B K Rajkumar, Executive Vice President-Business Excellence at Godrej & Boyce Mfg. Co. Ltd.

A kaizen Council was also established and it created a set of guidelines in the form of SOPs as well as monitoring parameters. "The objective has been to build a robust forum for blue collar engagement in kaizen with a focus on the operators," Rajkumar shares.

The ‘fest' has been increasingly popular as is evident from the growing participation of the operators.  "In 2010, we had about 35 percent participation from our operators. This has gone up to 90 percent in 2015." Initially, with the objective encouraging involvement, the focus was on quantity of kaizens. However, now the focus has shifted to the quality of kaizens.

"We also introduced the exhibition in 2012. The exhibition has become quite popular as it provides a platform for the operator to share their kaizens at a broader level. Since 2013, we started creating themes for the kaizen fest to make it more interesting.

For example, the theme was ‘Saptarang' (seven colours) in 2013 and it was ‘Sarvatra' (everywhere) in 2015. With Sarvatra, the idea was to communicate the message to the operators that kaizen can be implemented everywhere - at the factory, at the vendor's facilities and even at their homes," Rajkumar shares. In 2015, the theme has been ‘Symphony' with the focus on bringing harmony amongst different areas of work.
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