The HR intervention at Rourkela Steel Plant aimed to involve employees in building a culture of continuous quality improvement. The plant launched a new initiative to implement a unique quality improvement process across the organization. Training programs were held for executives, managers, supervisors, and employees to learn the improvement process and work effectively in cross-functional teams to identify quality issues, calculate losses, and implement solutions. The goal was to drive organizational changes and sustain quality improvements across all productivity areas of the plant.

1. THE HR INTERVENTION AT
ROURKELA STEEL PLANT:
Involving People In Quality-Driven
Improvement Culture
PRESENTED BY:-
VIDHI RAI
EKTA SHARMA
ANKITA SHARMA

2. BACKGROUND
• Rourkela Steel Plant is an integrated steel plant
located in the state of Orissa.
• An employee strength of around 24,000 and a
production capacity of 1.67 million tonnes of
saleable steel per year.
• It was started in the year 1959,the plant is a unit
of Steel Authority of India Limited (SAIL),a public
sector holding company consisting of seven
manufacturing plants contributing to the nation a
total of 12 million tonnes of steel and having a
turnover of INR 19 billion per annum.

3. Continued..
• Rourkela Steel Plant is a major producer of a
diversified range of sophisticated steel
products such as plates, coils, sheets, pipes
etc.
• During the 1990’s, Rourkela Steel Plant
incurred heavy losses every year due to
various factors such as market slump, stiff
competition, high input cost.

4. Continued..
• Since 2001, the dynamic CEO of the plant
launched a series of initiatives for involving
people in a turn around drive.
• The major initiative was focused on regular
communication exercises on the priorities of
the plants performance, involving a direct
interaction of the CEO with batch by batch,
covering the entire workforce.

5. New Intervention..
• One major initiative taken at Rourkela Steel Plant
against this backdrop was the launching of a
plant-wide intervention for a Unique Quality
Improvement Process through active
participation of employees in building a culture of
continuous improvement.
• Keeping in view the importance of quality the
plant had already adopted the Quality Assurance
System under ISO 9001 Certification.

6. Continued..
• In the wake of the turnaround initiatives, the
plant identified the need for this new initiative
of Quality Improvement Process for bringing
about core changes in the work culture and
sustaining quality improvements in all the
productivity related areas.

7. Implementation (Training,Team Efforts,
Improvements And Monitoring)
• The Objectives for the Intervention were
formulated keeping the organizational needs in
view and communicated across the organization .
• Training was the first step initiated to ensure an
effective implementation process .
• A special programme was organized for the CEO
and the senior executives heading the different
functions.

8. Continued..
• A series of training programmes on the Quality
Improvement Process was also organized for the
key managers, supervisors and employee working
in the areas identified for improvement.
• It was emphasized that people should
demonstrate commitment to the achievement of
quality efficiency, learn to work as effective teams
and exhibit a zeal for improvement and
innovation .

9. Continued..
• The inputs were focused on identifying the
areas of quality deviations, calculating the
losses due to deviations, constituting the
project teams and methodology of
implementation.
• Managers from the different departments
were selected and trained as trainers who in
turn conducted training on QIP for employees.