In what is considered a unique milestone in the annals of the company, Sundram Fasteners Limited (SFL), a part of $7.2 billion TVS group, on Wednesday received the prestigious Deming Prize.
Significantly enough, SFL gets the Deming Prize for all its 17 plants located across the country. Managing Director Arathi Krishna received the prize in Tokyo.
First woman
She is the first woman to receive this award. “This journey of TQM [total quality management] has been transformative for Sundram Fasteners. Although we have been fortunate to win many quality awards, TQM has been the one award which has united the whole company, provided us with a singular focus of the customer, and raised our capabilities all at once,” Ms. Arathi Krishna said.
“I regard it [Deming Prize] as our winning strategy for our future and we hope to follow it as a religion in our company,” she added.
The Deming Prize is a highly-acclaimed quality award presented by the Union of Japanese Scientists and Engineers to companies that have achieved breakthrough results by the application of TQM.
SFL insiders are pleased that the company could simultaneously win the Deming Prize for all its 17 plants which cover a range of technologies, products and customer segments. This, they said, was possible due to focussed work of people across the canvass within SFL. SFL has already won international acclaim in quality by being a pioneer in total productivity management (TPM) having won the TPM Excellence Award from JIPM, Japan in 1998.
