Shop Floor Excellence by LASER

Keywords: LASER, workers, improvement, workshop, projects, people, power

Tata Power improves its operations and processes by five major programs: LASER, 5S, SPS, SIX SIGMA and SANKALP. These are targeted at three levels – shop floor level, tactical level, and strategic level respectively. The initiatives are divided based on various factors like the level of people involved, the impact of the projects, and manpower required, etc. The programs collectively form the integrated improvement initiatives that is the basis of operational excellence at Tata Power.

LASER

Summary: LASER is a holistic approach to organizational transformation combining intangibles like Employee Involvement & Behavioral Change with tangible improvement projects that focus on areas like Safety, Cost Reduction & Productivity Improvement at shop floor. It covers frontline officers, unionized workforce and contractor employees including project affected people (PAPs) at Maithon. The LASER projects are more ‘execution’ driven.

LASER stands for:

L- Learn: Understand Concepts

A - Apply: In a real life situation

S - Share: Spread and Sustain Improvement

E - Enjoy: Internalize Change

R - Reflect: Personal Growth

Objective:

In the case of CFTs, it was observed that teams were not providing output as expected. Hence, there was a need to focus on behavioral change. Hence, LASER was introduced in 2009 as an improvement initiative for people leading to culture building of the organization.

LASER workshop focuses on improvement in individual life, attitude, and relationship in family and the workplace, and emotional charging. Participants are train in using quality tools like cause and effect diagram, why-why analysis etc. They work on their assigned projects by finding out action plans after analysis and implement them.

5S is aimed at identifying and improving the Dark, Dirty and Dangerous areas in the plant areas which need attention in terms of their house-keeping and the workplace safety quotient.

Process: The core of any operation is made up of two parts: People and Process. While all the other improvement programs solely focused on the process part, LASER and 5S combine the two.

Tata Power realized that it was the people who are using the improvement tools to refine the process. Therefore, LASER was introduced so as to motivate workers to perform better at work and at the same time enjoy their life leading to better work-life balance.

A single workshop of LASER is conducted within a time span of 4 days, where a cross-functional team is pulled out of the plant to complete the project. Departmental heads choose improvement projects based on their pain points, long pending issues and projects from other improvement initiatives like SANKALP, etc. LASER workshop is having 20 to 30 participants and 4-6 projects assigned to them by forming cross function and cross hierarchical team. Each team may have four -six members depending on the project. Each team provided with one project to work at a time.

Each day of LASER divided into two sessions: morning and afternoon session. Morning meeting dedicated to soft skill polishing where the priority is an individual behavior, emotions, and personality. During the morning session, sharing happens where each team member will share his personal experience on the homework given every day on needs of the people involved. The project work is done in the afternoon session where team brainstorm, find out action plans and implement. Each team is given support by providing inputs and resources if required.

This initiative can also be termed as part of experiential learning as the participants involved are applying the learning from the experience in the first session. So, this encompasses Learn and Apply.

The sharing session starts from the second day. The participants do some homework that enables them to share better about their experience and to assess whether there is a change or not. The members are encouraged to share their personal, emotional as well as professional experience. Sharing brings about the change in much more profound manner.

From the third day Reflection starts. The transfer of better personal experience on to the project work reflects positively. The transfer of behavioral training onto the work life is very evident, and their emotional experiences can assess the same that they share during the last day.

On fourth day, a closing session is arranged which is attended by Sr. Leaders, Division head, and HODs.

The project deployment is monitored by the heads of the departments. Each team shares their experiences and project work they carried out. Appreciation by Sr. leaders motivates the participants further and helps them to internalize the learning from the workshop.

In 4 days of LASER, the workshop focuses on the change in behavior, better family life and work they carried out on their project creating better work-life balance.

‘Critical mass’ is achieved once the LASER is deployed at the division, and it covers approximately 70% employees. Critical mass means employees who are thinking and behaving alike. ‘Mega LASER’ workshop is arranged to provide momentum to the critical mass phase. In Mega LASER, employees who have undergone through LASER workshop participate along with others and undertake several projects in four days. The entire department or function involves in the program as there is no limit on number of participants or projects (At a time, 100-200 people can participate). One such Mega LASER held in for Mumbai unit in which generation, transmission, and distribution divisions undertook projects to remove unsafe conditions.

In Mega LASER, there is no morning session of behavior training but team solely focuses on the project. The morning session includes individual team stating the project status, learning, and resource requirement if any (fulfilled by HODs). Thus, momentum is achieved when multiple groups come together to implement improvement projects at a larger scale.

