Hi there!
Week Of Rediscoveries
- Desktop. I have been using Linux as my primary personal desktop for years now. All this while i stuck to Gnome except for checking out Kde once in a while. Each time the cluttered look irritated me as the Gnome Desktop seemed simple and straight forward. KDE in contrast seemed archaic and cluttered. Then KDE 4.2 dropped in. Now iam hooked! I like Dolphin, but i also liked KDE 4.2’s ease of use better. Within a few hours i was with a desktop i liked. So KDE it is for me going forward. And yea all those options help me.
- Opera since version 3.5, then to Firefox since beta days. Opera 10 beta pulled me back in. Opera is amazing. It always was but too much incompatibility made me ditch it for Firefox. Also as opera added features; the interface cluttered itself. My current version has been so configured that it holds the cleanest look ever. I even did away with my menu bar at the top. For all those firefox fans, sure firefox is good configurable etc etc, but all those extensions are too sluggish for me.
- Openoffice 3. While i generally prefer the tried and tested Microsoft Office, i have taken a liking to Opnoffice 3. Its not the best in the market but still is a very strong competitor especially since its free. I still do not like their implementations of filters much but they do stand not so short on other measures.
- KOffice 2 – I particularly am interested in KSpread. Let’s see …
To-Do – 2009 Revisited
I had written a To-Do list for my self for this year. This was in FEB and its been 4 months. I decided to revisit the list and see what we have achieved over the course of four months. Some of the plans have changed and others have been completed. Yet others have not taken off the ground. So here goes ..
photo credit: Carissa GoodNCrazy
I had suggested a mere 4% growth .. we did almost 10% here! .. am glad
- Have an employee feedback system in place, at all levels. We currently have a very rudimentry feedback system.25% complete
Improve Quality by 25%. note to self: Pay attention to number of rejections! Measure number of rework items.Done!- Reduce Delivery Times by another 50% – reduce communication times. Insist on drawings within 15 working days. Setup a measurable TAT (Turn-Around-Time) system.25% complete
Setup a Sales and Marketing team by September. This includes hiring, training and introductions to a few customers.Hiring On HoldImprove storage techniques on the floor, get wooden floor stands for cylinders.Done!- Greater amount of labelling on the floor. Label all ’stands’, all items in store as well as on floor.50% Complete. Floor left
Get the workshop painted by October.Done!- Get dashboards for Stores, Design,
Quality, Production and Subcontractingin order and in place by 1st April 2009. Atleast begin and alter as days go by. 60% complete Arrange for a cooling solution inside factory before summer.None Required- Reduce Operating Costs by 25%. – in tandem with quality initiative, employ a rudimentry just-in-time procedure. Reduce time lag as much as possible at all levels.50% Complete. Over Time reduced, Rudimentry JIT implemented.
- Setup Inspection And Testing area by April 2009.80% complete. 100% complete within 2 weeks.
Extend the workshop as per the layout by architect. – April 2010.On HoldFinalize and Approve the drawing by architect to extend the workshop – April 1st 2009.On Hold- Complete the design document with detailed procedures – April 1st 2009.80% complete
It has been a mixed performance so far for e.g. we scored on the quality front we missed really badly on design. Overall, taking into account the current poor economic environment we still did a little badly. But i take hope in the knowledge that we have about 8 months to go.
Also one other worrying factor has been the lack of any improvement on developing the sales team. True the plan on the front changed, but i would have liked to have atleast a starter on that one. We are yet o finish our brochure, this gives us a very slow start. Hopefully we should be able to cover that one by month end. After all the sales part is of the top most priority for any organization.
My Advanced Personal Robot Will Mainly Be Used For…
yea, Sex always wins! no matter what …
Twitter Dying
Is twitter dying? The indications seem to be all there ….
Late Hours, Honesty And Saying NO
Anand writes about people put in late hours; about saying “NO”.
This really is a culture thing. Why do people think that if they work late they will be in your good books? Why do managers judge(note:i didn’t say measure!) employee ability and/or ’standing’ by whether he comes in on time? Is this the only way to stay in your superior’s good books?
Its Managements responsibility to set these things right the first time. Measure not by ‘time’ but by work done! The guys who GET this, will never have problem with the amount of hours you put in. This also seems to help people relax a lot more with the knowledge of management not breathing down their necks all the time.
Saying “NO” is tougher. Ideally management would want you to work cross functionally and ofcourse have a system which will reward this. Favours, especially in small companies often go a long way where people are more closely knit. Encouraging this habit can easily become parasitic. There is really no clear path here i guess, except to pick and choose your situation.
Earlier in his post, he also speaks about companies wanting to be honest without really giving anything away.
