Yamaguchi hates dissent. If a manager interrupts him with a doubt, or tries to justify the company's style of working, Yamaguchi shouts him down. And he shows his dislike of poor quality graphically, as he did on a shopfloor when enquiring of the CEO of a company: ''Where's your toilet? I feel like puking.'' The CEO-as Yamaguchi had plotted-has vowed that he will show dramatic improvements on the guru's next visit. On another occasion, Yamaguchi burst out in rage when he discovered that a particular company had not implemented his suggestions. The CEO of the company had shouted at him: ''I pay you money; you can't shout at us.'' Yamaguchi not only raised his volume further, he also dropped the company. Says K.K. Sawhney, 55, President, Gabriel India: ''He can be totally ruthless when it comes to mowing down hurdles on the path to change.'' That goes for Tsuda, too. And the commonalities between the two masters are evident in their primary pedagogical characteristics: the propensity for calling a spade not a spade, but a shovel; the relentless focus on time-bound results; and the strategy of achieving results through micro-management.

SOME NOTES ON THEIR TEACHING

A system of instruction that relies on visual inspection, implicit obedience, and an almost ritualistic observation of basic shopfloor-housekeeping practices may seem primitive and unscientific. It isn't. For, it works. Indeed, Japan Inc. has for long acknowledged the benefits attached to the visual approach to shopfloor management. Besides, the implicit obedience has a benefit: quick and certain results. Agrees Uttam Chatterjee, 42, Head (Quality Assurance), Hindustan Lever Ltd (HLL), one of the organisations that Yamaguchi is working with: ''If you implement TPM the Yamaguchi way, there's little left in the plant for you to bother about.'' For Tsuda-San's disciples too, anything the master says is gospel. Says K.K. Gupta, 58, Managing Director, GKN Invel Transmissions: ''Our senior management has resolved to do whatever he tells us. We have agreed to follow him without arguing.''

The focus on basics helps organisations challenge fallacious assumptions that might have been systematised over a period of tine. Says Arvind Dham, 38, Managing Director, Amtek Auto: ''We've always had a lot of books, charts, and quality manuals, but, according to Tsuda-San, a company can practice world-class quality only when everyone in the organisation has his basics right. By doing the same job for years, we begin to believe that we know it like the back of our hand. But, actually, we may have forgotten the basics.'' Or got them wrong.

But if the approach of solving problems by walking around seems unscientific, the specific tools and techniques used certainly aren't. When Yamaguchi first visited HLL's ice-cream plant at Nashik, he found a bucket kept under a machine. When questioned about it, the worker on the machine told him it was placed there to collect ice-cream sticks that would fall off the machine from time to time. An inspection revealed that one of the clips in the machine was not gripping the sticks adequately. And a cause-effect analysis indicated that low pressure in the pneumatic cylinder powering the machine was responsible. The cylinder was repaired. And the problem, sorted out. Explains V.K. Mehta, 58, Vice-Chairman and Managing Director, Clutch Auto: ''It's the science and the systematic learning behind the theory that is fascinating.'' The approach: focus on discrete, achievable goals, recommending specific improvement initiatives, and pack in just the right amount of practicability to make it attractive to managers deluged in a surfeit of theory.

THEY'RE MAGICIANS TOO

Of course, the numerical results are flowing faster than the gurus' volubility. Among Tsuda-San's disciples-all of whom have taken up the challenge of attempting to win the Deming Prize over the next 5 years-Sundaram Brake Linings' customer complaints have come down from 1,451 per million to 1,227 per million. Sona Koyo Steering's machine downtime has reduced from 23.60 to 17.31 per cent in assembly-line. And Asahi India's rejections have reduced from 0.13 to 0.05 per cent due to Poka Yoke. Yamaguchi's pupils are proving no less apt. Losses due to stoppages and idling at HLL's Sumerpur (Uttar Pradesh) plant have fallen from 112 hours in the first quarter of 1998 to the targeted 50 by the first quarter of 1999. The A.V. Birla Group's TANFAC Industries' overall equipment effectiveness has increased from 77 per cent in 1995-96 to 118 per cent in 1998-99. And cases of equipment breakdown and failure at Sundram Fasteners have slumped from 410 and 360 in 1995-96, to 30 and 25, respectively in 1998-99.

