Summary

Mr. Almas Haider started business, in 1978 after graduating in mechanical

engineering. He also had trainings in plastics and rubber technology from Londons
Plastic and Rubber Institute. His main interest was in plastic and synthetic materials
and he wanted to pursue his career in this industry. He stared his business making
plastic chappals and tarpaulins, He supplied these products in Shah Alam market.
After four years his enterprise had ten employees and sales of Rs 800,000 per
month. Competition grew from two competitors in 1978 to more than 500
competitors in 1982 and it was price competition so people started using inferior
goods in raw material to cut down there costs because of which Mr. Almass
business incurred losses and he did not want any compromise in quality of his
product so he winded up the business but decided to remain in the same industry
related to plastic as it was in his interests.
Mr. Almas than formed SPEL (Synthetic Products Enterprises (Pvt) Limited) in 1982.
SPEL became vendor of Millat tractors to supply them plastic knobs. Next year they
also started makin steering wheels for millat and after 12 years i.e 1994 SPEL
became prominent automotive vendor supplying a variety of parts to all major
players in Pakistans automotive industry which includes Pak Suzuki, Indus Motors,
Honda Cars, Millat Tractors, and Al Ghazi Tractors. Company had been reinvesting all
profits to have improved technology to increase productivity as well as quality. SPEL
valued its employees the most important assets of the company.
SPELs main focus was quality of their products and for that they took help from
their customers like Pak Suzuki, Indus Motors, and Atlas Honda. Company also used
techniques like Quality Circles and Benchmarking. Mr. Almas always encouraged his
employees to attend seminars, workshops and traing sessions given on quality
control. In 1988 he visted Japan where he was impressed from Japanese automotive
venders on producing more with better quality and on his return from Japan he tried
to implement those procedures after discussing with his employees and they all
committed to make SPEL as good as any Japanese vendor.
Mr. Almas always promoted open communication in SPEL and with his senior
managers he use to take part in quality activities that is called management by
walking around. Their mission statement was
Our mission is to provide excellent engineering plastic products and equipment
world-wide, by meeting and surpassing the expectations of our customers.
In 1992, Almas formally requested Atlas Honda to train SPEL employees in
developing Quality Control Circles. The effectiveness of quality Circles in terms of
potential savings, proper utilization of time, and communication started to improve
after forming these QC. Different mottoes selected for circles like Maximum

Excellent Work in Minimum Possible Time, Productivity: Our first mission; more work
in Less Time; and Top Mission; Improvement of Quality. Some improvements
achieved through Quality Circles included : reduction in the screen printing rejection
of Bezel Instrument Cluster (with savings of Rs. 28,000), automation of platen
movement of M-2 machine (with savings of Rs 45,000), incorporation of a
pneumatic system on a steering wheel welding machine (at a cost of Rs. 9,000 to
recovered in two years) , increase in welding production of bicycle seat inserts (with
saving of Rs 9,500) , and construction of a new cooling tower for injection moulding
machines (with cost to be recovered within six months).