Samsung-E-Chaupal

Samsung Electronics has five factories operating from one campus where they
manufacture color TVs, monitors, washing machines, AC heat exchangers and
refrigerators. The operators working on assembly lines had a tough time when
they needed any information about processes. They had to ask their coordinators
to clarify doubts, which took a lot of time. Also, they had to go and ask HR
staff to know the state of their individual suggestions/grievances and MBOs. So
IT and HR departments came together to roll out an e-governance cum staff
welfare project. Under the scheme, bilingual (Hindi and English) touch-screen
information kiosks have been put up at 12 key locations, such as assembly lines,
rest rooms and cafeteria. A third language (Tamil) will be added in the Chennai
facility that will be operational in a few months.

The kiosks provide necessary information, like organizational policies and
guidelines, employee handbook, MBO action plan and workers'
ranking/achievements, suggestion status at regular intervals, status of
department's and individual's performance, and a platform to submit suggestions
and grievances online.

	Project Specs Business problem: Scattered information made workers dependent on others to get work done. There was loss of time in enquiries and sorting queries of workflow and performance IT solutions: Bilingual kiosks were set up at various locations Impact: Motivated workforce, 8% increase in productivity, 40%reduction in defects Implementation partner: Inhouse
Rajesh Chopra, Vice President, Information Systems, Samsung Electronics

The system has a client-server architecture, and the bilingual application
has been developed in VB.NET and is configured on the clients. The app fetches
data from the database on the server when the menus are clicked. Four clients
are connected to the scanner through which workers scan their suggestions and
grievances. Information personal to each employee can be accessed only using the
allotted PIN and password or by the admin.

The system gave a productivity boost of 8% for the factory workers. There is
increased transparency of operations, reduced dependency, and increased
interaction between operators and the management. Record management has become
easy through the centralized database and online uploading of suggestions and
grievances has improved the response time. Workers now feel more responsive and
motivated.