EXCELLENCE IN POWER DISTRIBUTION

– A JOURNEY THRU TQM

S.D. TYAGI
R.K.SIKRI

1.0 INTRODUCTION
Power is a critical infrastructure for life supporting activities and economic
development. The achievement of increasing installed power capacity to
more than 1 lakh MW and electrification of more than Five lakh villages
since 1947 is only impressive in absolute terms. Frequent power cuts,
erratic voltage and low or high supply frequency have added to “power
woes’ of the end user of electricity. These problems emanated from
 Inadequate power generation capacity
 Inadequate inter regional transmission links
 Inadequate and aging sub-transmission and distribution network
leading to power cut and local failures.
 Large scale theft and skewed tariff structure
 Slow pace of rural electrification
 Inefficient use of Electricity by end consumer
Number of steps have been taken to reform “Power Sector” and also
encouraging results are coming, but still the core of problem is poor state
of Sub - Transmission and Distribution System.
Structural and statutory reforms are under way to revive this vital sections
of power sector. The thrust area are as follows :
 Independent regulatory mechanism (CERC / SERC)
 Unbundling and Corporatisation of generation, transmission and
distribution segments of the electricity industry.
 APDRP (R&M/Distribution/Commercial)
 Multiple licensing to encourage competition.
 Open access in transmission and distribution network, subject to
regulatory control.
In India, there are 434 Distribution Circle (maximum 50 in Uttar Pradesh)
and out of total energy generated, only 55% is billed and 41% is realised.
In order to reduce this “gap” a Journey towards Excellence in Power
Distribution by implementing TQM Initiatives plays vital role in
Distribution Reforms.

S.D.Tyagi , Executive Director (TQM), NTPC.

R.K.Sikri ,AGM (TQM), NTPC.
2.0 SCHEMATIC PRSENTATION OF G-T-D CHAIN

GENERATORS

SEB / Central/IPP
HT Transmission System

765/400/220 KV Sub Station

132/66 KV Sub Station

Distribution System

33/11 KV Distribution Sub Station

415/220 V LT

Revenue Collection & Dispute Settlement

2.1 ENERGY FLOW – DISTRIBUTION SYSTEM

EHV Metered
Consumers

Distribution –
Captive System Un-Metered
(Circle / Division) Consumers

Import from
neighbouring Loss Export to
Circle / Division neighbouring
Circle / Division
2.2 DISTRIBUTION STRATEGIC VIEW

SEB

DISTRIBUTION  ASSET
CIRCLE MANAGEMENT
LEVEL  QUALITY &
PRODUCTIVITY
 PROFITABLITY

FEEDER LEVEL  SYSTEM

MANAGEMENT
 POWER QUALITY
 PROFITABILITY
 PRODUCTIVITY
 ENERGY
ACCOUNTING
 DEMAND SIDE
MANAGEMENT

CONSUMER
LEVEL  ENERGY
ACCOUNTING
AND
SETTLEMENT
 CONSUMER
SATISFACTION
 COMPLIANCE OF
BILING AND
PAYMENT
3.0 CONSUMER ATTITUDE STUDY

3.1 Confederation of Indian Industries (CII) in association with ORG-

MARG Research Pvt. Ltd. had conducted a detailed national level
survey with an objective of determining consumer’s attitude on
Availability, Accessibility and Affordability of electricity and therby
evaluating level of expectation and satisfaction.

3.2 Quality of Power Supply Index(QUoPSI) have been derived by CII in

association with ORG-MARG Research P. Ltd. with the objective of
determining consumer attitude on Availability, Accessibility and
Affordability

Overall QUoPSI .. AT NATIONAL LEVEL

0.6
0.48 0.51 0.48
0.5 0.440.44
0.36 0.38
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QU0PSI = E (Consumer index x Perceived weightage of parameter)

3.3 No logical conclusion can be derived from the above index, however,
numerological point of view, low index signified tremendous room
for improvement in the prevailing power supply situation.
 3.4 Consumer dissatisfaction has been observed on the following
issues :

 Tariff

 Interrupted supply

 Voltage fluctuations

 Delay in servicing minor faults

No logical conclusion can be derived from the above index, however,
 Problem
numerological point of during connection
view, low mainly tremendous
index signified due to procedural delays and
room for
improvement in the prevailing power supply situation
non transparent practices of the concerned utilities

 Dependence on alternative source

 Billing error

 Inadequate payment collection point.