We will also need to monitor negative comments. We don’t want our site to have negative comments about our products.”
… he writes furthur,
I was too stunned to butt in immediately. But after a few minutes, I raised the point about negative comments. “You want to project the image of an honest and open organisation. If you filter out comments that say anything bad about you, how are you going to achieve that?”
Truth be told, there is really no “honesty” only a perception of it. The more layers you peel off, the more you find underneath. Everyone wants to have an open company but nobody wants to be taken for a ride.
Have an open argument, have a forum for discussing complaints just don’t make it crawl-able. Each time you start working on a particular complaint, make it public and indicate clearly that you are working towards solving it with a clear path.
No need to highlight all complaints, pick and choose what you can and will solve immediately while at the same time privately responding to each and every complaint. This does not put you totally out there and yet addresses customer concerns. Do this each time you receive a complaint and you have managed your PR with honesty.
note:Make sure the people who really matter pay real attention to these complaints, your people!
Honesty is not really hard, but it always got me out of a fix, and i try and make sure that i never play into the wrong hands(I do manage sometimes though). I wouldn’t want my competitors playing on my complaint discussion board. Remember Apple ads? They were always a play on PC’s.
Even Yudhister spoke about Ashwathamma to Drona during the war. Just wanted to bring that up 
Saving Money
Too often people at work are also falsely led into believing something untrue because they fail to see a deeper connection. We have been doing better at our finances in recent times with our bank account showing a surplus unheard of earlier. People thought this was mostly due to our customers paying us earlier than usual.
Actually this was untrue. We had been not following a streamlined process earlier. This means, quite often vendors would supply semi finished items quite before the actual required delivery.
The vendors stood to gain in the short run as they were billing earlier and faster than we could ship. We on the other hand were facing a situation where our payments were due far before our receivables. This means we had to pay an interest amount on the difference in time period. Over a quarter this could translate into huge amounts.
We have since then begun accepting deliveries only when the final assembly deliveries are due. This means we need to pay much later than before.
For e.g.
Consider C= Customer, V= Vendor and S1,S2,S3= Subcontractors.
Assumptions
- All payments are due within 1 month.
- We start with month zero.
- Time to manufacture – 1 month.
- C places an order on V. V divides the order into chunks and sublets it out to S1,S2 and S3.
Old Situation
- Month 0 – ‘C’ places order with ‘V’ and in turn sublets out to S1,S2,S3. Required delivery in month 5.
- Month 1 – S1,S2,S3 bring back materials.
- Month 2 – Payable’s due. ‘V’ makes the payment.
- Month 4 – ‘V’ Manufactures in month 4.
- Month 5 – ‘V’ Delivers product to ‘C’.
- Month 6 – Receivables due. ‘V’ receives payment.
New Situation
- Month 0 – ‘C’ places order with ‘V’ and in turn sublets out to S1,S2,S3. Required delivery in month 5.
- Month 1 –
S1,S2,S3 bring back materials. - Month 2 –
Payable’s due in month 2. ‘V’ makes the payment. - Month 4 – S1,S2,S3 bring back materials; ‘V’ manufactures in month 4.
- Month 5 – ‘V’ Delivers product to ‘C’. Payable’s due
- Month 6 – Receivables due. ‘V’ receives payment.
So we directly save three months of hard cash! This shows up in the bank account surplus.
Email Replacements
I hate email! There i said it.
I am tired of trying to integrate our company into one unified platform. Google Apps do not work under proxy, Outlook is slow and way too expensive. ZOHO is way too slow. I decided to list the few things that i/we need and the possible options.
- We want to communicate to our current and future customers and amongst ourselves.
- We want to be able to contact anybody in our company through this medium.
- We want to receive communication from our current and future customers.
- We want to be able to use this communication to be relayed across amongst ourselves as fast and as effectively as possible.
- We want everyone to know where everyone stands on a topic at any given moment.
- We use email as a means for internal memo, so it becomes a validating/supporting document. for e.g. if an inspection report has been sent across to our customers it can be copied to everyone. We want everyone to know about it.
- It should be technology easy to adapt and inexpensive to use.
- It should be able to accommodate offline customers i.e. customers who do not yet use the internet. So if we are to send a document to them say FAX them, it should appear on our communication tool too. This way everyone will know about it.
Its clear that such a system can only be in hybrid format. There is no system in existence which would do everything stated above. Unless its a complete offline system. We could use a mix and match approach with message boards and an email client. Currently we are open to suggestions …
Mediocrity And Genius
Productive mediocrity requires discipline of an ordinary kind. It is safe and threatens no one. Nothing will be changed by mediocrity; mediocrity is completely predictable. It doesn’t make the powerful and self-satisfied feel insecure. It doesn’t require freedom, because it doesn’t do anything unexpected.
