Continuous Improvement

Performance Improvement in the Tata Steel Group

Following its principle of driving all processes towards quality under TQM, Tata Steel in January 2008 set up the Performance Improvement Committee (PIC) to drive performance improvement on a continual and accelerated basis. In the next few months, the framework and structure of the PIC was finalised, with Performance Improvement (PI) Groups for iron making, steel making, flat rolling, long rolling, maintenance, distribution service centres and building systems. RD&T also represented in most of the PI teams under each of the groups.

Initially, projects were identified with bottom-line impact of $180 mn, of which 30% were cost projects and the balance were throughput (volume) related. With the change in market situation in H2, the sites reworked their projects and now cost related projects comprise 40%, though the total benefits have reduced to $ 150 mn.