4.0 PERFORMANCE INDICES (Distribution Industry)

SAIFI : System Average Interruption Frequency Index

Measures the average frequency of Sustained (>5mts) interruptions per

customer

SAIDI : System Average Interruption Duration Index

The average time that all customers are interrupted

CAIDI : Customer Average interruptions Duration Index

Represents the average time required to restore service, to the average
customer per sustained outage.
MAIFI : Momentary Average Interruption Frequency Index
Tracks the average frequency of momentary interruptions, Typically
defined as less than 5 minutes.
5.0 DISTRIBUTION – NEW TECHNOLOGIES
 HVDS
 Replacing long LT (?) lines with HT lines and small DTs Single
Phase / Three Phase.
 Single wire Earth return also adopted by some utilities.
 Improves power quality, reduces unauthorized tapping

 HVDC Light

 Ariel Bunched Cable (ABC)

 Amorphous Core Distribution Transformers.
Low Core losess.

 IT enabled Systems
 Asset Coding and Customer indexing with connectivity
 Energy Management
 Asset Management
 Operational Management
 Financial Management
 HR Management
 DMS with SCADA Applications
 Network Management
 Improved Operational Efficiency
 Better Load Management
 Scheduling for (preventive / planned} Maintenance
 Better Customer Satisfaction.

 Asset Coding and Customer Indexing with Connectivity information.

 Metering Technology
 Ferrari meters
 Static meters
 Memory and Electronic display
 Mechanical registers
 Communication capability

 Multi parameter capability

 Anti-Tamper Measures
 Telecom & Electricity Convergence
6.0 TOTAL QUALITY MANAGEMENT (TQM)

6.1 TQM provides the overall concept that foster continuous

improvement in an organisation. It focuse primarily on total
satisfaction for both the internal and external customers within a
management environment that seeks continuous improvement of all
system and processes.

TQM emphasises use of all people usually in multifunctional teams to

bring about improvement from within the organisation. The key
aspects of TQM are the prevention of defects and emphasis on quality
in design.

TQM is a necessity. It is a journey. It never end & it is the way to

survive and succeed.

6.2 T-Q-M

TOTAL : EVERYONE ASSOCIATED WITH

THE COMPANY IS INVOLVED IN
CONTINUOUS IMPROVEMENT
(INCLUDING ITS CUSTOMERS ,
SUPPLIERS, STAKEHOLDERS)

QUALITY : CUSTOMER’s EXPRESSED AND

IMPLIED REQUIREMENTS /
NEEDS ARE FULFILLED
CONTINUOUSLY

MANAGEMENT : THE JURAN TRILOGY

 QUALITY PLANNING
 QUALITY CONTROL
 QUALITY IMPROVEMENT
 6.3

QUALITY PLANNING QUALITY CONTROL

 Evaluate actual product  Establish the infrastructure

QUALITY MANAGEMENT SYSTEM
6.4 THE ZURAN TRILOGY
performance DIAGRAM Identify the improvement
 Compare actual projects
QUALITY CONTROL
performance  OPERATIONS)
(DURING
to product Establish project teams
QUALITY
PLANNING goals  Provide the teams with
resources, training, and
 Act on the difference
Sporadic motivation to :
Spike - Diagnose the causes
- Stimulate remedies
COST OF POOR QUALITY

- Establish controls to hold

the gains

Original Zone of
Quality Control
20
Operations

New Zone of Quality

Begin

Control
QUALITY
IMPROVEMENT
0
TIME
 7.0 TQM MODELLESSONS LEARNED
7.1 CONCEPT

Business Excellence / Performance

Policy & Strategy STRATEGIC -QM
HRM (Motivation , Recognition &
Rewards)
Performance Management

Process Improvements
(Products & Services)
Best Practices Benchmarking
OPERATIONAL -QM
Six Sigma
MIDDLE MANAGEMENT
BSC, CHANGE Management
ISO
Five S (+) One S
Professional Circle

Kaizen (continuous improve-

ment) through Innovative
WORKFORCE LEVEL
Quality Circle, Five S (+) One S,
Suggestion Scheme

7.2 BIG Q AND LITTLE Q

TOPIC LITTLE Q BIG Q
PRODUCTS Manufactured goods All products, goods and
services, whether for sale or
not
PROCESSES Processes directly All processes; manufacturing
related to manufacture support, business etc.
of goods
CUSTOMER Clients who buy the All who are affected, external
products and internal
INDUSTRIES Manufacturing All industries, manufacturing
service, government, etc.,
whether for profit or not
COST OF POOR Costs associated with All costs that would
QUALITY deficient manufactured disappear if everything were
goods perfect.
SOURCE : JURAN ON LEADERSHIP FOR QUALITY
8.0 TQM INITIATIVES

EMPLOYEE KAIZEN (Continuous Improvement)

INVOLVEMENT Quality Circles
Five S + One S
PROGRAMME
Suggestion Scheme
(EIP’s)

