QCI inks MoU with ASQ to boost Modi's 'Make in India' initiative

The Quality Council of India (QCI) today announced that it has joined hands with American Society for Quality (ASQ), a global leader in quality improvement and standards, to roll out quality-driven programmes in the country, as part of its strategic plan to implement and boost Prime Minister Narendra Modi's 'Make in India' initiative.

This is one of the significant initiatives of the renewed relationship between India and Unites States of America.

The alliance between QCI and ASQ will enable institutionalization of new quality paradigms in the field of training and delivery processes in manufacturing, healthcare, education, service industry and also in public service delivery processes.  

The Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) was signed yesterday by QCI Chiarman Adil Zainulbhai, the first corporate appointee of the Prime Minister, and ASQ India Chief Amit Chatterjee, an ASQ Fellow who represents ASQ USA and his Chief Executive Officer Lt. General (Retired) William Troy and ASQ Global Managing Director Andrew Baines, to help implement the US pledge for quality-driven Make in India success story.

"The prime objective of this alliance is to focus on quality of goods and services. We will be targeting manufacturing and services sector  and want to improve quality in one million small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in the next few years. In addition, QCI along with ASQ offerings would like to fundamentally improve the quality of the government services delivered to the citizen," said Zainulbhai.

QCI has plans to reach out to 10 lakh SMEs with its quality improvement programmes from the present 10,000 SMEs in the next three-five years.

"The scope of the joint programme has now been considerably expanded to cover domains of manufacturing, education, healthcare, governance and service. The MoU is culmination of the recent meetings of the Prime Minister of India Shri Narendra Modi and the President of US Mr. Barack Obama," said Mr. Amit Chatterjee, ASQ India Chief.

"The MoU paves the way for a new platform for two professional organizations of the two democracies - QCI for India, and ASQ India on behalf of the US body of engineers and management honchos -- to address the issues that hold development and national 'Make in India' Initiative. Our aim is that quality should be demand-driven rather than supply-driven," said Dr Ravi Prakash Singh, Secretary General, QCI, who along with Mr Vipin Sahni, CEO, NABET, has been instrumental in forging partnership with ASQ, the world's leading organizations in the field of quality standards.

In pursuant of the Prime Minister clarion call during the Independence Day address for making India the manufacturing hub of the world, the USA has extended unconditional support. In the joint communique last September during Prime Minister Narendra Modi's visit of the USA, the two leaders had pledged to work together for investments in India for economic growth, energy and climate change programmes, defence and internal security co-operation, high technology, space and health sector cooperation, and global issues with regional consultations.

The joint communique, signed during Prime Minister Narendra Modi's visit of the USA, has observed the fact that the bilateral relationship of the two democracies enjoys strong support in both countries. This also "allowed the strategic partnership to flourish even as the governments change". With a view to improving their citizens' lives, the two leaders had agreed to take up a wide range of collaborative activities in new areas for mutual benefits.

Reciprocating Prime Minister Narendra Modi's visit, US President Barack Obama, during his India visit, pledged of $4 billion in investments and loans to Indian enterprises. He called the action as the "untapped potential" of strategic business partnership between the two countries.

The MoU between QCI and ASQ India would act as an integrated catalyst to initiate the joint activities in the domains of processes in manufacturing, education (for skills development), healthcare, to begin with, in Indian enterprises.

The ceremony was marked by the QCI seminar on how to blend quality into processes and manufacturing, education and healthcare projects. These would automatically take care of the other two sectoral glitches -- governance and service delivery system -- in the country.