But it isn't just the manufacturing and quality practices of corporate India that the dynamic duo are targeting; it's an entrenched mindset. Says Surinder Kapur, 53, CEO, Sona Koyo Steering: ''The gurus put you onto a process which will bring about change in mindset and improvements vis-à-vis world-class players.'' That Tsuda and Yamaguchi are serious about change becomes evident from the first, and, often, only condition they lay down before agreeing to work with a company: the involvement of its principal change-agent-the CEO.

Observes T.K. Balaji, 50, CEO, Lucas-TVS: ''Besides the specific methods and techniques, Tsuda brings to bear a high level of thinking process in implementing ideas. His approach, if fully practised, would benefit companies in not only institutionalising the change process, but also helping to constantly think and challenge the status quo.'' Yamaguchi even threatened to stop working with TANFAC Industries when Managing Director V.T. Moorthy could not be present at the plant at Cuddalore during a visit due to a pressing foreign engagement. It was only after Moorthy's personal apology that he relented and let himself be persuaded to return. Avers Yamaguchi: ''If the top management is not serious, I don't like to waste my time with the company.'' The logic underlying their choice of prime-disciple is fairly easy to understand: it is easier to get an individual to learn than an organisation. And if this individual is the CEO, the organisation is certain to learn quicker than it would if he were the assistant manager (quality).

Both Tsuda and Yamaguchi address-target describes it more aptly-the middle-managerial level as the launch-pad for transformation. To tell the truth, both of them actually consider the middle-manager the bane of quality movements. Listen, first, to Tsuda: ''The Indian worker is very good, and he's doing his job very well. The top management also has the right vision for the business. It's the middle level that is not performing. The production manager works like a jail superintendent. He is too involved with the supervisory role.'' Echoes Yamaguchi: ''Companies in India have top managements with a vision. The workers are quiet, and they do their work as they are told to. It's the manager who's not performing. He's sleeping. Wake him up.''

What the angry twosome are telling corporate India: the middle-manager is too busy maintaining status quo to turn his attention to improvement-leave alone breakthroughs. Tsuda believes that India's managers spend 90 per cent of their time ensuring that existing levels of performance are maintained; 10 per cent, on generating improvements; and none at all on achieving the breakthroughs that quality demands. His ideal: the mirror image of that distribution, which would, at one go, pitch the middle-manager into the role of changemeister. It's the same approach that's evident on the Faridabad shopfloor where Yamaguchi has just blown his fuse at a senior manager. ''If this company is unable to perform, it will be because of your attitude,'' he thunders, advising the CEO of this particular vendor to Maruti Udyog to sack that manager.

In their hands, TQC and TPM are serving as effective change-management tools. And any company that implements either successfully immediately focuses on the next Operational Efficiency (OE) initiative that it needs to launch. Thus, less than a year after it bagged the Deming Award, Sundaram Clayton is implementing the JIPM's TPM practices and chasing the Japan Prize. Says Sundaram Clayton's Srinivasan: ''I don't want complacency to set in.'' And, 4 years after winning the JIPM's TPM Excellence Award, Vikram Cements has made TPM the platform from which it launches all other OE initiatives.

BUT IS IT JUST ALTRUISM?

Maybe, just maybe, there's more to it. One possible explanation could be the future of India in Japan Inc.'s worldview. The essence of Japanese manufacturing is the keiretsu-a chain of supplier-manufacturer relationships that serves as an effective entry-barrier to the competition while guaranteeing high levels of quality. And the desire to establish an off-shore keiretsu may lie behind the Japanese-sponsored TQM and TPM revolution that India is witnessing.

In the New Millennium, the manufacturing function will become the domain of large technology-rich contract manufacturers in the developed countries, or large labour-rich global suppliers in the developing world. Japan is not ideally positioned to tap either opportunity. So, developing a global sourcing base (read: India) is critical to the future of Japanese industry. The efforts of the JUSE and the JIPM, then, could well be part of a greater strategy that seeks to build a base of high-quality suppliers that Japanese industry can tap. Whether that happens or not, Indian companies are emerging as gainers already. For that, they can only thank the two unpredictable guru-san. Domi Arigato.

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