Mediocrity is the opposite of what we call “genius”. Mediocrity gets perfectly mundane things done on time. But genius is uncontrolled and uncontrollable. You cannot produce a work of genius according to a schedule or an outline. As Leonardo knew, it happens through random insights resulting from unforeseen combinations. Genius is inherently outside the realm of known disciplines and linear career paths. Mediocrity does exactly what it’s told, like the docile factory workers envisioned by Frederick Winslow Taylor.
To-Do – 2009
While we have had a good run in the past couple of years, the economic downturn has put a dampner on what otherwise could have been a great year. As of now we seem all set for a mere 4% growth. This too has a probability of about 50%. Some argue that we could have done better, others say we have done better than expected. I for now will let these numbers aside and concentrate on what we can do to strengthen our structure. So i came up with a list of To Do Items for the year 2009.
Since any list should be specific and am a strong believer in targets with dates i figured we need a list which will not just contain random or vague ideas but specific commitments. This :”improve quality” should be “improve quality by 25%” which could translate to “reduce rejections by 25%” assuming rejections are the only barometer to quality in your organization.
In no particular order,
- Have an employee feedback system in place, at all levels. We currently have a very rudimentry feedback system.
- Improve Quality by 25%. note to self: Pay attention to number of rejections! Measure number of rework items.
- Reduce Delivery Times by another 50% – reduce communication times. Insist on drawings within 15 working days. Setup a measurable TAT (Turn-Around-Time) system.
- Setup a Sales and Marketing team by September. This includes hiring, training and introductions to a few customers.
- Improve storage techniques on the floor, get wooden floor stands for cylinders.
- Greater amount of labelling on the floor. Label all ’stands’, all items in store as well as on floor.
- Get the workshop painted by October.
- Get dashboards for Stores, Design, Quality, Production and Subcontracting in order and in place by 1st April 2009. Atleast begin and alter as days go by.
- Arrange for a cooling solution inside factory before summer.
- Reduce Operating Costs by 25%. – in tandem with quality initiative, employ a rudimentry just-in-time procedure. Reduce time lag as much as possible at all levels.
- Setup Inspection And Testing area by April 2009.
- Extend the workshop as per the layout by architect. – April 2010.
- Finalize and Approve the drawing by architect to extend the workshop – April 1st 2009.
- Complete the design document with detailed procedures – April 1st 2009.
That should do for now. I will add to the list as days go by. I would also want to revisit this list and review it so that i do not loose track of it myself. so long.. !
The House
It had been a few hours. It could have been a few weeks or a few years for all i cared. My elbows hurt by the harsh wooden table. The room was sparse and had a woody smell about it. I looked up to see a thatched roof. It had wooden planks built across the walls. This house was probably built many decades ago. People no longer seem to make such houses anymore.
The floor had the reddish tinge, the kind which wears off to take a pale brown. Had it been new it would have rubbed off on my feet. The room was about 15 feet long and about 10 feet wide, three doors one on each side except the one on my left. I don’t see anything clearly outside. My view si hazy. The side on my right also had two windows right beside each side of the door. It looked archaic, the doors would have been closed years ago, it didn’t matter. I was bored.
photo credit: Stuck in Customs
I got up and pulled open the door behind me. Sun light warmed up my face, for a second i stood there transfixed, soaking myself in, feeling the warmth creep into my body. It felt good, warm, fuzzy..love? I just stood there with my eyes closed for a few minutes. I opened it to see yellow paddy fields for as far as the eye could see. It wasn’t yellow, it was golden, the sun’s rays brought out the colour really well.
I half expected a tree somewhere in the field, mostly in the center, humans always loved symmetry. It makes them feel stable, balanced. I couldn’t quite place the feeling. I felt warm, a little dazed but definitely happy. What was i happy about?? I didn’t have a reason, it just felt good. I felt free, yes .. an unencumbered view for miles, it made me feel free.
I didn’t want to venture out, i was half afraid i would destroy the vision. Maybe the vision would not live up to my expectations. I wanted a cigarette. I looked around but the room was empty. I put in both my palms inside my trouser pockets, a bit lazily, a bit to stretch my arms, it felt nice. I found a cigarette packet in my right pocket along with a match. Funny i have not smoked in quite a while now.
The house suddenly seemed higher. It seemed higher than earlier. The field towards the far end seemed to just dip a little lower. They dipped a little more. I felt high, i thought it was the cigarette. I realized i have not lit one yet. The house felt as if it was on top a hill. I lit my cigarette and inhaled deeply. It screwed the view, i threw the cigarette down, then wondered whether i should have stubbed it.
