510-933-6200         Sales & Support         Locations         Login

              
Contact Us
Swagelok Northern California
Menu
BUY NOW
Message Us
Digital montage (1)

Fluid Systems Engineering & Management Blog

by Swagelok Northern California

Meet Bharat Shah: Showing Swagelok Better Ways to Work

by Jeff Hopkins, on 8/12/15 8:00 AM

Our new Quality and Continuous Improvement Manager is a yoga instructor too

Bharat Shah

 

We're so serious about continually improving our performance that we hired someone to work on it full time. He's Bharat Shah, who joined Swagelok Northern California this past May as our Quality & Continuous Improvement Manager. A mechanical engineer by training, he's also a certified auditor of several quality standards, including Six Sigma and Lean.

It's a tall order, being asked to come in and tell a bunch of long-timers how they could do their jobs better — and get results. Fortunately, Shah is starting with a good environment.

"The people here are very hard working people. We are all on the same wavelength," he says.

Ongoing cycle

The key to improvement is in properly defining the problem to be solved, Shah says. "You don't start with, 'Oh, I know procedure.' Everything has to have a goal. If you are below the goal, find the gap where you are lagging behind. Once you have the gap defined, come up with an action item so that you can bridge the gap."

That's the first part of the now-classic method of Plan, Do, Check, Act.

The second part, "Do," is to carry out the plan while collecting data that can be used later for analysis. That's the "Check" part, where the team studies the results and sees how close they are to the original goal. Finally, the improved process becomes the new normal, the way we "Act" until we define another problem to be solved, starting the process anew.

Automatic audits

When a second-party auditor comes in to check out an operation, a lot of people run away in a panic. Shah welcomes process audits. He likes to see the analysis done so the auditor can see how effective Shah and the Swagelok Northern California team are.

Internal audits are going on constantly as people from different parts of our operation interact, Shah says. When customer orders come down, the people on the warehouse floor can verify the procedures. At the same time, they can communicate upstream to let people know what they can do to help us process orders faster. 

Yoga as process improvement

Shah's talents as a trainer and mentor continue outside the workplace. He teaches yoga in Fremont. Yoga: that's my passion," Shah says, and he sees it as one more tool to improve teamwork.

"In Yoga, they are teaching you indirectly about teamwork, because you are so calm and quiet that you can understand people and process the data," he says. "Yoga is something that teaches you to be peaceful inside. That helps me to work in my quality aspect of my life. Yoga and quality job go in the same wavelength."

Additional Resources

swagelok hose  swagelok hose solutions  Swagelok training
Quick-Turn Hose Assemblies  Swagelok Hose Solutions Quick-Turn Pressure Regulator Assemblies
Topics:AboutSwagelok Northern California

We perform under pressure

Your fluid systems can't fail—and they can't leak. That's why Swagelok Northern California offers mission critical solutions for the petrochem, semi, power, and oil and gas industries around the Bay Area and into NW Nevada. We manufacture and assemble reliable, customizable components that get the job done. Contact our team today to learn about custom solutions for your plant or refinery.

Swagelok Northern California
Fremont headquarters

3393 W Warren Ave
Fremont, CA 94538
Main tel: 510-933-6200
Email: Message us

Areas served by our fluid systems engineering company