SOUTHERN REGION

CHALLENGES IN THE NEW MILLENNIUM: 17-18 NOVEMBER, 1999

The 'millennium bug' chased world-wide before it leapt into the 21st Century, was vigorously pursued with ACMA (SR) organising a series of seminars in three days, in three locations -Hyderabad on 16th November, Bangalore and Chennai -on "Challenges in the New Millennium". The Speakers were, Mr C Narasimhan: Chairman ACMA (SR), Mr V K Mehta: President ACMA and Mr L Ganesh : Vice President ACMA.

In 2000, the Indian Industry was expected to face challenges to further test its patience and in turn test the strengths of the automotive sector. It was essential the Association address these challenges beforehand and collectively face and solve 'worry areas' to the extent possible. To this end, the Regional Secretaries of ACMA, had conducted seminars on specific issues.

Hyderabad, Bangalore and Chennai, Mr Narasimhan made presentations on the last two years' activities with focus on Quality, Productivity and Export, followed by the Work-plan for the new year. These programmes, creditably, covered all floors of Organisations - from the CEO, through the Management to the shop-floor and Operator Levels. Additional focus of the Association has been the Supply Chain Restructuring, Building New Relationships with Customers and the WTO.

WTO and its present agreements, Mr V K Mehta said, would make the MOU Policy with Multi-National Vehicle Manufacturers redundant; would bring down the import duty on components to, perhaps, lower than the ASEAN levels of duty. ACMA was recommending that Government negotiate for more time before removing the local content rules. Support of the 'localising' policy would be necessary for catalysing the future development of the Industry and stress would be on "value addition". In the long run, the only WTO compatible incentive would be the subsidy on R & D. Finally, Mr Mehta stressed the importance of R & D, to avail of any incentives the Government may offer, as in imports.

WORKSHOP ON FMEA & MSA: 22-23 DECEMBER 1999

Debutante, ACMA (SR) Board-room, equalled with ACMA (WR) when it hosted its first Workshop, over two days on FMEA and MSA, requirements of QS 9000. Inaugurating a full-house, Mr C Narasimhan, Chairman ACMA (SR), stressed the need for continuous improvement and ingraining TQM culture in organizations.There were systems and practices, the adoption of which would lead to cut in costs through enhanced quality levels and improved productivity.

He requested participants to take the utmost advantage of the "know-how" of such stalwarts as Professors C Y Krishna Murti and V V lyer who had guided organizations with their 30 years of experience in the line-Failure Mode Effects Analysis (FMEA) and Measurement Systems Analysis (MSA). Procedures for developing and implementing new or revised designs FMEA was a diary for design, process and services while MSA helped in the decision to adjust manufacturing processes.

DESIGN OF EXPERIMENTS: 1-3 FEBRUARY 2000
In an effort to train and educate the work force in the auto component industry, ACMA (SR) continues to organise workshops and training programmes in the Region. Continuing the series, a 3 day Workshop on Design of Experiments (DOE) was organized from 1st to 3rd February 2000 in the Southern Region office of ACMA.

Design of Experiments is a valuable tool to optimize product and process design to accelerate the development cycle and to reduce development costs. Today, DOE is viewed as a Quality Technology to achieve product excellence at the lowest possible overall cost. It is also a tool used for continuous improvement and variability reduction, which are the forcal points of QS 9000. The programme was once again conducted by Prof C Y Krishna Murti and Prof V V lyer. The Workshop received excellent response and once again saw full house.

Mr C Narasimhan, Chairman, ACMA (SR), while inaugurating the Workshop, emphasized the need for constant training and development to keep up the stringent requirements of the customer and stay in the competitive business environment. Advising the delegates the Chairman suggested that they take active part in the 3-day programme and make their praticipatioin useful to their respective organisations.