N Ravichandran, CEO at Lucas-TVS, has been honoured with the rank of ‘Academician’ by the International Academy for Quality (IAQ), US.
Network for Quality. The recognition comes for Ravichandran’s contribution to science, technology, economics and the management of professional quality. IAQ is an independent body established in 1966.
The same year, Ravichandran joined TVS group on the shop floor, after turning down a job offer from public sector BHEL. His inspiration for quality, he says, was R Ramachandran, the late chairman of TV Sundaram Iyengar & Sons. “(Ramachandran) used to say a customer should always come back to us, whenever he wants to buy a new vehicle, for the quality of our products,” says Ravichandran, who hails from the famous temple town of Srirangam in Tamil Nadu.
It was a trip to Japan in 1984-85 that helped Ravichandran understand the importance of perfection and processes. In India, quality use to be an accident, then it came by way of inspection, assurance, prevention and perfection. But the need of the hour is quality by way of creation, says Ravichandran.
“We need an inner spirit, which will lead to invention. Indians have been great inventors in the past, but we have lost that trait,” he laments. Now that the world has started seeing India as a place of action again, it is time for us to focus on creativity through passion, the mind, facilities and structure, believes Ravichandran.
Commenting on Ravichandran's election, Lucas-TVS MD T K Balaji said one of his greatest abilities is to communicate an idea to workers on the shop floor, which enables him to bring out quality products. “The shop floor is a habit for him,” he says. Ravichandran is also closely associated with institutions like IITs and IIMs and authored two books, including Stochastic Methods in Reliability Theory.