Date:15/10/2006 URL: http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/2006/10/15/stories/2006101501300200.htm

Bajaj Auto strives to implement TPM mantra among vendors, dealers

Our Bureau

Speeding towards being a zero defect organisation

Total productive maintenance helps companies plug the opportunities lost when consumers walk away without making any purchases.

Pune , Oct. 14

`Hamara' Bajaj is working towards giving better value to `tumahara' money and be a trendsetter of sorts in the bargain, with the company now calling in the TPM (total productive maintenance) Guru, Professor Sueo Yamaguchi, to take the TPM mantra through the entire chain including vendors and dealers and its financing company Bajaj Auto Finance Ltd (BAFL).

Rapid strides

While TPM is a way of life with companies, especially in Japan, the company maintains that its effort towards being a zero defect organisation is a pioneering one globally.

"We have made a small beginning with our dealers for the TPM implementation but hope to make significant progress with the effort. The auto industry as a whole does not have a tangible system to quantify opportunities lost by companies in terms of customers who have walked into dealerships to buy vehicles but walked out without doing so," the Bajaj Auto Managing Director, Mr Rajiv Bajaj, told presspersons.

"TPM has helped us achieve quality which has been a major driver of our success, so we owe all our success to the TPM philosophy," he said.

"Dealers and the sales team have to account for the leak of customers whose visits to dealerships don't convert to purchase decisions and we now hope to extend the TPM philosophy to these services to plug the opportunities lost," he said.

BAFL gearing up

Meanwhile, Bajaj Auto Finance is also gearing up for TPM with the Executive Director, Mr Sanjiv Bajaj, holding his first meeting with Mr Yamaguchi last week to discuss the feasibility of such a project.

"Only 17 out of every 100 vehicles we sell are financed by BAFL and we want to use TPM to take that figure up significantly," he said.

Its origination

Bajaj Auto's TPM effort began with its Akrudi plant in 1998. While the plant got its TPM certification in 2005, its other plants in Waluj and Chakan will go for its final audit for the certification next month.

The company's vendor base, meanwhile, is well on the TPM way with 30 out of its 200 vendors bagging medals from the company for achieving zero customer complaint record for periods ranging from six months to one year.

Vendor base

Bajaj Auto, which rationalised its vendor base from 855 to 200 between 2000 and April 2006, has further incentives for the community - only 16 of its best performing vendors have been taken to its Greenfield plant coming up at Uttaranchal.

The company's stated objective is to take the TPM implementation to at least 80 per cent of its vendor base within the next four years.