Pune-headquartered Kirloskar Ebara Pumps Limited (KEPL), a joint venture of Kirloskar Brothers Limited in India, continues to prove its excellence in kaizen practices by bagging numerous awards and rewards at the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII). In yet another milestone, KEPL won the “Runner up” trophy at the Kaizen Competition organised by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) Western Region.
After being awarded and recognised with the “Best Kaizen Excellence Award” for Consistency-2016 at the 11th Kaizen competition, organised by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), KEPL was recommended to participate at the “Confederation of Indian Industry for Regional Finals, 2016”. This event took place in Pune, Maharashtra where 21 teams from different location across Maharashtra participated.
The Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), founded in 1895, functions to create and sustain an environment conducive to the development of India, partnering with industry, government, and civil society, through advisory and consultative processes.

Kaizen (Japanese term for "improvement" or "change for the better") is a system of continuous improvement in quality, technology, processes, company culture, productivity, safety and leadership.

In today’s scenario, “Kaizen activity” is one of the benchmarked tools that not only enhances the growth of any organisation, but also uplifts the morale of the employees. It institutionalises a process of continuous improvement and innovation in work-practices and method in Lean Manufacturing by encouraging employee’s creativity and innovation.

Team “MSD” [Machine Shop Department] from the KEPL state-of-the-art manufacturing facility at Kirloskarvadi presented their case study on “Reduction in line organisation loss by enhancing machine capacity of Keyway Broaching machine and improving Broach utilisation” under large scale industries category. The case study started with an introduction of KEPL, introduction of Gemba, followed by problem definition, selection of Kaizen theme, root cause analysis, Kaizen idea, implementation and horizontal deployment.

Commenting at the occasion, Mr. S. S. Katare, Plant Head KEPL, said “Since last 4 years KEPL is receiving the CII State Level awards consistently for KAIZEN practices. We started this journey in April 2013 by introducing innovative schemes for challenging workforce towards implementing this process. We now have trained operators who implement this process, maintain SOP which is frequently audited for sustenance.”