As always, the high point of Group Annual Day was the giving away of awards to the Employees of the Year—17 of them in all. Sarada Jagan read out the citations as each of them received the award from Chairman N Sankar. Here are excerpts from the citations.
A Production Engineer from Anna University, S Purushothaman, 30, joined us as Graduate Engineer Trainee in 1996. After his training, he was posted as Engineer – Production in Flowserve Sanmar and later moved to the planning function.
With his vast knowledge and experience, he was selected to the ERP core team in 2002 as a Materials Module functional specialist, where he has made a significant contribution.
Purushothaman has also supported the chemicals business on his own and along with Boopathy, provided support for QM and PP modules of SEC, a workload typically for three specialists. His other contributions include rationalisation of processes, implementation of SAP in Intec, extending controls on IT department procurement, implementation of statutory changes other than meeting user requests for changes and training. With his sharp, analytical mind, he is able to take the broader view and work towards team goals.
M Chandrasekar, 34, a Chartered Accountant, has been working in the Accounts Department of Chemplast Sanmar Limited since 1995. During this period “Chandru”, acquired varied exposure in several facets of the accounting function, including a stint as Business Accountant in Chlorochemicals Division. Chandru was declared “Employee of the Year” in 2003.
This year, Chandru played an active role in loss of profit insurance claim settlement for both, a fire claim at PVC plant, Mettur and a tsunami claim at Vedaranyam, amounting to Rs.346 lakh. This assignment involved extensive deliberations with the surveyors and the insurance company.
His extra effort enabled the closure of the annual accounts well before time for the second consecutive year. He always comes up with suggestions for new reports in SAP, helping faster and smooth completion of tasks and providing valuable information to the business managers.
Chandru has fared well in MBA studies. He is analytical, logical and extremely professional in his approach to work.
Jeyamuruga Prakash is a dynamic young man who worked wonders in scaling up TMBT in the shortest period of time. His performance is amply supported by his maturity and his firefighting skills displayed several times at work.
An accepted leader, he has proved to be an able mentor to his team members. His forethought and innovative methods to maximize production with available equipment have contributed a great deal to the success of the workplace. His many skills and versatility are demonstrated by his understanding of the nuances of CGMP.
Jeyamuruga Prakash’s contribution includes cost reduction. Various process improvements were implemented resulting in a 23.54% saving on RM cost at standard RM price for all the products put together. Cost reduction has been achieved for all the products, and Rs.50 lakh saved on total RM cost.
He is the Management Representative for the EMS system and getting ISO 14001 accreditation.
Facing the FDA Audit without any nonconformance, Prakash handled all customer audits independently.
Scale-up is an art. Arunabha Raychaudhuri, a Chemical Engineer from UDCT, Mumbai, has shown this. An accepted leader, he has proved to be an able mentor of his team members.
In 2004-05, all scale-up projects were completed on time and within cost targets.
Notable projects were the CAOF and 6M2T projects for the biggest pharmaceutical company in the world – Pfizer. These customers had worked with contract research organisations in the USA and Europe but were unable to source kilo quantities of material. Under the leadership of Raychaudhuri, both projects developed at lab scale at ProCitius were improved to perfection and multi kilo quantities supplied to customer satisfaction.
Sanjay Sharma a graduate of Government Engineering College, Bhopal in 1991 in electronics engineering, joined Sensortronics Sanmar in March 2004, bringing with him 12 years’ experience in selling electronics and weighing equipment. Sanjay has been mainly responsible for increasing domestic sales by over 60% over the previous year.
This has resulted in profitable domestic sales on a stand alone basis for the first time in SSL.
His key contributions include setting up a new distribution system by appointing many new dealers contributing over Rs. 120 lakh; conceptualisation and introduction of new products; and reactivation of old customers.
Sanjay achieved many of the initiatives without the support of any sales engineers for most part of the year.
A self starter and a quick learner, Piyush joined us in March 2004.
Although a fresh Chartered Accountant, Piyush has shown a very good understanding of the bigger picture and the interplay of different functions.
His key contributions include the generation of all reports through SAP while he was at Asco; benchmarking the financial and operational performance of SEC against market leaders and competitors; introducing many process improvements like YSP review, sales return tracking, WIP tracking, SAP master review, many SAP related analyses and developments.
He was a member of the team representing Sanmar which won the MMA Young Managers Award.
