Innovative suggestions leading to higher productivity have earned for 11 employees of BHEL, Tiruchi, three 'Vishwakarma Rashtriya Puraskars' from the Central government, for the year 2010.
The employees’ suggestions pertained to cost reduction, safety and quality of products, import substitute, energy conservations, and technology upgrade. Earlier this week, they received the awards from the Union Minister of State for Labour and Employment Mallikarjun Kharge, during the Vishwakarma Day celebration.
M. Balamurugan, R. Babu, and P.Ramachandran, artisans; and G.Ravichandran and K.Somasundram, deputy engineers were jointly given Vishwakarma Rashtriya Puraskar Class ‘A’ award consisting of Rs.75,000 cash prize and certificates for designing and developing bench type fixture to hold Quick Closing Non-return Valves (QCNRV). The new invention increased the availability of crane, enhanced safety of operation, and reduced fatigue of the operators.
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I. Rajendran, assistant engineer; K. Baskar, O. Sasikumar, S. Johnkennedy, and E. Muralidharan, artisans; and K.Somasundram, deputy engineer, received the Vishwakarma Rashtriya Puraskar Class ‘B’ award for designing and developing New fixture for hydro testing of special type valves. This innovation has significantly reduced unsafe operations and increased availability of cranes. The award comprises Rs.50,000 cash prize and certificates.
M. Balamurugan, artisan, and K. Somasundram, deputy engineer, received the Vishwakarma Rashtriya Puraskar Class ‘C’ award consisting of Rs. 25,000 cash prize and certificates for developing new type of fixture that could reduce the cycle time for manufacturing Forged Medium Pressure Gate Valves stems.
A BHEL press release said Vishwakarma Rashtriya Puraskar is open to any undertaking where suggestion schemes are in vogue.
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Suggestions relate to raising productivity; increasing the efficiency of the organisation and management; inventions and improvements that bring about savings in materials and production time and improvement in the utilisation of plant and equipment; improvement in quality of products or their designs; lightening physical efforts in certain operations and, thereby, leading to increased productivity; better utilisation of waste or scrap material; improvement in packing methods; improving ways and means for using indigenous materials in place of imported ones; improvement of working conditions including safety, health and welfare, safety standards, safety devices and environmental conditions; and improvement in methods for prevention for industrial diseases.