PROCESS Business Process

IMPROVEMENT Management  BPR
PROGRAMME  BP
(PIP’s)  BM

Quality Standard
Management  ISO-
9001-2000
 OHSAS
TQM VISION

Six Sigma ISO-18001

Balance Score Card
EVA
Productivity Model
TPM
 JIT
Knowledge Management  Loss
Structure
 Root cause
analysis

LEARNING Professional Circle

AND TQM Website
SHARING External Learnings
Knowledge Management APQC
EPR1

 Europeon Quality Award

 Malcolm Bladrige National
Quality Award
 Deming Prize
 Assessment for Continuous
Improvement
9.0 APPLICATION OF TQM INITIATIVES
IN POWER DISTRIBUTION
9.1 LOSS STRUCTURE
The effectiveness of any initiatives can only be measured with
the help of “Loss Structure” w.r.t. performance parameter. The
most efficient operation of the equipment means utilisation of
the functions and capacity of the equipment to the fullest. The
through elimination of losses which obstruct the efficiency of
the equipment will contribute to the increase in efficiency .
Overall equipment efficiency(OEE) can be calculated as under:
(example)

80%
Availability
OEE
Performance Rate 90% 65%

Quality Rate 90%

Availability Quality Rate

Minor
Stoppage

Down Grades
Forced Spced loss
Shutdown
 Major losses can be classified as under:

Sl.No. Category Loss Description

1. Equipment 1. Failure Loss (Breakdowns)
Effectiveness 2. Start Up Loss
Loss 3. Product Change over (Set Up) loss
4. Tool Changeover loss
5. Minor interruption loss (measurement &
adjustment loss)
6. Speed loss
7. Defects & rework loss
8. Shut Down loss
2. Human 9. Prodn. Stoppage (Lunch, tea etc.)
Related 10. Line organization loss
Loss 11. Measuring & adjustment loss
12. Management loss
13. Operation motion related loss
3. Material Loss 14. Yield loss
15. Consumables (die, jigs, tools) loss
16. Energy Loss
17. Spares

From the above “Loss Structure” for a distribution circle we could find the
area of improvements.

9.2 QMS- WORK FORCE

9.2.1 QUALITY CIRCLE

 Awareness and training

The first phase of TQM initiatives focuses on building quality
habbits and culture of innovation across all levels of workforce.

Quality circles will provide a new forum to workforce to work

together in a group on a periodic basis (separate from work time)
to identify work related problems and provide remedial measures
at different time frame i.e. short term, medium term, long term.

Quality Circle success can only be atributed with effective support

structure involving dedicated HR efforts of a large number of
facilitators and co-ordinators.
  Methodology / Tools

The seven QC tools were developed by Prof. Kaoru

Ishikawa. These are effective tools / methods which will
offer any organisation means of collective, presenting and
analysing most of its data and problems. Seven tools for
QC are as follows:

1. Process Flow Chart

2. The check sheet
3. The histogram
4. The cause and effect analysis
5. Pareto analysis
6. The control chart
7. The Scatter diagram

9.2.2. Employee Suggestion Scheme

A scheme which seeks suggestions from employees and
provides for suitably rewarding good suggestions. The scheme
aims at involvement of employees in betterment of the
equipments, systems and safety in the Company.

9.2.3 Five S (+) One S

The 5-S practice is a technique used to establish and maintain
quality environment in an Organization. The name stands for
five Japanese words, e.g.
JAPANESE ENGLISH MEANING TYPICAL
EXAMPLE
SEIRI Structurise Organisation Throw away rubbish
SEITON Systemise Neatness 30-second retrieval
of a document
SEISO Sanitise Cleaning Individual cleaning
responsibility
SEIKETSU Standardise Standardisation Transparency of
storage
SHITSUKE Self-discipline Discipline Do 5-S daily
 5S is very useful not just for improving their physical
environment but also for improving their thinking processes
too. In addition One S for “Safety” is also be included in
QMS, as per contemporary practices at Workplace /
Workstation / Shopfloor.

9.3 QMS –OPERATIONAL

9.3.1 BUSINESS PROCESS MANAGEMENT (BPM)

BPM is a management process which covers Best practices
benchmarking (BPB) and Business process Re-engineering
(BPR) through the various tools eg. Six Sigma, Quality
Management system, TPM, BSC etc.

9.3.2 BUSINESS PROCESS RE-ENGINEERING (BPR)

BPR is used to define the mission statement analyse the critical
success factor, i.e design the organisational structure and re-
engineer the critical process in order to improve customer
satisfaction. BPR challenges the manager to rethink this
traditional method of doing work and commit themselves to a
customer – focussed process, through Breakthrough thinking.

