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BUSINESS:
MARUTI UDYOG
Saleble
Time Vs Idle Time
The
union is incensed by two new features in the incentive package linked
to the "external environment". The first is an incentive related
to the company's ratio of the sales volume to its installed capacity.
That is telling the worker that he should be ready to accept a drop in
income when the times are bad, with a part of the production capacity
lying idle. Yet another feature of the package relates the incentive to
the turnover of spares produced in the factory. MUL makes spares worth
Rs 350 crore in which the profit margin is a high 15 per cent, making
up somewhat for the drooping margin in the car business. The union says
both are unrelated to their jobs, but the management says it is a part
of the workers' burden as stakeholders in the business.
Underlying
the incentive war is an effort of the MUL management to make the workers
accept the Japanese production philosophy of kaizen, or constant improvement
of existing ability. Inspired by it, MUL is raising labour productivity
in novel ways. If vendors were moving their trucks earlier into the central
store, they now move these directly-in plastic containers-onto conveyor
belts which drive the accessories directly to the assembly area, with
the force of gravity, not electrical energy.
That saves
power, time, labour and cost. Suzuki Chairman O. Suzuki summed it up when,
in a meeting with Joshi, he walked a few paces and told the minister that
"workers come to factories to work, not to walk". The "kaizen
groups", which have sprouted not only in MUL factory but among its
360 vendors, zealously talk of ways to increase the worker's "saleable
time" (when he adds value) and cutting his "idle time".
Video clips of shop-floor activity are circulating among MUL managers,
pinpointing examples of idle time.
Kaizen is
anything but an airy-fairy management jargon. It has helped the company
instal its third plant of one-lakh-car capacity last year without hiring
a single extra hand. Chief General Manager (Production) A. Nandy says
kaizen would help the company achieve production of six lakh cars in another
five years in the existing Gurgaon facility, from 4,07,589 last year,
which, again, was obtained by exceeding the installed capacity of 3,50,000.
However,
the unions refuse to read the future signals of the car industry; with
20 of the world's top 30 manufacturers making losses, and the world-best
profitability being 4 per cent, there is no room for an idle hand on the
shop floor. Not to speak of making fiery speeches during working hours,
chucking the tool kit and conspiring with netas to hold a dynamic firm
to ransom.
-with
bureau reports
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