Muralidharan was instrumental in the integration of Intec accounts with Sanmar policies with a new team of accountants.
This involved re-working of depreciation data for the last 15 years, ensuring that the Sanmar MIS and budget systems were put in place, playing a significant role in the implementation of SAP, Master Governance and Sanmar LOA and also in shifting to the BPO.
He was responsible for the circulation of MIS reports on the third working day for all the months of the year – for the first time in SSCL.
Muralidharan has always responded to requests for information on the various constituents from business managers, MDs, internal and external auditors, and others on time.
A post graduate from AC College of Technology, Dr R Palaniappan, after a brief stint at Bayer India, joined Chemplast in January 2003. He now heads the Quality Control and Safety Departments of Plant II.
Dr Palaniappan was entrusted with the responsibility of obtaining the prestigious ISO:14001 Certification for Plant II and was made the Management Representative. He took an active interest in this exercise, and did careful planning to roll out an efficient process that could be executed by anybody in obtaining this certification. Plant II was awarded this certificate by TUV in November 2004, without any nonconformance.
Dr Palaniappan was entrusted with overseeing the operations of the Effluent Treatment Plant and Safety. He has been coordinating with the Tamil Nadu Pollution Control Board (TNPCB). Satisfied with his involvement and impressed with the progress achieved, TNPCB did away with the regular monthly review meetings to assess the progress made by Plant II on various directives.
A gold medallist in Chemical Engineering from Karnataka University, G Sankarasubramanian joined Chemplast at Plant I as Engineer-Process in 1997 after serving CIPLA for a year. He was transferred to Plant III in 1998.
Initially looking after the Trichloroethylene Plant operation, Sankarasubramanian was entrusted with the total responsibility of the Solvents Division in January 2005.
As Management Representative, he played a very significant role in obtaining ISO:14001 Certification for Plant III, from TUV in May 2005.
In the manufacture of Silicon Tetrachloride/ Ethyl Silicate, Sankarasubramanian was instrumental in achieving zero discharge by making available by-products such as HCl and Sodium Hypochlorite in saleable quality, through suitable process modifications, thereby preventing environmental problems.
Sponsored by Chemplast, Sankarasubramanian completed his M.B.A. programme with merit through the Open University Business School, London, in April 2005.
K Ramasubramanian, a graduate in Law, on promotion as Manager-Public Relations, was transferred from Sanmar Engineering Corporation, Viralimalai, to Mettur, in December 2004.
Ramasubramanian has been working in our group for more than two decades. Ever since he took up the responsibility in Mettur, he has been improving public relations and confidence building measures among the neighbouring villagers.
Some of the achievements to his credit include resolving amicably a longstanding dispute with a group of villagers adjacent to Plant III through constant interaction with the local leaders, construction of a segment of a fallen compound wall, which could not be taken up for several years for various reasons and clearing the hindrance obstructing the pathway leading to the barge in Plant II.
Apart from developing congenial relations with the local press and television channels, he has also developed an excellent rapport with the Police Department, District Administration authorities, the Explosives Department and other government agencies concerned.
G Raguram joined Chemplast at its Plant III as Graduate Engineer Trainee in 2001 and was promoted as Senior Engineer-Production in 2003.
During the year, he played a key role in the erection and commissioning of the demercurisation units for caustic and hydrogen to achieve the stipulated norm of mercury content in finished products. These units were commissioned in December 2004, thereby complying with the CREP Guidelines on Environmental Protection.
In the caustic fusion plant, by optimising the process parameters, processing a higher volume of caustic lye including 875 MT of weak lye from Karaikal and minimising the downtime of the plant, he was able to achieve reduction in gross oil consumption to 173 kg from the earlier 190 kg per tonne of anhydrous caustic, which resulted in a net saving of Rs.33 lakh.
A Mechanical Engineer from Regional Institute of Science and Technology, Itanagar, Saibal Mukherjee joined Flowserve Sanmar in December 2003.
A go getter, Saibal brought a lot of energy to our Kolkata branch.
In 2004-05, he was asked to handle a defined territory with the objective of managing tough competition. He took the challenge and increased the business from Indian Oil’s Barauni refinery by more than 100% and also achieved significant increase in business from other major customers.
When Flowserve Sanmar embarked on promoting special products, Saibal was successful in achieving considerable sale of the focus products including gas seals, gas seal accessories and bearing guards.
