Thomson Press named ‘value enhancer’ in India Manufacturing Excellence Awards

What makes the achievement significant is that Thomson Press won this award not within the printing fraternity, but among the best in class supply chain/manufacturing companies in the country.

For the awards, the market research company, Frost and Sullivan, invites entries for the Project Evaluation and Recognition Program, conducted under the aegis of The Economic Times-India Manufacturing Excellence Awards.

The purpose of the initiative is to identify and acknowledge improvement projects and the teams that have contributed significantly to the success of their respective organisations. The initiative recognises the efforts of teams in an organisation, who, through their projects, have rewritten rules hitherto set, overcome resistance to change and established a new way of working, which not just improved the old state, but changed the environment, influenced positive mindset of related personnel and provided results, previously thought not possible.

Supply chain organisations are invited to nominate their projects in five core themes, namely, cost leader, quality champion, value enhancer, safe factory, and friends of environment.   

There are three categories for recognising the project of the year. One, ‘visionary’, where the result of the project has helped an organisation become future-ready. Two, ‘innovative’, where the project has ushered in a new method of executing the process, breaking away from established means. Three, ‘breakthrough’, where the improvement is based on an out of the box solution which has made the past obsolete and has brought in results in scale much higher compared to previous levels.

The projects are evaluated by a jury and are recognised in one of the categories.

Thomson Press submitted its entry under the theme ‘value enhancer’. The title of the project was ‘From underdog to bulldog – becoming the world’s most reliable printer.’

“First, we sent a summary of the turnaround arising out of implementing the ‘Theory of Constraints’ within our NCR units. TOC is a manufacturing strategy we initiated in May 2012, which radically changed our internal processes, measures of performance, mindsets, behaviours, and attitudes within our establishments at Okhla, Faridabad and Noida,” said CJ Jassawala of Thomson Press. “In the summary, we elaborated on why the practice of TOC was relevant to us, what changes did we make and the noteworthy results that followed.”

The project was shortlisted for further evaluation by the India Manufacturing Excellence Awards executive committee. The company was then invited to make a presentation before the jury at Mumbai on 12 September 2014. “I made the presentation before the jury, which was followed by a question-answer session. The jury evaluated several projects and presentations by supply chain companies across India over two days,” Jassawalaadded.

Apart from Thomson Press as value enhancer, the winners in the other four categories are Godrej & Boyce as quality champion; the Volvo factory, Bangalore as safe factory; the Crompton Greaves factory at Pithampur as cost leader; and Coromandel Fertilizers as friends of environment.