India has the potential to excel as a globally competitive manufacturing hub in sectors like automotive and IT industries. It is not possible to achieve competitive excellence in all the sectors, therefore, areas of strength should be focused on, said Noriaki Kano, Japanese expert on total quality management (TQM), and international consultant. Kano was in town for a CII-IIM Calcutta programme on Visionary Leaders for Manufacturing (VLFM). If Indian companies wish to succeed in the exports market, TQM is crucial, Kano said. Given the huge domestic market, quality control measures in the domestic set-ups are also equally important, he added. The government can create a platform for developing consciousness in this context, he added.

The gap between technology and quality can be bridged if the companies adopt TQM measures, Kano commented. For a developing economy as India, growth in the manufacturing sector is crucial in taking the country forward in terms of generating employment, and increasing exports. However, the contribution of the manufacturing sector in India's economy has improved only marginally from 16 per cent in 1991 to 17 per cent in 2003. The targeted share is between 25 to 35 per cent of the national income. To achieve that, the industry needs to grow at 12 to 14 per cent rate for the next decade. The National Manufacturing Competitiveness Council (NMCC) laid stress on developing human capital for the manufacturing industry.

Three top-notch institutes of the country, IIM Calcutta, IIT Kanpur, and IIT Madras, came together under the aegis of the NMCC and the Human Resources Development Ministry, in collaboration with the Japanese International Cooperation Agency (JICA), to design a one-year course for improving managerial and technical skills of the manufacturing sector personnel. CII has also come up with a modular programme targeted at working executives in the manufacturing sector, in collaboration with various corporates. In all, 22 companies have nominated 48 candidates already for the course. Programmes designed for the small and medium enterprises, and for chief executive officers are on the anvil, said Sarita Nagpal, deputy director general of CII.