BANGALORE, INDIA: The small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in the earth moving and construction equipment sector in the country has got its first cluster, with the opening of JCB Cluster in Chandigarh.
The cluster comprising 12 SMEs is an initiative by the CII-AVANTHA Centre for Competitiveness for SMEs beginning from May 2010 to November 2011.
“Inspired by the outcome of the cluster whose formal closing ceremony and certificate distribution was held today, all the group companies are participating in the advance cluster,” said the CII (Confederation of Indian Industry) in a statement.
“I am happy at the progress of this cluster which resulted in monetary benefit to the suppliers as well as reduction in rejection to the suppliers’ product supplied to JCB,” said S. Bagavathy Appan, VP Procurement, JCB India Limited, a fully-owned subsidiary of JC Bamford Excavators Limited, UK.
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“I am filling my hear with joy at the success of the JCB Cluster. JCB is a very special company as they are one of the first to have started ISO activity and they can offer a lot of learning to suppliers and to industry at large,” said Sarita Nagpal, deputy director general, CII.
Speaking about his experience of participating in the JCB Cluster, A K Shukla, CEO - JBM Industries said, “We could save a lot during learning and implementation of innovative idea guided by CII Counselor. We are looking forward for participation in Advance Cluster.”
Another participant, Sumit Arora, MD - Saket Metal Technocraft Pvt. Ltd Said, “The journey that we covered with the CII was totally an eye opener for me and my team. We experienced a cultural shift in our organization, the seeds which we have sowed during this journey have started giving us fruits in terms of productivity increase, employee involvement in kaizen activities, better space utilization, good command over inventory control and reduction in breakdowns."
The Confederation of Indian Industry established CII — AVANTHA Centre in 2004 at Chandigarh to help SMEs achieve competitiveness.