Industrial Visit – The IIM Kashipur Blog

Road to Excellence: Plant Visit to Parle

Being located in one of the densest industrialized belts of the country has its own perks and IIM Kashipur misses no opportunity to make the most of it. The plant visit to Parle Products in Rudrapur, marked the first industrial tour of the PGP 2014-16 batch of IIM Kashipur. It started with the screening of a virtual tour of a standard Parley’s production plant and an overview of the product line.

The virtual tour was followed by an actual tour of the production plant. The representatives were kind enough to personally take the students through the production process step by step. First, students gained insights on how testing of raw materials takes place before entering the production process. It was followed by an explanation of the working and importance of individual units of the automated system. It included the mixing of raw materials to form a mixture that is then further moulded into the requisite shape and size. Once the moulding is done, it is baked and undergoes a cooling treatment to catalyse the process. Finally, the students were lead through the packaging unit of the plant where all the items were being packed in a variety of packages.

At the end of the tour, a query session was also organised where the students got an opportunity to interact one to one with the representatives of Parle. The discussion was not only limited to the quality management and efficiency of the production process, but also forayed into other areas like how the location of a plant is decided and how production is varied according to the demand forecast from the marketing and sales department. Further discussions were done on the industry as a whole and how the three factors of price, taste and quality affect the success of a product.

Students took back a unique and educating experience with them when they left the plant.

IIM Kashipur successfully conducts Six Sigma course

IIM Kashipur successfully conducts Six Sigma course

When it comes to Quality education, IIM Kashipur put its best practices to provide quality knowledge through a quality source. This was again proved by the 3 day Six Sigma Certification workshop organized at IIM Kashipur for the PGP ‘11 batch in partnership with Think Excellence Pvt. Ltd., specialized in lean six sigma training program. IIM Kashipur became one of the few b-schools to provide Green Belt Six Sigma certification to its students.

The idea of the workshop cropped up when the student showed their interest in“Quality Management”. Under the leadership of Dr.Gautam Sinha, Director, IIM Kashipur, a number of actions have been taken for the realization of the vision. One such action is the collaboration with Think Excellence in order to give the best education to the student. Under this association, Six Sigma Green Belt workshop was held from 25th to 27th September 2012. “Quality education is our for-most priority and student should learn best in class methodologies and techniques” said K.N. Badhani, In-charge of Academics.

Three day workshop was taken up by the Master Black Belt in Six Sigma, Aparna Thandavan who is also the director of Think Excellence. Aparna has 13 years of work experience in Industry and has done projects with various organizations such as Phillips, Bharti Retail etc. She has a vast experience in conducting training for corporate and education institutes.

The workshop kicked off with the small game on process improvement. She tried to emphasize that process improvement is not a rocket science and quality can be improved if the end cause is identified before it affects the quality. The very structure of course was designed to give students the insights of what is meant by Six Sigma, how the quality can be managed, how to undertake a project, when to take up, various statistical methods etc. Workshop also explained the six sigma methodology which provides the technique and tools to improve the capabilities and reduce the defects in any process.

“It was a great experience, the course learning’s can be applied in the assignments taken up while doing live project with the companies” said Kapish Saini, PGP second year student.

“Just Tools and techniques can’t give you the improvement until it is used at the right place, and this workshop gave the structured approach on when to use and where to use these techniques in a project” said Kapil Vaish student of operations. The methodology student learnt is known as DMAIC- Define->Measure->Analyze->Improve->Control which is the structural methodology for six sigma projects undertaken at any organization. Student also accomplished three real life case studies on process improvement.

PGP ‘11 student, Cobi Sarangal told that “This program will also help us once we enter the industry as it provides the methodology wherein we can streamline a running process in a company and generate value to the company, which is what makes Six Sigma even more useful”.

Dinesh a student of operations also pointed out that “This program not only provides the structure, but also provides us tools and techniques which can be used in isolation under any standalone process”.

At the end of the workshop student underwent through the evaluation process to secure their Green Belt Certification. On concluding note Aparna told “students showed great enthusiasm towards learning and their knowledge is at par with industry standards”. IIM Kashipur now boasts of 75 percent of the batch having Six Sigma green belt certification.

Tata Motors Plant Visit – 27thFeb 2012

Students of IIM Kashipur visited Tata Motor’s plant in Pantnagar, Uttrakhand, on 27th of Feb, 2012. The aim of the visit was to acquaint students of the industrial practices followed in a large manufacturing plant and to appreciate how theory is applied in real life scenarios. Tata Motor plant is one of largest auto maker plant in India. Pantangar plant has an total area of 10,000 acres, 650 acres is being used by TATA Motors, while remaining is being used by supplies. They have a very good base of supplies in their vicinity to fulfill around 90% of demand for different components needed in plant. TATA produces mostly commercial vehicles such as Tata ace, Tata magic and Tata venture in this plant. The plant has a capacity of 1200 unit in a year presently, and the capacity is
expected to rise to 1460 by the next year. The visit began with a session with the plant manager of the plant. The session revolved around the history of Tata Motors, values that drive the organization and how it has transformed and redefined itself over the years. The manager shed light on CSR activities undertaken by the organization, and about the career prospects of a new recruit. After the session the students proceeded to the production facility of Tata Ace. The students learned various nuances of production and understood about the bottlenecks faced by the production facility. The session was highly interactive wherein the students also suggested solutions on their own. The whole visit was conducted very smoothly and was a great learning experience for the students.

Pepsico – Plant Visit – 18thNovember 2011

On 18thNov. 2011, the first batch of IIM Kashipur visited the bottling plant of PepsiCo in Bazpur, Uttarakhand. It was the first official plant visit as part of industry interaction of the students. Students were accompanied by Mr. Dinesh Saxena and Mr. Daljeet from the administration. On arrival at PepsiCo bottling plant, students were received by Mr. Maya Prakash from the HR department. After a small introduction session, the students proceeded towards the manufacturing unit where the students were introduced to the quality officer and his associates. As a safety requirement, everyone was required to wear leather shoes and the students complied with this requirement without fail. Anyone entering the manufacturing area is required to cover his heads and shoes and the required kit was provided to us. After all the essential safety and quality control requirements were fulfilled, we entered the production floor and were taken to the various sections of manufacturing viz., Water treatment, Syrup mixing, Bottle molding and Filler Units. After the production floor, students were taken to the warehouse. We got the opportunity to meet the store manager, who was recently awarded by Ms. Indra Nooyi for his warehouse management techniques. He briefed us on different warehouse management intricacies and students got their doubts clarified on supply chain issues. Later students had a 45 minute interaction with Plant’s HR manager, Amitabh Adhikary and Manufacturing manager in a conference hall. HR manager briefed about the plant’s organizational structure, various incentives being provided to the employees and the culture of the organization. Manufacturing manager briefed us about the different KPIs, seasonal challenges, price fluctuations of key ingredients and other minor issues. This was followed by a healthy Question-Answer session. Members from Placement Committee and Industry Interaction committee had a short meeting with the HR manager. They expressed their eagerness to have a long term relationship with PepsiCo and received a positive response. Overall the visit was successful in terms of the insights the students received about supply chain management and the overall manufacturing process. It also opened doors for further interaction and industrial assignments.