KANZEN Institute Asia-Pacific (KIAP)
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Kanzen Institute Asia-Pacific (KIAP), a global management consulting company that enables organizations towards perfection, is promoted and led by Dr. Shrinivas Gondhalekar (popularly known as Dr. G) and Mr. S. Dorai Rajan.
KIAP helps organizations improve their business performance focusing primarily on operations excellence. The firm specializes in implementing Lean Management through the philosophy of kaizen or continual improvement.
The core set of offerings include a mix of long term programs like Business Excellence Model for Culture Building in mature organizations on the one hand as well as quick fix solutions for accelerated Performance Improvement and problem solving through focused improvement workshops for immediate results.
KIAP is also involved in people development through both customized as well as standard Lean training programs. KIAP established the registered and administrative office in Chennai in the year 2005 and gradually increased its presence in most of the important cities of peninsular India – Mumbai, Pune, Bengaluru, Hyderabad and Coimbatore.
In a span of 11 years it has set up a firm and made its presence in the market by working with and giving significant benefits to over a hundred organizations of varied sizes and sectors.
KIAP primarily helps businesses to become competitive and grow rapidly by enabling them to make the most effective utilization of their existing resources.
This is achieved by devising consulting solutions that are customized to each organization based on its business goals, current state and its inherent culture. However, this solution broadly fall into these categories:
Business Excellence models are built on continual improvement to achieve excellence in all the dimensions of a business. KIAP has developed a unique kaizen based model to structure, guide and handhold mature organizations looking to usher in a culture of continual improvement.
Most often, these initiatives are theme based, for example a leading FMCG major has been working with KIAP for the last five years on the theme of "Consistent Quality to Customer".
Problem solving workshops are KIAP's unique offering for addressing specific pain points in organizations within a short span of time.
A problem is defined as any gap between desired/expected and actual outcomes and can related to any parameter whether Quality, Delivery, capacity or resource utilization.
While routine problems are solved using the regular forward thinking techniques like Why-Why or 7 QC tools, KIAP also specializes in solving chronic problems through their unique Differential Diagnosis technique.
This technique has been developed by KIAP's founder Dr. G), and also elaborated in his book titled "The Chronicles of a Quality Detective".
KIAP has developed an effective approach to significantly improve processes at a rapid pace while leading to sustainable growth in the business.
The focused workshop based model is ideally suited to MSMEs and has been proven over multiple implementations across industry and geography.
Within a short span of 3-4 months, the organization is able to realize significant tangible business benefits and KIAP then helps structure the systems and organization so as to sustain these results in the long term.
KIAP's training programs are the product of years of experience in actual process improvement and business excellence through implementation of lean across diverse industry sectors and organization types.
The only way to change anything for the better is by doing and hence the training programs inculcate the philosophy of "Learning by Doing".
The participants are expected to apply their classroom learning of concepts, tools and techniques during the program itself by diagnosing current problem areas in their workplace, taking up and completing at least one significant process improvement giving tangible results.
The certification programs have a rigorous evaluation component which ensures that the participant and organization both attach significant value to KIAP's certificates.
KIAP is unique in the consulting space as it has the depth of knowledge and experience akin to a Big 4 consulting firm in its chosen area of work while maintaining the speed and agility of implementation that is the hallmark of a small but focused player.
KIAP's biggest differentiator is its focused improvement workshop methodology where clients get to experience dramatic improvements to their process within a short span of 3-5 days.
Actions and results speak louder than any words and the outcome of a workshop is the supreme motivator for organizations to continue on their journey towards perfection.
KIAP also ensures that improvements made should benefit each and everyone in the organization and the projects identified and taken up reflect this thought process.
Business benefits flow to the investors and top management while at the same time reducing the stress of the middle managers and the strain of operating personnel.
The company believes in long term lasting relationships with its client organizations and their people and this can be seen from the almost decade long engagement with companies like Britannia, L & T, Mattel (International), Pyrotek and Rockwell Industries amongst others.
KIAP's policy of not working with competing organizations at the same time and for a significant period after completing an engagement means that these clients treat KIAP as part of their extended family.
In all, KIAP has done comprehensive consulting engagements with over a hundred businesses across diverse sectors. A few others well known clients include CRI Pumps, TVS Logistics, Essar Steel, Avanti Feeds and Intergold.
KIAP experts are also supporting overseas clients in different locations including Malaysia, Indonesia, Canada and the Middle East.
As part of its social responsibility, KIAP has got empanelled under the Lean Manufacturing scheme of Government of India's NMCP program and is implementing lean in MSME engineering clusters of CODISSIA in Coimbatore and auto parts cluster of Mahindra & Mahindra supplier in Mumbai region.
Successful completion of pilot lean clusters under NMCP program in 2012 – two units given National Award for best lean implementation
Completion of 5 successive years partnering a large food major in manufacturing excellence initiative in 2016
Launch of Lean Manager Certification Program in 2017
The potential for using Lean & kaizen in Indian industry is huge. The current thrust by the Government to boost local manufacturing through "Make in India" and allied programs like ZED and NMCP has significantly increased awareness about Lean and operational excellence.
However, there are very few quality consulting organizations and individuals who have the depth of knowledge and ability to support different types of industries in implementing Lean.
KIAP is a well established pioneer in this field and is looking to leverage the acquired experience of having implemented in multiple industry sectors in the coming years.
The company has already started grooming the next generation management to take it forward by elevating two long serving experts, Ganesh Mahadevan and Satish Pendharkar, as Directors in 2015.
In the years ahead, the long term relationship based culture building engagements will continue to remain the backbone and KIAP has already signed up a three year contract with a leading logistics provider to enhance competitiveness and improve customer service levels. In addition, some new avenues being explored and developed by KIAP include:
Formal certification training programs in Lean have just been launched and KIAP is already tying up with likeminded academic institutions to jointly deliver the courses
KIAP's vast training material and case studies may form the backbone for a unique e-learning course which can be accessed by millions of people
Continue to work with Government – become a partner of the ZED program and support MSMEs in their journey to world class
Partnering with developers to implement technology based solutions for error proofing and intelligent data analysis which will enable long term sustenance of lean
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