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The rapid changes now going on in the world and the increasing pressure such changes put on management. In particular, the management paradigms of standardization and incremental improvement for efficient production that delivers high quality products that satisfy customers are no longer sufficient for many businesses. Now a third paradigm is required as the life cycle of one business begins to head into decline, a new business must be found and developed. Thus, a new kind of business leader is required- a visionary leader who is facile with standardization and incremental improvement but also has a knack of seeing into the invisible future. The leader needs an eye to monitor management-for-control, or else the company will not meet the minimum contract between the company and society. The leader needs an eye to monitor management-for-incremental improvement, or else the company will not keep up with changing customer-requirements. And the leader needs the wisdom to see the path to future breakthrough, or else the company will have no tomorrow.

In the above conceptual frame work, the visionary leaders for Manufacturing (VLFM) concept has been pioneered by the NMCC as one of the prerequisites for bringing paradigm shift in Indian manufacturing sector to achieve the goal of 12% growth rate of manufacturing sector for enabling 9-10% inclusive growth rate of Indian economy and for generating large scale employment. The VLFM concept received national level recognition and priority in the joint statement of Prime Ministers of India and Japan in December 2006 in Tokyo for its implementation in India through Japanese cooperation. Since then, the VLFM program comprising of four opportunities(i.e A, B, C, and D) is being implemented in collaboration with Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA)under the apex body headed by the Chairman NMCC and actively represented by the Ministry of HRD GOI, IITs, IIM and CII.

The Opportunity-B pertains to one year residential pilot program of Post Graduate Program for Executives in VLM (PGPEX-VLM) being successfully run since 2007 in IIT – K, IIT-M and IIM-C. In view of encouraging results of this pilot Program upto 2013 with Japanese cooperation and the dire need for its sustainability with large scale expansion for developing visionary leaders; the apex committee of VLFM has decided to propose inclusion of this program in a big way under 12th five year plan of Ministry of HRD GOI so that this flagship program of national importance is expanded on faster basis through the existing high educational infrastructure under administrative control of Ministry of HRD, GOI, to begin with in all IITs and IIMs and subsequently in Universities and standalone engineering institutes with managements stream having potential for running VLFM program. This apart the other three opportunities for developing senior managers to practice contemporary manufacturing practice through skilled based training methodology for immediate implementation (Opp-A: 5 days course); transformation of CEOs and COOs to develop capability to see the present from a clear future prospective of their business (Opp-C: 3 days course); and to support development of small scale companies through upgradation of managers skill (Opp-D: 2 days course) are being implemented on sustainable basis through CII.

EXTENSION OF THE VLFM PROGRAMME
The Visionary Leaders for Manufacturing Programme being implemented jointly by Government of India and Government of Japan under India-Japan Joint Cooperation Agreement was coming to an end in August 2010. It is a unique programme where Industry, academia and Government have been working together to train a large number of executives to become visionary leaders in manufacturing. It is also unique because one of the programmes under VLFM is being jointly implemented by IIM Calcutta and IIT Madras and Kanpur. The Diploma at the end of the programme is jointly awarded by the three institutes. Since the objectives of the programme were not fully achieved in terms of number of visionary leaders prepared as well as on sustainability, the NMCC took up with JICA for extension of the programme during the evaluation mission for the ongoing phase of VLFM. The evaluation was successfully conducted and JICA. The programme is now extended till March, 2013.