BHEL becomes the first PSU to win the CII-Exim Business Excellence Prize

Bharat Heavy Electricals Limited (BHEL) has become the first Public Sector Company in the country to win the ‘PRIZE’, under the CII Exim Award Scheme. The prestigious recognition has been bestowed on BHEL’s Heavy Electrical Equipment Plant at Haridwar, for business excellence, as per the globally recognized model of European Foundation for Quality Management (EFQM).

Mr. Subramanya Naidu, Minister for Industries, Govt. of Karnataka presented the coveted award to Mr. S.K. Jain, Director on the Board, BHEL, at the CII Summit 2006, here today.

The other major units of BHEL at Trichy, Hyderabad and Bhopal have also received commendation certificates for ‘Significant Achievements in TQM’ while its Electronics Division at Bangalore has received the commendation for ‘Strong Commitment to TQM’. With this, all the five major units of BHEL have been awarded, thus making BHEL the only corporation, whose all major Divisions have been recognized for business excellence. Notably, BHEL was the first public sector company in India to have won the CII-Exim Commendation in 2002, for its Trichy plant.

Jointly instituted by CII and Exim Bank, the coveted Prize has been awarded to BHEL for ongoing journey towards Business Excellence, aimed at improving overall operations and encouraging Total Quality Management (TQM) at all levels. The award is based on the model developed by the European Foundation for Quality Management (EFQM). The highest recognition of its kind in the country, the award has been instituted in India in line with International Quality Awards like the 'Malcolm Baldrige National Award' in USA, the 'Deming Prize' in Japan and the 'European Quality Award'.

A quality conscious organisation with a strong customer focus, BHEL has acquired ISO-9001 (2000 version), ISO-14001 and OHSAS-18001 certification, for all its operations.

BHEL initiated TQM in 1995 at its Trichy unit. Later, the concept was extended company-wide and a road map for business excellence was evolved. TQM concepts, deployed under the ‘Movement towards Business Excellence’, focussed on benchmarking and improving its products and internal processes to global standards. All the Divisions of BHEL have since embarked on a ‘Continuous Improvement’ culture and adopted the CII Model for Business Excellence.

The criteria for the award included display of visionary leadership, besides demonstrating a clear policy and business strategy in achieving the vision in a time bound fashion. In addition to effective deployment of people and other resources, this called for creating synergy with the company's business partners in a bid to satisfy its major stakeholders like customers, employees, society and investors. Their satisfaction levels were then ascertained in a systematic way through feedback.