Internalization phase follows the momentum phase. Divisions identify improvement projects, form the team and complete the projects. Continuous improvements occur as each employee takes up improvement projects, one after other, which leads to enhancement in performance and processes of division. The development process is constant as people are learning while executing the project, enjoying their work, with content personal life. Thus, LASER contributes to a healthy work-life balance. Thus, LASER includes:

DEPLOYMENT & GROWTH CRITICAL MASS CRITICAL MOMENTUM SUSTAINENCE & INTERNALIZATION CONTINUAL IMPROVEMENT

Currently, within Tata Power, five divisions are at the internalization stage, three divisions are at critical mass stage and one division at deployment and growth stage.

Impact of the initiative:

Financial Impact

Behavioral Impact

Spouses vouching for the change in behaviors of employees

Integration of PAPs

Challenges and Mitigation

1. Lack of enthusiasm amongst workers: Workers and union initially did not support the initiative. There was an apprehension among the workers about the exact reason for conducting this program. Many of them did not believe that a program like this nature could yield benefits. But this issue was resolved within 2-3 workshops. When people experienced it first hand, they understood it thoroughly. HODs and workers discussed the operational issues at the same podium which enabled the workers to give out their suggestion. The workers felt a sense of worth. Also, the closing session included a visit from the MD, who highly appreciated every individual’s effort. Thus, the program garnered support from all levels eventually.

2. Release of people: To release twenty to twenty-five people at a time especially from smaller plants was a problem. Power stations are in continuous operations, and working 24/7. Hence, the supervisors and plant heads were reluctant to release workers for four days. But the HODs supported by taking up additional work and redistributing responsibilities for those four days.

3. Strain between Union workers and contract workers: The contract workers felt that the union will not allow them to thrive in the workplace. While union felt that contractual workers will take over their jobs. So, this barrier needed to be removed. LASER provided a uniform platform to understand each other and play supportive roles. After few LASERs, the change was evident and by 2009-10, this program was very popular and now people were asking to hold such programs.

Critical Success Factors:

1. Involvement of Senior and Local Leadership Team

Management involvement is a crucial factor for the success of this effort. The presence of the top management for the first session and during the last session for the team presentations is mandatory. This ensures that there is buy-in from the leadership team at the site level and their support is also visible. The plant management also ensures that resources are made available and teams are empowered to act on the decisions they take.

Another important aspect in terms of participation of the leadership is the buy-in of the union leaders. Since, the initiatives are aimed at promoting shop floor excellence, the wholehearted involvement of unionized employees is a prerequisite.

Senior Leadership and the Local Leadership involvement in the workshop

2. People capabilities and skillsSince, the advent of this initiative the primary aim has been to inculcate a habit of practicing excellence in the job roles and thereby attempting to improve the operations on the shop floor. Hence, it is aimed at emotional arousal of the skilled workforce. The consultants involved are trained in the TPM methodology and ultimately aim at propagating and permeating the same amongst the workforce in order to achieve the requisite results.

At the core this intervention aims to stir the emotional status quo of the participants and ensure a new wave of the enthusiasm is ensued which is then augmented with an improvement project ensuring a sustained boost in their morale.

Teams sharing their experiences post the workshop

3. Role and support of systems and processesInterventions like this face the biggest challenge in terms of participation. The root cause of which lies in the fact that a 3-4 day workshop would mean all the participants wouldn't be available at their respective workstations for the entire period which would in turn result in hampering the business-as-usual activities. Therefore, the role of systems becomes crucial in facilitating the smooth running of the workshops while the daily operations aren't derailed.

In addition to that the equipment and the processual requirements for executing the quick win projects that are taken up by the participants at the end of the workshop, are made available by the intervention of the local leadership.

4. Review mechanismsThe review of the LASER initiative is twofold:

a. The workshops conducted are monitored by the local representative in terms of participation and the quality of projects selected.

b. The respective reports are then shared with the corporate Business Excellence team to ensure it is reported to the apex level.

Lessons learnt and Dos & Don’tsa. Involvement of the SLT to make the participants feel valued and the project

execution swift.

b. Quality of project selection monitored by the divisional Business Excellence champion to ascertain that selected projects are high impact and cost effective.

Person’s description Name e-mailPractice/Process Owner Shashank

Kumar - LASER

shashank.kumar@tatapower.com

Author/ Co-author of this document (who has helped write the document)

Shashank Kumar, Rashmikant, Shubhi Thakuria

shashank.kumar@tatapower.com

rashmikant@tatapower.com

shubhit@iima.ac.in

Major beneficiary of the practice in the company (a senior person who can vouch for the practice)

Sharad Baijal baijals@tatapower.com

Senior-most person who reviews this process or the outcomes of this

CEO & MD

Anil Sardana

anil.sardana@tatapower.com

process