To get the best output, employees at the senior and top management levels should be thoroughly involved in the process — this is Maruti Suzuki India’s mantra. The carmaker believes in an open door policy to boost the spirit of innovation among young recruits.

Maruti, which launched operations in the early 1980s, completes 30 years on December 14. It has 110 patents (around 20 in the production line alone), and most of these have been developed by its young engineers. Many more patents are on the way.

The company has over 1,000 engineers, several of whom are working on such projects.

“The idea behind such initiatives is to encourage engineers to go for innovation and encourage out-of-the-box thinking,” M.M. Singh, COO-Production, told Business Line .

“Many engineers nowadays do not want to join a manufacturing company thinking they will end up doing the same thing every day. But, we have bust that myth.”

Trip to Japan Singh, who joined Maruti as a technician in the painting department, said one of his biggest achievements is the involvement of young engineers in the company. For example, labour union leaders are being sent to Japan for a week, where they get to meet Suzuki Motor Chairman Osamu Suzuki.

Once in a while new recruits are sent to Japan (to the parent company) for idea exchange and to learn new processes that can be adopted here.

Singh said engineers are being given the freedom to innovate on the shop floor or the assembly lines or to apply “anything they have learnt from their colleges” that could be new for the company or the industry.

“The result has been good, and many products, such as robotics that are used in our plants, are made by the engineers and are patented. We just provide these young engineers with materials and whatever investment is required,” he added.

The machines at Maruti’s plants include automated multi-level parking for the produced cars, welded planks for eliminating operator fatigue and automation, such as host casting, vehicle testing and calibration.

“Technology upgradation is one subject that has given us a lot of mileage.

Setting an example Even Ratan Tata (in the early 1990s) once came to see our plant to see how the Japanese culture (in terms of production) can be adopted in India,” Singh recalled, adding that many companies in India and globally have started to follow the Total Quality Management system, better known as TQM. But, Maruti follows its own (Suzuki’s) system, which is different from others, he added.

As part of its sustainability programmes, factories of the company follow a ‘zero exit’ programme, which means there is no wastage.

“It is not only environment-friendly, but also ensures that waste from our factories go to different industries, such as cement and steel,” Singh explained.

>ronendrasingh.s@thehindu.co.in

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