Qimpro Convention 2008: Winner of the QualTech award

Reliance Industries, Hazira
Presenter: Jayesh N Desai, General Manager, Production, Polyester Plant.

Introduction
Reliance Industries is the largest private sector company in India, and has been a member of the Fortune 500 list for the last three years. The company's forte is its well integrated presence in the textiles sector, spanning polyester, fibre intermediaries, plastics, petrochemicals, refining of petrochemicals, and oil and gas exploration and production. The case presented is from the textile sector.

Reliance Industries' Hazira ployester plant needed to increase the yield of partially oriented yarn (POY) from the CP10 unit from the existing level of 98.5 per cent to 99.2 per cent by April 2007.

Problem
Reliance's industrial complex situated at Hazira in the western Indian state of Gujarat, makes a wide range of polymers, polyesters, fibre intermediaries, and petrochemicals. The project studied the causes of low yield in the CP10 unit at 98.5 per cent in realtion to various stakeholders. The initial findings suggested that the low yield and the consequential waste levels of 1.5 per cent at unit CP10 were primarily on account of higher and longer process interruptions, which in turn resulted in low productivity, inconsistent quality, and poor utilization of resources.

Diagnosis and remedial action
To diagnose the causes, the team followed a structured approach, categorising the basic causes into two parts:
1. The number of discontinuities, or the number of interruptions, and
2. The duration of discontinuities, or the time period that the interruptions lasted.

The team used the Critical-to-quality (CTQ) tree to drill down into the causes, after which it used Pareto analysis to identify the different types of unscheduled events. The findings indicated that quality breaks and electrical and mechanical failures made up 80 per cent of all discontinuities. The team used the why-why analysis technique to identify the root causes, and then used regression analysis to validate the root causes.

Using six sigma methodologies, the team reduced events that caused discontinuities, and then used lean tools, which are tools for Kaizen continuous improvement, for the reduction of the duration of the discontinuities. Lean metrics allowed the team to measure, evaluate and respond to their performance in a balanced way, without sacrificing the quality.

Sustaining the solution
The team used SPC charts to monitor the performance indicators. It used the balance score card methodology for monitoring, made changes to the SOC, and used a display and visual management system to hold the gains.

Benefits:
Other than the tangible financial impact of a recurring benefit of Rs704 lakhs per annum, the team says that a major achievement was the paradigm shift in the mindset of people at the plant. It says that process ownership, and the sense of belonging of the people increase many times, and the number of people involved can be seen from the number of Kaizen received.