I realised it didn’t really matter. I felt the light breeze hit my face, it hit because it began abruptly. I wished to have the moment last forever, but feared it wont. Funny i always seemed to have thought of happiness as short lived. Now why would that be so?
The house seen from afar had a very woody, creaky, slightly burnt exterior. It could have been called a cabin, it really was only a cabin. You need a few basic necessities to make a house. like people to live in for instance. Nobody lives in a cabin. The sun at the far end gave the house a slightly sinister look. It’s funny that on such a beautiful day, amidst such a beautiful field, amongst the gold tinged afternoon, i see cabin which is cold and dark.
I see a path amidst the field, it is horizontal to my vision and stretches all the way to the far right from the far left. The path is probably dusty, i might see a car there some day blowing a little cloud of dust. It might probably blow a horn, the ones which you never hear on a city street. City horns are always harsh. They; like their owners are noisy, loud and very much against tranquility.
I saw a car right then. It was a taxi cab the one with the yellow top and black body. They always remind me of Bombay. This one had a horn just as harsh! I had begin to cringe with the noise, the endless cacophony of people jostling around among the streets, the mutterings, the nothings, the chatter, the voices. It all came in suddenly as i woke up with a start. For a second, i was trying to think, where was i?
—–
It was morning mayhem at my house. My mom oscillated between ironing her blouse and the kitchen. She was grumbling about the maid not coming in on time. Dad called out again for me, it disturbed the inner tranquil i had every morning. He has been doing this every time for 28 years now. 28 years!! Why did i come back? Why did i have to choose my parents place of all people? Could i not have rented out an apartment? But then i would not be saving as much money now would i?
I had peace for a few years, a home away from home is what i had wanted and what i had. A few years of bliss! Didn’t i love them? I did, i knew i did because i was angry when BobaMama had an altercation with my mom. I wanted to protect her, i had wished him away. Didn’t work. My dad looked really tired. He didn’t really need to work. But then he did, if only to protect his sanity. I wished he could and would relax a little more. But wishes never really come true.
I pushed my groggy self towards the bathroom and about five minutes later emerged thinking i should not have spent so much time watching movies into the night. They screw up my sleep time. And sleep-times are important. Come to think of i, my sleep times are always invariably screwed. I find new un-inspiring ways to screw them.
Like i watched two movies back to back until 3.30 am and had to wake up at 7 feeling drunk. Then there was a time when i read late into the night reading Ayn Rand, arguing over her book with myself, fighting over it in my mind. Twice i had concluded Ayn Rand was really just a smart woman who came up with something sensible. Twice i changed it to, she was super smart and bold even if bit of a sensationalist. I argued into the wee hours of the morning and hit the bed at about seven in the morning. Woke up at five past eight. I felt dead!!
Being dead is a good feeling i think. I could not feel the ground much, i could pretty much not feel anything. I remember this feeling from many years ago when i had smoked weed. It had an uplifting feeling. ‘DeaD’ wasn’t really uplifting, it was pretty much nothing actually. I was off to work in another hour and half. Life seemed to take over after this point. Funny it’s my life but it half seems to be controlled by factors i really purport to control. How is that for irony?
Managing Priority
One of the prime challenges we had been facing were concerned with priority. People just do not seem to understand priority.
Traditionally priority has to be assigned by a person ‘in the know’ or by the team lead. He establishes the process and sets it in motion. The others follow the leader and work runs smoothly. So we hope!
Quite often people are slaves to old bad habits. And these habits die really really hard. We found that most people seemed to process materials on a first cum first basis instead of establishing priority. Since we knew we had to establish priority early, we came out with a monthly list of items with dates sorted from the immediate to later.
To have a check and make sure that we do not screw up anywhere we got people to sit together once a week and discuss the items to be taken up from the list, the following week. This is in sync with the PDCA cycle. We found that people invariably took up items which were the easiest to procure than the ones which had to be completed immediately.
Week after week we missed priority after priority until the ones marked immediate almost always bombed on our heads. Finally we decided to adhere to the list from top to bottom strictly in our weekly meetings. Things seem to have looked up since then. We are a tad slower and its difficult and a constant watch is needed to nudge the people in the right direction, but atleast we got it right this time.
Customer Satisfaction And Revenue
I hate bank X.
The employees of bank X were rated on their ability for higher number of ‘product sales’. As is the norm, the bank reviewed it’s employees vis-a-vis revenue generated.
This is akin to a local restaurant selling a large number of dinner plates in an effort to improve revenues but by compromising on quality. Restaurants are known by their food, ambiance and in general hospitality.
I do not intend to compare the hospitality and/or service industries. But this does warrant attention whether the revenue expectations levels by promoter and the satisfactions levels the customer expects from the company are aligned or should they be aligned?
