The "6 S" System

This article is of from Hindu Paper dated 26th April, 1995.

Article: " HRD for results: the new agenda"

But I am posting a part of this article i.e. The "6 S" System.

At the Worli (mumbai) plant of Crompton Greaves, problem solving committees of workers solved problems on their owm. "Focus Method" where the entire organisation concentrated on one activity at a time like quality, materials management, quality circles, Value Engineering etc... were introduced.

The "6 S" System worked in practice, with active infrastructural support from management. The "6 S" were:

1) Sort through and sort out things,

2) Set limits (ie, each staffer has to decide certain limits such as the number of chaiars to be kept in a room)

3) Set your own standard

4) Shine your equipment

5) Search-Time Elimination (arrange things in order, so as to minimise search time)

6) Stick to rules


BHEL is one of the most progressive Indian Organisations in harnessing and utilising HUMAN POTENTIAL. Rich with history of actually implementing the concept of worker's participation in management in its manufacturing plants througout the country. BHEL brought the concept of QUALITY CIRCLES to the Indian Corporate Sector. quality circle is a small group of employees in the same work area or doing a similar type of work who voluntarilymeet regualary for about an hour every week to indentify, analyse and resolve work related problems leading to improvement in their total performance and enrichment of their work life.

The chief architect of this movement was of its then GENERAL MANAGERS, Mr S. R. Upda who started quality circles in a small way at BHEL, Hyderabad. in the year 1980. By the year 1989 there were over 1600 quality circles in all BHEL's plants put together.

Varoius other motivational mechanisms were at work. For example at BHEL, Tiruchirapalli, workers were given cash awards for suggestions that solved problems, up to 01% of the resultant savings. An ISO 9001 Company, BHEL, Tiruchirapalli also constituted 60 odd interfunctional task force to solve the problems, each with time bound plans in the early nineties.

Besides this, there were awards for ZERO defect performance and HOUSE KEEPING. These task forces got results the time the organisation took to execute orders was cut to 40%, better control resulted in 25% reduction in inventories, improved manufacturing practices reduced complaints by 50% and as much as 20% in energy costs was achieved by effective management of the furnace.

Organisational examples quoted above are indicative, not exhaustive.

Whatever HRD philosphy an organisation might have, HRD itself becomes meaningful only if there are certain bottomline results to show and HRD embraces and becomes apart of organisational initiatives like Total Quality Management (TQM), which have become the order of the day, given the realities of the new economic and business environment.

In Short, HRD desperately needs a pardigm shift. it should be freed from clutches of the elitist consultants and specialists who have successfuly isolated it from pragmatic organisational realities more specifically, HRD should be freed from the performance appraisal and training obsession. Results matter, activities don't. This is the new agenda on which we could as well open a new chapter in the history of HRD movement in our country.