Product Quality Management (PQM) ensures ‘assured quality’ of cement. At Ambuja, PQM involves a comprehensive set of tools that are used to control and manage product quality. These tools help in monitoring five parameters: 1. Customer satisfaction; 2. Product benchmarking; 3. Internal product specification; 4. Application oriented product testing; and 5. Targets and key performance indicators for manufacturing quality. The results are integrated into a product quality index (PQI) which analyses manufacturing performance according to ISO 9001 requirements.
PQM starts with customer requirements, reviews all the intermediate processes to ensure that the final product has the right quality, and ends with evaluation of customer satisfaction. ACL has constituted a Quality Committee comprising regional marketing and sales teams, customer support service teams and manufacturing teams. The Committee ensures that there is continuous alignment between the manufacturing, customer support and marketing functions. It periodically reviews the market situation, customer feedback, product benchmarking and manufacturing issues. PQM monitoring strategies include daily testing of approved quality parameters; 3-day and 28-day measurement of coefficient of variations; clinker quality; customer satisfaction; bimonthly product benchmarking; bi-monthly applicationoriented product testing; monthly testing of random market samples; and monthly assessment of bag quality index.
As a trusted cement manufacturer, Ambuja Cements Limited strives to set the benchmark for the quality of cement, with focus on responsible product design, efficient use of raw materials, sustainable fuel-mix and innovative product development. In 2015, the Company completed the Environmental Product Declaration (EPD) for the Darlaghat plant. A pilot life cycle assessment (LCA) as per ISO 14040 and ISO 14044 requirements as well as Cement Product Category Rules (PCR) UN CPC 3744 was carried out. This was extended to all plants in 2016. The LCA and EPD outcomes with all scenario testing analysis for all plants were completed in April 2017. The assessment aims to quantify the environmental impact over the complete life cycle of the product, adopting a cradle-togate approach that includes raw material acquisition, transport, manufacturing, packaging, outbound transport, use and disposal.
The Company complies with all statutory requirements mandated by the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS), Weights and Measures norms. As per the mandate of the bureau, product information is displayed on the bag. No other information beyond what is mandated is displayed. The PPC packaging bags from our Suli plant display the ProSustain® logo, since the third party product sustainability audit has been successfully completed. The test reports are available and can be produced on demand. Customers are free to contact us on a toll-free number that is displayed on all cement bags, in case of any complaints or queries. The PQM team also tests cement bags from all regions every month for quality and quarterly benchmarking. GRI 617