Implementing total quality management at Wipro

By Isha Mahajan on May 13, 2016

The worldwide competition, deregulation, and rapid technology changes are bringing focus on quality awareness. The management strives to achieve total quality management by mobilizing the whole organization to adhere to quality continuously economically. Various techniques have been propounded by thinkers so as to achieve quality. Total quality Management was first suggested by Nancy Warren, a behavioral scientist in the US navy in 1985 (Gupta, 2009). Total Quality Management can be defined as “an integrated organizational approach in delighting customers (both internal and external) by meeting their expectations on a continuous basis through everyone involved with the organization working on continuous improvement in all products, services, and processes along with proper problem—solving methodology” (Indian Statistical Institute, n.d.).

About Wipro

Wipro Ltd. was established in 1945 as Western India Vegetable Products Limited in Amalner, Maharashtra. As of now, it is a global information technology, consulting, and outsourcing company with 170,000+ workforce serving clients in 175+ cities across 6 continents. The company posted revenues of $7.6 billion for the financial year 2014-15. Wipro helps customers do business better by leveraging their industry-wide experience, deep technology expertise, comprehensive portfolio of services, and a vertically aligned business model (Wipro, 2016).

Need for Total Quality Management

Wipro being a leading provider of communication networks in the US required improvement in the product performance of telecom applications. With the growing importance on aligning business operations with customer needs and driving continuous improvement, Wipro began moving towards focussing on quality, thereby implementing techniques of total quality management. Some of the key challenges were: reduction in data transfer time, reduction in risk, avoidance of interruption due to LAN/WAN downtime, and parallel availability of the switch for the other administrative tasks during the same period (Sharma, 2012).

The technique was chosen and its implementation

Wipro chose to implement the Six Sigma technique of total quality management (Sharma, 2012). Six Sigma is a statistical term that measures how far a given process deviates from perfection. Six Sigma was chosen because it helps in measuring the defects systematically and figures out how to eliminate them and get close to zero defects as possible (Sharma, 2012). Wipro used it as a measure of quality that strives to near perfection. It was centered on the accomplishment of the objectives such as: having products and services meet global benchmarks, ensuring robust processes within the organization, continuously meet and exceed customer expectations, and make a quality culture within.

Wipro adopted the project approach for Six Sigma, where projects were identified on the basis of the problem areas under each of the critical Business Processes Wipro evolved the following Six Sigma methodologies for the business processes:

  1. For developing new processes: DSSS (Direct-sequence-spread-spectrum) methodology was used for software development. This methodology used rigorously in-process metrics and cause analysis throughout the software development lifecycle for defect-free deliveries and lower customer cost of application development.
  2. For developing existing processes: DMAIC (Define- measures- analyze- improve- control) and TQSS (Transactional quality using Six Sigma) were used for non-transactional and transactional processes respectively.
  3. For reengineering: Cross-functional process mapping was used for reengineering business processes.
Continuous improvement through Six Sigma initiative (Sharma, 2012)
Continuous improvement through the Six Sigma initiative (Sharma, 2012)

The process followed for the implementation of the above methodologies is explained below:

  1. Built the culture: Implementation of Six Sigma required support from high-level managers. For this, the company restructured the organization and provided infrastructure, training, and confidence in the process.
  2. Selection of the project: For the selection of the right project the field data was collected, the process map was developed and the importance of the project was judged from the eyes of the customers.
  3. Resources: Resources were identified on the basis of short term and long term requirements. The project selected was a crucial factor in determining the resources required.
  4. Controlling: Wipro developed a team of experts for reviewing the projects. It was done to see the timeliness of the project completion, targeting of gaps, weak areas, and deviations.

Company’s performance after implementation of the model

The financial gain that Wipro has achieved by using Six Sigma has been commendable. As the Six Sigma initiative started maturing Wipro identified two major phenomenons:

  • The biggest projects had all completed on time without hurdles.
  • The yellow-belt culture where smaller process improvement projects were handled using plan-do-check-act methodology had cured little problems before they became big ones.
  • The Six Sigma process resulted in the achievement of close to 250%, 6 minutes for 1 MB transfer, and 18 minutes for average transfer. Furthermore, it led to lower maintenance costs, schedule overrun costs, and development costs for customers. The performance was improved through a precise understanding of the customer’s requirements. Software defects were reduced by 50% and rework in software went down from 12% to 5%. Waste elimination increased productivity by up to 35%. Installation failures wend down from 4.5% to 1% in the hardware business. Ownership cost was lowered by 30-40% and productivity went up by 20-30%. 93% of projects were completed on time and field defects were lowered by 67% of the average industry rate. The performance enhancement enabled the clients to have an improved product with the overriding benefit that the end customer perception of the quality of the client’s product is improved (Sharma, 2012).

References

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