An award journey for business excellence: the case study of a public sector unit

The article highlights the nine-year total quality management (TQM) implementation journey of one of the biggest power generation equipment manufacturing public sector units (PSU) in India, Bharat Heavy Electrical Limited (BHEL), to win the European Foundation for Quality Management (EFQM) model-based CII-EXIM Award for Business Excellence. The article details the business processes and management practices used by the company, which had 6500 employees, with a turnover in 2006-2007 of USD 446.48 million and the only PSU of India to win this award. The study of a 'successful TQM implementation' or 'award-winning journey' here means an estimation and understanding of the efforts made by the organisation in travelling along the quality road each year and learning further about the managerial decisions made in the years until it won the award. The comprehensive study covers all processes used by this company to fulfil the criterion of the award and successful TQM implementation. The process of implementation and assessment for all parts of the measurement criterion is also discussed in detail. The organisation under discussion initiated its TQM implementation programme in 1997 and received the excellence award in 2006. To summarise, this article is an in-depth analysis of how the process of implementation was done by rolling out the TQM model and how its assessment offered the organisation an opportunity to learn about its own strengths and critical areas for improvement.