Events

Meeting world class standards

Nandini Patwardhan/Sonal Shukla - Mumbai

Dr S K Kulshreshtha Associate Director, Chemistry Group Bhabha Atomic Research Centre

India's World Class Laboratory Leadership Conference was organised by Infor-media on June 22 and 23, 2006, in Mumbai. The conference saw the coming together of intellectuals from a wide spectrum of industries to discuss on various aspects of setting up and managing world class laboratories with a clear focus on managing talent. "India does have all the R&D capabilities, the instruments, the technologies. But what are we doing about the talent? Major corporates are facing issues where middle management is not in line with the top management. This line of thinking was the genesis of the conference," stated Deepak Patil, Conference Producer.

The first day opened with a presentation by Dr S K Kulshreshtha, Associate Director, Chemistry Group, Bhabha Atomic Research Centre. He spoke on creating and managing world class chemical laboratories. He said that any lab which meets the end objective for which it is designed is a world class lab. Dr Surendra Kulkarni, General Manager, Advanced materials, GE India spoke on managing talent in the world class labs. He opined that the issue was very important as it is always a challenge to retain highly talented employees.

The second day was witness to another round of intellectually stimulating talks by dignitaries like V K Bafna, Jyoti S A Bhat, Dr P M Puri, and Dr Vinay Kumar. V K Bafna, MD, TCG Engineering Services, talked about new trends in outsourcing of laboratory practices. His presentation covered aspects like what is driving the trend for lab outsourcing? Mechanism of lab outsourcing and the benefits accrued from the same. While talking about the criteria for choosing an outsourced laboratory in India he said that aspects like lab's experience in the business at large, experience in particular type of testing, kind of equipment, logistics and mechanics of delivery, online access to deliver result, availability of backup equipment should be taken into consideration.

Jyoti Bhat, Adviser/Scientist 'G' from Department of Scientific & Industrial Research, GOI, went into details of setting up and managing risks in collaborations. While pressing the need for industry research partnerships she said that complexity of production is increasing and with that is increasing the number of technologies per product in consumer or business products.

Dr P M Puri, Senior VP Corp Technology Strategy & Services, Aditya Birla Management Corporation spoke at length about global industrial trends in R&D. He said, "Revolutionary technologies are approaching their full potential, once innovative cutting edge products are now commodities and technological strengths are in focus by shareholders, investors and employees. In such a scenario growth and competitiveness will depend on skills in managing R&D and bringing an innovation culture in an organisaiton." Puri's presentation captured the entire gamut of different R&D models and approaches and strategies. A qualitative update on best practices in laboratory leadership strategies, employee engagement, laboratory development and improved business performance were the highlights of this conference. The conference was pivotal in providing an outstanding opportunity to the professionals from the industry to meet laboratory experts and share their experiences.