towers, all of which hitherto had to be used round-the-clock, 21x7, 365 days. Now, by interconnecting them, the two towers can be used to cool all the three furnaces and thus save on the energy used by one tower. Soon, all the three towers will be interconnected and then, at any time, two of the three can be used in rotation.
With regard to interconnecting the three gas chambers, the furnaces require Endo gas, a mixture of LPG and air in the proportion of 9:1. By using tow-way pipelines and introducing simple nozzle systems, the three Endo gas chambers have now been interconnected. Both these steps offer immense flexibility in operation of the furnaces and at the same time saving on energy.
The ultimate benefit from the above projects is conservation of the most critical resource of electrical energy by 4,23,756 units per annum (annual recurring savings of Rs. 20 lakhs) at full capacity working.
Value stream mapping: The primary objective at present is to determine and work with the defined inventory for each and every part used in the company vehicle. The programme aims at putting in place a system whereby the inventory of components is brought down to the barest minimum. This is by working out the amount of ready stocks required on the floor and that required in the stores, considering the location of the supplier and thereby the time taken for delivery. It also involves suppliers to set up depots close to the company’s units so that transit time is reduced to the minimum.The focus is now on cost management initiatives and 5S house-keeping methods. As for quality architecture, the process is to put in place a matrix that indexes the criticality of a component against the capability of the process, whereby the requisite concentration is given to either a critical function or developing a certain capability. The aim is to reach 100 PPM levels.
Rectification involves conversion of non-moving vehicles, aggregates and parts into saleable units without affecting the dynamics or performance of the products. The aggregates are either retrofitted on vehicles or at assembly or pre-assembly stages – rear axles, by changing some of the external peripherals, steering boxes (choice between the Indian and Chinese makes as per demand), engines, gearboxes (between 5-speed and 6-speed), tyres, and batteries.
Some vehicles, already dispatched to RSO, are brought back to the unit for conversion. Overall inventories have been brought down by over Rs. 7 crores. The unit is now focusing on zero inwarding.
Apart from these initiatives, the focus is clearly on conservation – be it energy or any other resource. All safety-related measures are being taken up, like mapping possible accident spots and introduction of sensors. Even a maintenance audit, on the lines of a financial or quality audit, is being mooted.