9.3.3 BEST PRACTICES BENCHMARKING (BPB)

In a culture of continous improvement, BPB is a technique used
by all sector of business – to help them become as good or
better than the best in the world in the most important aspects
of their operations. BPB comes in many forms but essentially it
will always involve:

 Establishing what makes the difference in their customers’

eyes between an ordinary supplier and an excellent supplier.
 Setting standards in each of the things according to the best
practice they can find
 Finding out how the best companies meet these challenging
standards.
 Applying both other people’s experience and their own
ideas to meet the new standards – and, if possible, to exceed
them.
9.3.4 SIX SIGMA

Whenever there is a “output” there must be an “input”.

Between input and output there is a process or procedure. The
process has a variability w.r.t. men, machine, time, etc. The
term “Sigma” is used to designate the distribution or spread
about the means(average) of any process or procedure.

For a business the sigma capability is a metric that indicates

how well that process is performing. The higher the sigma
capability, the better.

Sigma capability measure the capability of the process to

perform defect free work. A defect is anything that results in
customer dissatisfaction.

9.3.5. SIX SIGMA APPROACH

SIX SIGMA IS A POPULAR MANAGEMENT APPROACH FOR IMPROVING

PROCESSES TO REACH ALMOST A ZERO DEFECT STAGE .

Six Sigma teams use

extremely rigorous
data collection and
statistical analysis to
find out sources of
errors and to find ways
to eliminate them. SIGMA DPMO YIELD

1 SIGMA 6,91,500 (30.85%)

2 SIGMA 3,08,500 ( 69.15%)
3SIGMA 66,800 ( 93.32%)
DEFEC
4 SIGMA 6200 (99.38%)
TS 5 SIGMA 230 (99.977%)
6 SIGMA 3.4 (99.9996%)
9.3.6 SIX SIGMA IMPACT

SIX SIGMA IMPACT IN EVERYDAY LIFE

99 % Good (3.8 SIGMA) 99.99966 % Good (6 SIGMA)

5000 incorrect surgical 1.7 incorrect operations per

operations per week week

Two short or long 1 short or long landings

landings at most major every five years
airports each day

200,000 wrong 68 wrong prescriptions per

prescriptions each year year

No electricity for almost 7 One hour without electricity

hours /month every 34 years

9.3.7 SIX SIGMA STRUCTURE

SIX SIGMA STRUCTURE

CHAMPION
ED / GM / AGM

MASTER BLACK BELT

REGIONAL / CC LEVEL

BLACK BELTS / GREEN BELTS

UNIT LEVEL

PROJECT TEAM
UNIT LEVEL

SIX SIGMA
PROJECTS
 9.4 QMS - STRATEGIC
9.4.1 BUSINESS EXCELLENCE / PERFORMANCE

CII's BUSINESS EXCELLENCE MODEL

Enablers 500 points(50%) Results 500 points (50%)

People People Results

90 Points (9%) 90 Points (9%)

Key
Leadership Policy & Strategy Processes Customer
Performance
100 Points 80 Points 140 Points Results Results
(10%) (8%) (14%) 200 Points(20%) 150 Points
(15%)

Parternership Society Results

and Resources 60 Points
90 Points (9%) (6%)

[[[[
INNOVATION AND LEARNING

9.4.2 Policy & Training

Corporate strategy consist of three key phases. The first phase
is the determination of corporate mission statement which sets
the common value for everyone in the Organization. The
mission statement or vision of the firm should remain
unchanged for a decade or more.
The second phase is defining strategic options and choosing the
optimum one(Three to Five year plan)
The third phase is strategic implementation(Operations
Management). It also define short term(3 months to one year)
plan for Organisations.
Top Management commitment as a continuous basis is essential
for success. TQM initiatives should become a part of corporate
strategy in all three phases.
 To achieve the benefit of these initiatives in a time bound
manner, “training” at each level is must and this should be part
of each initiatives.

9.4.3 PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT

The performance of each individual in a company w.r.t. Quality

Improvement plays an vital role for the success of that company
in order to become “World Class”. This performance should
be measured and evaluated in annual reports.

This collective evaluation is limited to the followings :

 Summary of number of Projects : undertaken, in process,
completed and aborted.
 Summary of financial results : amount gained, amount
invested, return on investment.
 Summary of persons involved as project team members.
The key measure is the proportion of the company’s
management team that is actually involved in
improvement projects. This proportion should be over
90%.
10
11
12 10.0 CONCLUSION
TQM is a journey for continuous improvement and by
implementing these initiatives, the proposed improvement plan
for one of the Distribution Circle will be as follows:

AT&C Loss
T&D Loss

5 6 7 8 9 10