He also achieved for the first time, the conversion of a competition product on a critical application for Flowserve at Haldia Petro Chemicals, Haldia, opening up huge business potential for the future.
With in-depth knowledge of the oil and gas sector, Saibal achieved good sales targets in this sector. He sold the first end user dry gas seal to an Indian refinery.
Anoop is a Mechanical Engineering graduate of the 1997 batch from the University of Calicut and has been working with the Fisher Sanmar team since August 2001 in the Application Engineering team.
An excellent applications engineer, he has mastered the art of providing the best techno commercial proposal to our customers.
Responsible for the OEM segment, has been able to provide excellent technical support to the most demanding of OEM customers, with his persistent efforts and knowledge.
He has been providing the highest level of technical support and prompt responsiveness.
His proactive approach, has helped significantly in increasing business from OEMs, a low business segment for Fisher Sanmar.
The growth in the OEM segment has been 34% in 2003-04 (for which he was chosen employee of the year) and 89% in 2004-05.
An MS in Manufacturing Engineering from BITS Pilani who joined Fisher Valves in December 2000, Venkat has performed exceptionally well ever since he came into the Sanmar fold. Chosen as Employee of the Year 2002-03, he joined the Regulator Division in March 2003 in the Process Engineering section.
In 2004-05, Venkat was instrumental in successfully implementing the outsourcing strategy for around 140 bar parts and 80 cast/ forge parts and in rolling out Kanban Process with key vendors. This resulted in smoothening the supply chain and established timely supplies. He was also responsible for defining and implementing “Process Control” plans for all parts being exported.
All these achievements contributed to OTD in excess of 95% consistently throughout the year.
Venkat has demonstrated a unique ability to merge technical excellence with practical shop floor demands and thereby exceed customer expectations.
He is getting this award for the second time in five years.
A Mechanical Engineer from MS Ramiah Institute of Technology Bangalore, Shankar joined SEC in 1990. When Fisher was formed in 1995, he moved there as Head of Planning. He was then made part of the ERP core team for the “Planning Module”.
After the successful roll-out of SAP in Fisher, Shankar returned to head the Planning Department and gave focus and direction to the Fisher Valves Division OTC team.
Shankar was named Employee of the Year in 2002-03 for his outstanding contribution to the growth of Fisher Valves. He joined the Regulator Division in March 2003 as Head – Operations.
His leadership of the team in 2004-05 enabled us to regain the confidence of Fisher in our ability to be a major vendor, resulting in our becoming the third largest vendor to Fisher. The effectiveness of the OTC team improved significantly with a consistent ROTD performance of more than 95% for the entire year.
Shankar has demonstrated ability to manage cross-functional teams and retain focus on key issues valued by customers.
An enthusiastic Metallurgical Engineer from Visvesvaraya National Institute of Technology (REC), Nagpur, Sujeet joined Asco’s Mumbai branch as Manager - Branch Sales in October 2003. He faced the challenge of managing the business with two new and young engineers. Not only did he manage the business successfully, he asserted his leadership skills in building an excellent team and achieved an unprecedented growth of 53% in 2004-05 in order booking over the previous year.
Sujeet has always exhibited a high level of initiative and enthusiasm. He was primarily responsible for carrying out service blitzes with major MRO customers like Reliance Petro, ONGC off-shore, HPCL, IPCL, etc., resulting in establishing the successful MRO business model. This type of service blitz
has now been rolled out in other SEC units. Surveying of valves for nuclear power plant applications with complete details on competition, finalizing annual rate contracts with major OEMs at higher price levels, new product introduction, new market development, dealer net work, were other areas in which Sujeet was actively involved.
In recognition of his contributions Sujeet has been recently elevated, with the responsibility of piloting all India initiatives in terms of new products and new market development.
Working at the Karaikal Plant, Jeeva’s contribution during the commissioning of Caustic Expansion I at the plant was commendable as also his contribution in the erection and commissioning of the Primary Brine Plant in Caustic Expansion I.
He had done his best to optimise consumption of sodium bi-sulphite resulting in cost savings in brine treatment.
He maintained production reports and chemical consumption details in SAP without any deviation and is good at troubleshooting and solving plant related problems.
He once took timely corrective steps, when a leak was noticed from the electrolyser and avoided major damage to costly equipment.