A decade ago, Capt Oberoi said goodbye to a career in ensuring battle-worthy warships in the Indian Navy,  to pursue a career in Quality Management and Consulting. Since then, he has worked with industry leaders such as American Bureau of Shipping and has been advising industrial giants such as Reliance Petroleum and Software Technology Parks of India, on various aspects of quality. Among his current plans is the creation of an association of Quality Management professionals, which would function as a platform for aggregation and dissemination of quality related knowledge in the country. indiamarkets caught up with Capt Oberoi for a tete-a- tete, while he was on one of his assignments.

indiamarkets: How has the concept of quality changed since you first entered the industry, till today?
Capt Oberoi: Earlier, the idea of quality used to focus on a particular piece of equipment, or raw material. So quality management was characterised by a piecemeal approach - improve the quality of your raw material, and your end product automatically improves! Today we have realised that the pursuit of quality is not quite as simple as that. The approach today is to put in place an overall quality management system, reflecting the thought that quality is a journey, and not the destination.

indiamarkets: You are looking at founding a Society of quality professionals. What about existing trade bodies that are already working in the field of quality?
Capt Oberoi: There are associations in the field of quality management, such as Standardisation, Testing and Quality Control (STQC), and Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS). However, in my experience, the manner of working of associations leaves much to be desired. I know of an American company that refused to recognise the certification of an Indian IS0 9000 certified company, since the credentials of the (Indian) certifying agency were suspect. There has been a mushrooming of agencies doling out quality certificates - one wonders about the quality of the very people who do the certification!

The Society I am creating will promote Quality Consciousness, with an integrated approach, rather than an unhealthy emphasis on securing a certificate. It will consist of people from the industry, as well as testing equipment manufacturers, etc. The Society will be operational from September 2000.

indiamarkets: As a Quality Consultant, what are your areas of activity?
Capt Oberoi: Process Improvement forms the core of my activities. I don't believe in going by a textbook approach such as CQI or TQM. One has to study the situation and apply whatever solution is most suitable for a particular case. One of my clients, a woven sack manufacturing company, found that the HDPE bags being produced were 10-15 per cent heavier than the acceptable weight range. We were able to rectify the situation through some process improvements. Such work involves breaking up the entire activity chain into sub-activities, analysing them, identifying responsibility centres, etc.

indiamarkets: What would your advice be to a company going in for a major quality initiative?
Capt Oberoi: Don't aim at getting a certification alone. Go for an overall Quality Management System. The ISO 9000 will follow automatically when one has a good quality system in place. In fact, quality has to be tailored to the needs of the industry. In some cases, an ISO 9000 certification may even be unnecessary. If there is no compulsion, then go for a system which works for you, rather than going for a textbookish approach.

I have found that this compulsion to go for certification leads to serious malpractices, besides a hammer and tongs approach to quality. A common refrain among manufacturers is "Consultant XYZ has assured me he will get me ISO 9000 in six months. Can you do it faster?"! The updated ISO 2000 guidelines will be released soon, with a lot more emphasis on process improvement. When that happens, a number of manufacturers who were blindly pursuing certification will find themselves in trouble.

indiamarkets: Quality is one field where one sees a lot of jargon, reflecting various philosophies. What is your view on the various schools of thought prevailing in the quality?
Capt Oberoi: A lot of this is all in the air, as all theory invariably must be! Basically there is no single mantra that provides solutions to all quality related problems. Each school has its own merits and demerits. Kaizen, for example, is better suited to a manufacturing environment, whereas a Statistical Process Control approach works well in the process industry. Basically one has to apply whatever one believes will work best in a given scenario. Studies have shown that several companies that took up TQM without realising all its ramifications failed miserably.

indiamarkets: As a consultant, what are some of the pitfalls that you come across?
Capt Oberoi: Companies must realise that quality cannot be looked at in isolation. Quality improvements often necessitate organisational change. So quality has to be looked at it in totality. There has to be serious commitment from the top management, to the pursuit of quality. It is quite frustrating to come up with solutions, which then cannot be implemented because the organisational structure cannot be changed. It is much better to start with a picture of what kind of organisation one wants (or does not want) to have, and then go about introducing process improvements. Otherwise, a lot of time and money may be wasted.

indiamarkets: How do you perceive the role of IT in Quality Management?
Capt Oberoi: Information Technology is an integral part of the entire quality system, as quality is predicated on a transparent and efficient system of information. Basically, when one looks at IT-enabling a process, it is broken down into sub-activities, etc, which is also what one does for Business Process Re-engineering. Basically, whether we are talking of quality management or IT enablement, it involves a deep understanding of the organisation's way of functioning. So beyond a point, the boundaries blur and the seemingly different concepts of BPR, Quality Management, IT Management, etc. merge with one another.

Capt Oberoi may be contacted at hjsoberoi@w3c.com

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