The English mathematician Lancelot Hogben once said, “there has been no more revolutionary contribution than the one which the Indians made when they invented zero”. Indeed, the power of zero is infinite, particularly in its power to radically shift our thinking. Like it can on product quality.

The world has seen many quality revolutions since Deming, like TQM, Kaizen and Six-Sigma; which have pushed the idea of quality excellence. But none have been as profound as Zero Defect. There is something definitive, something absolute, something idealistic in zero – you can’t mess with it.

Why is this so important? Its simple. The cost of poor quality gets amplified down the line. Even a 0.01% defect in incoming quality can cause a major disruption at our clients’ end, often requiring line stoppage, recalibration and restart. A loss of time, money, efficiency, energy. It damages customer confidence, and necessitates unnecessary human inspection. Since tubes are small, defects are not easily detectable, making such inspection even more cumbersome. Zero Defect obviates this, even as it delivers better efficiencies and builds confidence for the future.

We at EPL are excited in our Zero Defects journey, which we see as a big step towards being a great company that beats expectations every day. And we have come a long way in confidently promising zero defect to our customers everywhere. This is not just about marginally better quality, it is about significantly improved outcomes,

Oprah Winfrey famously said, “one percent doubt is zero percent faith”. We are on our way to creating a world of zero percent doubt, abundant faith.