Customers who will not hesitate to voice their opinion about what they think about your product/service and even sport a signboard to your competitor.
The bank had no system in place which measured customer satisfaction levels per employee(info-courtesy a friend who worked for the bank). A bit of googling helped me.
They may well do to read this(pdf) and see if it applies to them.
You can find a more pointed article on customer satisfaction in banks here(pdf). This professor has a view on the topic.
After a year of bad service i decided to close my peanut worth savings account with them and opened a new one with a larger more aggressive bank. I am a satisfied customer today.
Checks In A System
Lack of a robust process brings out chinks in your system in unpleasant ways. The incident below is a classic example of such a case.
Our company had a long history of relationship with our subcontractors and had a certain element of trust relationship with them. Quite often we took whatever they said at face value specially regarding the amount of material lying with them. There was no physical verification and hardly any checks/preventive measures built into the system.
We recently found that a subcontractor had been hoarding our material and selling it off in the open market. It took an enterprising individual to catch the subcontractor red handed.
Mr. X was in charge of subcontracting. While there was no conclusive evidence against X of being hand in gloves with the erring subcontractor we didn’t initiate any legal recourse against him. But we had to let him go.
People in our company incorrectly assumed that the reason for our action was him being corrupt. My contention is maybe he was BUT maybe he was not!
The reason for his dismissal was not based on him being corrupt, it was based on his lack of diligence in such a responsible role. He had failed in his duties towards the company. As a professional he was totally in control of all subcontracting work and was expected to keep track of flow of all materials within and outside the factory. He was not only unable to bring such a discrepancy in our system to our notice but also tried to blame someone else for the faux pas!!
As one amongst the management, i admit, we are to blame too for not having a system in place to prevent this incident. As a learning we have come up with the following points.
1. List Of Pending Materials
This list should come out as frequently as possible and can be used quite effectively for follow-up. This seems commonsense but for a small company even this was unheard of until now!
2. Physical Audit
Conduct a physical verification of materials lying with the subcontractors on a quarterly basis. The audit should be conducted randomly once a month without announcement.
3. Get Them To Specialize
Restrict subcontractors to two or three type of jobs and if possible with two or three customers. This will help us in multiple ways,
- They get to be experts in their allotted job-work.
- Improvement in quality as we can goad them into buying the appropriate measuring instruments.
- We know immediately who is handling what at any given point in time just by the job and customer.
4. Push Not Pull
update: We had to junk this idea as it increases inventory.
(Not to be confused with the push-pull system in marketing)
Send across the jobs to the subcontractors instead they coming in to take away materials. This would be difficult to implement on an existing system, but the benefits are obvious.
- Nobody gets to hoard thus doing away with one more inefficiency.
- We decide the flow of materials. Will also help us put in taps to decrease/increase flow as we wish!
- There is very little scope of any influence of our subcontracting in-charge by our subcontractors.
Get them to sign each time as a sign of receipt of material. This will also act as a proof and will also be the pending list(on a given date) as mentioned earlier!!
5. Improve Ties
While a system can be improved and rebuilt over and over again, the foundation of any business relationship is trust from both the parties and trust alone will stand in good in the long run.
This list is not exhaustive and is a work in progress for the time being. Any suggestions or ideas are always welcome at mailme@REMOVET-THISsachingopal.com
Delivery Double Penalty
One of our customers recently remarked that he wanted to reduce his follow up visits to our plant as it wasted his as well as our time.
Another of our customers sent us mail asking us to instruct our bankers to accept a 3% penalty on our bill for late delivery.
The Connection
The first one is obvious.
Each time a customer calls or visits us, at least, one resource has to attend to him or his call. The objective of the call is just to inquire about the status or for a follow-up of a particular order. e.g. Thee last time a customer walked in we had planner + manager + production in charge in attendance.
This means our resource is basically rendered useless by one engagement instance with the customer. If it’s a phone call it lasts for 3-5 minutes, if it’s a visit, it lasts for anything between 3-4 hours.
Some customers call as well as visit, some customers only call.
Now multiply this figure by a couple of hundred customers each year! So by any scale, we have already lost hundreds of productive hours.
So each customer blunts our ability to serve them by a penalty on our productivity.
Graph is for demonstration purposes only.
Reducing Productivity over increasing amounts of Phone Calls and Visits.
All the more reason to improve delivery schedule; don’t you think??
Always Process Never People
How to not forget where you kept your keys. How to not forget paying any particular bill.
Now this is what most people do,
They keep the keys in the same place everyday, some place easily in sight while on the move.
They either pay it as soon as the bill arrives or keep a particular day of the month for paying bills.
