Implementing total

quality management at
Wipro
By Isha Mahajan on May 13, 2016
The worldwide competition, deregulation and rapid technology changes
are bringing focus on quality awareness. The management strives to
achieve total quality management by mobilising the whole organisation
to adhere to quality continuously economically. Various techniques have
been propounded by the thinkers so as to achieve quality. Total quality
Management was first suggested by Nancy Warren, a behavioural
scientist in US navy in 1985 (Gupta, 2009). Total Quality Management
can be defined as “an integrated organisational approach in delighting
customers (both internal and external) by meeting their expectations on
a continuous basis through everyone involved with the organisation
working on continuous improvement in all products, services and
processes along with proper problem—solving methodology” (Indian
Statistical Institute, n.d.).

About Wipro
Wipro Ltd. was established in 1945 as Western India Vegetable
Products Limited in Amalner, Maharashtra. As of now it is a global
information technology, consulting and outsourcing company with
170,000+ workforce serving clients in 175+ cities across 6 continents.
The company posted revenues of $7.6 billion for the financial year
2014-15. Wipro helps customers do business better by leveraging their
industry wide experience, deep technology expertise, comprehensive
portfolio of services and vertically aligned business model (Wipro,
2016).

Need for Total Quality Management

Wipro being a leading provider of communication networks in the US
required improvement in the product performance of telecom
applications. With growing importance on aligning business operations
with customer needs and driving continuous improvement, Wipro began
moving towards focussing on quality, thereby implementing techniques
of total quality management. Some of the key challenges were:
reduction in data transfer time, reduction in risk, avoidance of
interruption due to LAN/WAN downtime and parallel availability of the
switch for the other administrative tasks during the same period
(Sharma, 2012).

Technique chosen and its

implementation
Wipro chose to implement Six Sigma technique of total quality
management (Sharma, 2012). Six Sigma is a statistical term that
measures how far a given process deviates from perfection. Six Sigma
was chosen because it helps in measuring the defects systematically and
figures out how to eliminate them and get close to zero defects as
possible (Sharma, 2012). Wipro used it as a measure of quality that
strives to near perfection. It was centred on the accomplishment of the
objectives such as: having products and services meet global
benchmarks, ensuring robust processes within the organization,
continuously meet and exceed customer expectations and make quality a
culture within.

Wipro adopted the project approach for Six Sigma, where projects were
identified on the basis of the problem areas under each of the critical
Business Processes Wipro evolved the following Six Sigma
methodologies for the business processes:

1. For developing new processes: DSSS (Direct-sequence-spread-

spectrum) methodology was used for software development. This
methodology used rigorous in process metrics and cause analysis
throughout the software development lifecycle for defect free
deliveries and lower customer cost of application development.

2. For developing existing processes: DMAIC (Define- measures-

analyse- improve- control) and TQSS (Transactional quality using
 Six Sigma) were used for non transactional and transactional
processes respectively.

3. For reengineering: Cross functional process mapping was used

for reengineering business processes.

Continuous
improvement through Six Sigma initiative (Sharma, 2012)
The process followed for the implementation of the above
methodologies is explained below:

1. Built the culture: Implementation of Six Sigma required support

from high level managers. For this the company restructured the
organisation and provided infrastructure, training and confidence
in the process.

2. Selection of the project: For the selection of the right project the

field data was collected, process map was developed and
importance of the project was judged from the eyes of the
customers.

3. Resources: Resources were identified on the basis of short term

and long term requirements. The project selected was a crucial
factor in determining the resources required.

4. Controlling: Wipro developed a team of experts for reviewing the

projects. It was done to see the timeliness of the project
completion, targeting of gaps, weak areas and deviations.
Company’s performance after
implementation of the model
The financial gain that Wipro has achieved by using Six Sigma has been
commendable. As the Six Sigma initiative started maturing Wipro
identified two major phenomenons:

 The biggest projects had all completed on time without hurdles.

 The yellow-belt culture where smaller process improvement

projects were handled using plan-do-check-act methodology had
cured little problems before they became big ones.

 The Six Sigma process resulted in the achievement of close to

250%, 6 minutes for 1 MB transfer and 18 minutes for average
transfer. Furthermore, it led to lower maintenance cost, schedule
overrun costs and development costs for customers. Performance
was improved through a precise understanding of the customer’s
requirements. Software defects were reduced by 50% and rework
in software went down from 12% to 5%. Waste elimination
increased productivity up to 35%. Installation failures wend down
from 4.5% to 1% in hardware business. Ownership cost was
lowered by 30-40% and productivity went up by 20-30%. 93%
projects were completed on time and field defects were lowered by
67% of the average industry rate. The performance enhancement
enabled the clients to have an improved product with the
overriding benefit that the end customer perception of the quality
of the client’s product is improved (Sharma, 2012).