The Hindu Business Line : Setting a concrete example

The company applied the simple essentials of the Theory of Constraints to reduce the kiln shutdown time by about 30 per cent, resulting in production of an additional 24,000 tonnes of saleable cement.

K Bharat Kumar

When travelling, how often do you factor in the extra half-hour in your commute to the station or the airport, just in case there’s a traffic rush? And, how often do you put off packing for the trip till the eleventh hour?

By addressing these two tendencies in human behaviour, that is, an inclination to factor in extra time because of uncertainties and the penchant to postpone activity till the last minute (aka the student syndrome), organisations could become more efficient and generate savings.

Take Shree Cements, for example. Engaged in the manufacture of grey cement, it has the largest single location plant in Northern India.

Helped by Satyam Computers, a partner of Goldratt Consulting, it applied the simple essentials of the Theory of Constraints to reduce the kiln shutdown time by about 30 per cent, resulting in production of an additional 24,000 tonnes of saleable cement.

Shree Cements came across the Theory of Constraints in a passing print advertisement. Driven by curiosity, it sought out details. One thing led to another and it ended up with Satyam’s Consulting and Enterprise Solutions being called in to give a presentation. Once the seeds of thought had been sown, says P.K. Tripathy, Vice-President (Technical), Shree Cements, it sunk in deep enough for the management to want to make those changes.

Interestingly, the theory, the software behind the numbers that are spewed out, the data and analysis that comes from that data, had all been left to Satyam. Tripathy simply seems to have asked himself the question: How can I save money for the company? The answer to that question stemmed from the least downtime possible. Execution of strategy came next.

So, in order to bring down downtime, what did the company need? Extra handling, extra manpower and extra equipment, in addition, of course, to extra commitment. The management at Shree seemed pretty impressed with the concept. Tripathy says, “Typically, managements need an explanation, justification and then you get the sanction and wait for the resources to fall through. Here, we had full freedom to pursue what we wanted.”

The ‘why?’

Over a billion tonnes of cement are made per annum, and cement kilns are the heart of this production process: longer uptime of the kilns results in higher production and consequently higher sales. The kilns come up for a minimum of one major shutdown annually and enhancing their uptime has been the central concern of all cement manufacturers.

The typical downtime for a kiln, which is the heart of a cement factory, is anywhere between 16 and 20 days. Every day that a kiln is shut down means a loss of about Rs 30 lakh to the organisation. The company thus looked to apply the theory in this area first.

Asked what it aimed to bring the downtime to, Tripathy says, “We brought it down to 11 days.” That means, for just one kiln, applying the theory saved a minimum of Rs 1.5 crore. The company has six kilns in all and wants to apply the same rigour in reducing downtime. For the other kilns, Tripathy says the downtime target is similar, “About 30 per cent reduction in downtime is what we aim for.” Over a period, he wants to bring the average down to eight days.

Allaying ‘what-if’ fears

So how did the company go about doing this? It used the Critical Chain Project Management (CCPM) based on ‘Theory of Constraints’ (TOC) to this end.

First came the job of convincing people involved in the whole process that whatever work they did could possibly take less time. According to a Satyam Computers spokesman, “We are only consultants, so we did not tell our client what to do. They know it better.” What Satyam’s consultants did was to make the client’s team members rethink as to whether every job during the downtime was indeed needed to take as long as it traditionally has taken.

According to Tripathy, “Once there was a buy-in that each team would strive to do its work with minimum delay, we set to work. The buy-in was the biggest challenge and took nearly a month.” He was able to convey to, say, the mechanical department, that a job that traditionally took three days need not take so much. The actual job takes typically two days, but a ‘what-if’ fear made the person add an extra day to manage emergencies.

Addressing uncertainties

Of course, if the mechanical person had reasons to build in time for unexpected developments, those concerns were addressed. The Satyam spokesman says, “Our job was to address uncertainties.” For instance, if, for a particular job, a certain kind of crane was needed, Satyam took pains to ensure that a team member committed to having that kind of equipment at the site on time. They ensured that that member had answers to questions such as: Who was to supply the crane?; When would it be available?; Where would it be located?; How long would it take to move the crane from that location to the kiln where it is needed?; and the like.

Once timelines had been set, personnel could not afford to waste time till the last minute, or succumb to what Tripathy calls the “Student” syndrome, where they did the work only in the eleventh hour. Each aspect of their job was minutely detailed and time slots allotted such that there could be no excuse for not starting work as soon as the count started.

Back-up

In addition, back-ups were arranged for. He says, “What if a piece of equipment, say crane, goes kaput? Which member of the team at the client end is responsible for ensuring that a back-up crane was immediately available? And where was the back-up crane stationed? We sought answers to these kinds of queries during the 21 days it took to prepare for the downtime.”

Shree arranged for back-ups not only in equipment but also for manpower. Says Tripathy, “Traditionally, we used to have only about 1,000 people working on the kiln during downtime. Now, there were 2,000 people.” Their work and hours they kept were so meticulously detailed that even their lunch was brought to them. Not a minute was to be wasted. Obviously, the money spent on extra wages was negligible compared to the savings that Shree generated.

Team work – the reward

The concept had been so well sold to the people that each department worked well by itself and started giving suggestions as to how the others could improve.

The maintenance team as a whole moved from doing things sequentially to doing them simultaneously, so as to save time. And working together made each department realise the problems of the other department. Says Tripathy, “So, the mechanical person tended to finish a particular job in two hours instead of the usual eight so that the instrumentation team’s work is smoother.”

Interestingly, there were no monetary rewards to the people involved in the whole process at Shree. Says Tripathy, “The satisfaction in their eyes is the real reward. I value team work the most. This project certainly enhanced our team work.”

bharatk@thehindu.co.in

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