The first one is the most effective because it almost always works. The second one is contingent upon our disposition to do the earlier assigned work right away.
Almost always its the process which is at fault and not people!
Single Personality
There was a time when i used to work for a BIG company. I was paid a decent amount of money. I could afford a reasonably good lifestyle. But it was also a time when i had few pals and i had to drag myself to work 60% of the days.
I had colleagues then i had friendly colleagues then i had one or maybe two friends! Now i have almost all the staff as pals and i have never ever dragged myself to work. I enjoy the banter, the glib talk, the little fun we keep having over tea.
We have also posted a healthy growth over the past few months. I think the above two aspects i.e. we having fun and accomplish good work at the same time have been instrumental.
The clinching factor is not “fun + work“. It’s all of us coming to work with our own personalities. We are much likeable and agreeable in person than our work lives! This way we like each other and enjoy each others company. Which indirectly makes us more productive!!
Not having a work mode translates into living a better and happier life. We display the same emotions which we would have displayed out of work. We crib openly about work load, sometimes about pay. I know i get to hear the most of it as iam the boss!!
This might be a lop sided view of my world, but hey i still love it!!
Pseudo Jobs
There is an update please see below.
We have a man in our machine shop. He has been working with this company for more than a decade. He began as a ‘helper‘; then graduated to work on the drilling machine and later in assembly. Now he is a staff member and is in charge of assembly.
photo credit: FelipeArte
He was promoted time and again in spite of other people being around because he was diligent as a worker. He took pride in his work. He was honest and a man of integrity.
His job now, is to collect materials and make them available for assembly. We call them collectively, Assembly Items. The items are scattered throughout the factory floor due to different processes and thus different machine work and thus different locations.
His job takes him hours just to collate one set. Imagine the productivity hours lost.
Collation of items should be imbibed into the process rather than have someone find and then collate it. Basically his job is redundant and is a useless activity. What we have done by promoting him is KILL his productivity. His job is a ‘pseudo job‘.
There are numerous such instances of productive people turned unproductive due to an un thoughtful promotion. In the above case if we decide to rectify the process and change the layout and in general make changes which will eliminate this pseudo job, his job will be rendered useless which is undesirable for such a worker.
This is a classic case where appreciation has become a bane for the incumbent.
update: There is a name for such phenomena, The Peter’s principle.
The principle holds that in a hierarchy members are promoted so long as they work competently. Sooner or later they are promoted to a position at which they are no longer competent (their “level of incompetence”), and there they remain.
Peter’s Corollary states that “in time, every post tends to be occupied by an employee who is incompetent to carry out his duties” and adds that “work is accomplished by those employees who have not yet reached their level of incompetence”.
Idea Gestation
I had planted an idea about 6 months ago in a colleagues mind about the way we did things at our place. At the time the entire concept was new to him and he rejected it outright. He even stated that this industry was not built for it and such events are impossible to implement here. I didn’t press it and decided to wait.
Meanwhile we had been going through a transition from an unsystematic disoriented way of working to a systematic process oriented one. We now hold regular checks by way of weekly meetings (which still needs loads of improvement). Attitudes have undergone a perceptible difference and this has shaped the way people look at the same things, same ideas and same concepts differently.
In one of our weekly meetings, the same idea was put forward by my colleague and was readily accepted by everyone. The idea was rejected earlier because he was not ready for the idea. We were not ready for the idea. The concept was tried and tested but he had been totally unaware of it and as he had rightly said then, we had neither the system nor the process earlier. The idea would have most definitely flopped then.
The Idea needed the period of gestation for it to cultivate and mature after being sown.
Important Unwanted Customers
Top 5 Reason Why The Customer Is Always Right Is Wrong got me thinking on how many times we have had customers who are nothing but a cost to the company.
These customers generally form the Long Tail;
The phrase The Long Tail (as a proper noun with capitalized letters) was first coined by Chris Anderson in an October 2004 Wired magazine article [1] to describe the niche strategy of certain business such as Amazon.com or Netflix. The distribution and inventory costs of those business allow them to realize significant profit out of selling small volumes of hard-to-find items to many customers, instead of only selling large volumes of a reduced number of popular items. The group of persons that buy the hard-to-find or “non-hit” items is the customer demographic called the Long Tail….
Credit Card Issuers face such people all the time. If you were in a business of non standard products; how would you tackle this situation? Some software product companies circumvent this problem by trying to route support calls from rare customers and customers who only call never ask for paid support to the paid line.
What about a real tangible product like ours? The only thing they can do is to reduce the carrying cost of such customers to as minimal levels as possible. This helps them retain market share (credit cards are a highly competitive market) without being a burden on the bottom line.
Resourcefulness Can Kill Process
Sometimes intense resourcefulness plays spoilsport in the long run.
