Reference no: EM133035130

The Organization is a glass bottle manufacturing company and is a part of a leading industrial house in the country. The industrial group has one of the top three pharmaceutical organizations under its ownership. The glass bottles manufactured by the company are basically for the use by the pharmaceutical industry. The organization therefore has a large number of captive customers within the group itself. The entire group has played a pioneering role in the implementation of the philosophy and the practices of Total Quality Management. It has been extremely successful through a strategy of being focused on the needs and expectations of the customer. The organization is also a leading manufacturer of glass packing for cosmetic products.

The organization has focused on becoming the leading provider of 'flaconnage' type of glass containers for the quality conscious pharmaceutical and cosmetics industries. With a compound consistent annual sales growth of over 35% every successive year, the organization enjoys a leadership position in the niche pharmaceutical packing segment. Its market share has almost doubled in last few years. The organization is the only company in India and one in few in the world who manufacture and market the entire pharmaceutical range of glass bottles and vials in amber and flint colors in both soda lime and borosilicate material.

The TQM principles and practices were implemented successfully in its various business processes. The organization has imbibed all the elements of a systematic approach to excellence in results. The organization was the first in the glass industry to receive ISO 9002 certification from the internationally recognized Bureau Veritas Quality International (BVQI). The organization has established world-class quality management system by getting itself further certified under the ISO 9001:2000. It is also one of the first organizations in the glass industry to attain the ISO 14001 certification. The organization has been focused extensively on Total Quality Management. It has invested extensively in people development and information technology. The ERP system in use is MFG-PRO and aims to bring in increased efficiencies in the various business processes. A major B2B initiative has been the enabling of transactions between the organization and its customers through the website. All this is aimed towards enabling the organization to provide speedy, prompt and better service.

The organization has been the proud recipient of the Best Vendor Award in packing from the Organization of Pharmaceutical Products of India (OPPI) for two years in succession, leading it closer to becoming the most admired packaging company in India. OPPI rules prevented two- year-consecutive award winners from being rated for two subsequent years. After a forced gap of two years, the organization has, once again, been rated the Best Vendor in packaging for the year 2000.

The internally conducted periodic customer satisfaction studies rate the organization as superior to others in the industry. Even the study conducted by an external agency has rated the organization as a company with an admirable customer satisfaction index. Ratings for the organization on various parameters were quite high from the hundreds of studies conducted by 1 the reputed external agency. The organization's strong relationship with the customers has led to a high level of customer satisfaction. This is an example of strong sustainability of market leadership through customer-orientation.

The organization has been continuously raising the standards of its performance on the quality front. Working together with its customers from various pharmaceutical companies has helped the organization in the Total Organizational Involvement (TOI). The task forces formed jointly by customers and the organization have led to significantly better performance where objectives were set. The organization has introduced the just-in-time (JIT) concept to ensure that customers do not have to hold huge inventories. Warehousing facilities at their plants and elsewhere are ample evidence of their desire to lower customers' inventory carrying cost.

Questions

1) What are the learning points of the case

2) Explain how the organization attained all-round performance excellence by following the TQM principles and practices

3) Explain whether the organization has solid foundation and infrastructure for implementing the TQM principles and practices.

4) Demonstrate that this company practices the house of quality apart from the foundation and infrastructure which were discussed above in question 3