We have a dedicated team of highly resourceful people who look after production and assembly. They were used to getting things done to the extent that some parts if they needed rework before assembly were reworked immediately and assembled. These parts were at times even planned to be reworked just before assembly to save machine loading time.
This meant that we were still getting things assembled and dispatched as scheduled. Isn’t this good? well .. maybe!
The biggest problem here is they were hiding problems with the production process. During our weekly meetings we discuss those items which didn’t ship. So we never know why the part needed rework in the first place.
So we keep making the part incorrectly over and over again and the assembly guys keep correcting over and over again. How much money have we already lost over this?
We need the assembly guys to stop production the moment they see a problem. This way we can attack each problem minutely one by one.It’s the only way we can have a robust stable process!
Now we didn’t want the assembly guys to stop reworking the material and stop production just yet. The scheduling demands of a modern customer are far too many to let the flow stop.
We asked the assembly in-charge to maintain a list of such reworked items and then bring them out at the weekly meeting. We also defined in detail what rework is to remove any ambiguity.
Now we have resourcefulness working alongside process and with it continuous learning.
The Big Disconnect
Sales V/S Operations
A customer calls up at a factory premises for a status update on his order. He was assured of delivery within 4 to 6 weeks time. It’s been six weeks now.
The supervisor handling the shop is nonplussed. They realize that a work order has not been released. Production will not begin until a work order has been released.
The work order can be released only after a set of designers release a set of customer approved drawings. The drawings have been sent to the customer a week ago but there has been no response. Also there has been no follow up from the designers.
The designers had already been flushed with work for the past few months. They had to put this order in the back burner for a month. Six weeks have passed by and there is still no sign of a work order. Would you like to bet on the customer’s reaction?
A closer look will reveal that it would have been impossible to deliver the order under the stipulated time. Why did this happen?
Traditionally a sales guys job is to sell. He is more concerned about his numbers, his targets, his bonus. Right?
The main problem here is how does a sales guy garner more business without upsetting production schedule? How to stop making unkept promises? This basically means you involve the operations people on a sales pitch. This is easier said than done.
Operations guys like to ‘NOT’ upset their schedule even for GOD. Sales guys like to bend a little backwards once in a while; in customer serviceand thus company interest of course. How will you build enough flexibility in the system without raising inventory? How will you manage cash flow and customers?
A sales guy performs an unsaid function. He insures against the loss to a customer. He makes sure that a customer sticks with the business just so that he is not stolen away by a competitor In a highly competitive market, this could make or break a business.
I stop with more questions than answers. Maybe i shall know the truth someday…
Management – Universities
More often than not, i think the karma of management is to make things possible.
photo credit: plakboek
By this i mean remove obstacles to growth for their employees, nurture them, befriend them, weed out problems. To provide direction and stimulate thought. Encourage participation and promote free speech. Instill confidence and provide a canvas for employees to paint their masterpiece.
This promotes loyalty, trust and breeds mutual respect amongst the Management and the employees. More often that not a healthy environment seems to do wonders for the bottom line. Isn’t this old hat?
Seems we are not very far away from Universities which purport to do all of the above.
Power Of Simplicity
An Information System should at the very least avoid duplicate work and keep processes as simple as possible.
A thumb rule to gauge the level of simplicity in any organisation is to consider the time and effort involved in training a new recruit!
The faster a new hire can be trained the higher are your chances in being effective and thus competitive.
In an age when every person who comes in has to hit the ground running, this simplicity could give the company the ability to stay ahead of the curve!!
What I Learn’t From Gaming
used to be an avid Age OF Kings player. For those not in the know, it’s a multiplayer game played on an online gaming portal. You can form teams and compete against other teams. If you prefer you can also play a one-on-one i.e. two players compete.
Over the years i realized that a few concepts really stuck on to me even after i quit the game years ago. The reason i list them here is because i would rather jot them down here than anywhere else. Also it helps me give myself a perspective.
Here goes ..
1. Start Early
One of the most important aspects of the game was managing your economy. If you last the initial battles, then the strength of your economy alone will decide the course of the game.
Translated into life, this means start saving small but start saving!! The longer period you can save the greater the time your interest accrues to provide higher returns.
2. Give It All
Put in the maximum effort that you can in each and every battle, you might just win by a small margin, but a win is a win at the end of the day.
3. Salvage
The real good players never fought a losing battle and salvaged whatever they could, whenever they could.
This strategy might be slow and boring but in the long run it works.. and it works well!! Don’t batter yourself on a lost cause. You have to live to fight another day!
4. Controversy Is Short Lived
Kids quite often used to curse and call each other names just to garner attention.The name/fame associated with such incidents quickly fade from public memory.
Only true skill, ability will stand you in good stead over the long run.
5. It’s All In The Mind
I remember feeling very low before a game and totally exhilarated after a win just 15 minutes later. It was only a case of mood. He agrees.
6. Develop Good Habits
Habit yourself to always protect yourself (in game) and you will naturally construct a wall even without thinking every time you play.
Develop good habit in your daily life and you shall never go wrong. This is very similar to my stress on developing good processes than relying on people.
That’s it.
Managing Change
I realize, it’s an impossible task to convince someone of the futility of some particular task unless and until you totally understand the process and how it effects the bottom line yourself. Now someone who is in-charge can easily try and enforce something. But the system will inadvertently collapse as the required support has to come from people not from machines.
The human quotient therefore, has to be included to prevent an expensive and/or failed exercise. Especially in a place where those who have been in the system for more than a dozen years are a sizeable number.
Also if you are bringing an innovation to the table, you better be prepared to defend it till death. Half baked ideas invariably will kill the whole process and intent of innovation at the workplace.
So this is the action course i propose to take, [assumed implementation of XYZ]
- Learn & Understand About The System .. If am going to implement XYZ, i better be next to God @ XYZ. Learn about it’s pros & Cons.
- Educate the people who will use the system about XYZ. Make sure all their queries/doubts/apprehensions are answered.
Clearly state advantages over the current system. - Start a small pilot. Tune the system to your specific needs.
- Expand to a wider base.
- Full Roll Out!
Hopefully i can pull this through.
Search For Truth
You seached for god, so did i once, maybe simply trying to comprehend, to understand what he/she/she-he/abstract/hypothetical is all about. Immersed self in Buddhism during my 12th std exams; funny such pursuits assume an altogether different meaning when you are supposed to be bothered with other banalities.
Siddharta seemed elusive then, got into Osho too for a while, went on a single trek to hampi supposedly to find myself. I did find a world heritage site!!
I had so many different theories of my own, changed and revised them. Had my own philosophies, had my own set of reserved distaste & anger for weak people. …. treading down a similar path? perhaps not … but its a path never the less we all undertake taking into account only the end.
Did you know there are shaivetes who drink liquor, indulge in free sex, and do all things perhaps dispicable to a large section of the society in the name of service to the lord? Maybe they are on the same path……looking for the end…. what perhaps we all miss though, is the ‘means’!!
React To Situations; Not People
I happened to pick up a call from a particularly irate customer. We had missed our delivery schedule by a huge whopper!
I told him why we have missed the deadline, apologized for the unintentional error and wrapped up the call with how soon we were going to tackle the issue. Inspite of all my assurances, the customer was rude and blamed our entire team for the mishap. His tone, manner and abrasiveness, hurt. I was angry!!
After a recheck, i realized, we had missed the deadline because they hadn’t approved a drawing which we had sent them earlier. To be fair, we didn’t follow up. My immediate thought was to get back to him and tell him in no uncertain terms that the fault lay with his own people and his reaction was unjustified.
But i preferred to defer the call and immediately set about following up with his people about the drawing and set things right again. We dispatched the items and i sent him a note stating that we have done the needful.
He called us and complimented our team and sounded (just sounded but its enough) apologetic about the delayed approval. His juniors had informed him about the little oversight thus putting him in an embarrassing position. We were gracious about the whole matter and empathized about the error.
If i had made that call and participated in a blame game, we would have lost some leverage which i now have with the individual. Also with our ability to quickly perform a damage control, we had won him over.
Eventually the customer faxed more orders within a weeks time.
Online Gaming
People assume different gaming personalities. Maybe online persona’s are an extension of their real self, then again maybe not. It’s not all about the personalities though, its all about egos. Suddenly the game is no longer a game, its all about owning people. Teens talk about how they Raped so & so guy and boast about how good their skills are.There are exceptions though, but most of them run along the same track. You latch on to the game because you have an ego .. If you think you are your pennies worth then you simply wont take your first defeat lying down.
You get up, brush away the humiliating defeat/defeats and embark on a journey to super stardom. And if you have what it takes then you earn ( in some cases demand respect) from your gaming peers. Every rook is polite, every expert is condescending but its the inters who have the worst manners of them all! They are at a stage where they cannot be labeled as rooks but they cannot be clubbed with experts either, so they make up by talking trash .. Its amazing how rude some kids can get!
To think that these kids will be parents tomorrow is a frightening thought! Maybe its time we have a Cyber MOM but we still are a far cry from that kind of technology and the technology prevalent is just not enough. Ironically the best players are mostly well past their teens, seems the only social life some of these people have beyond their workplace is the gaming zone .
That should include myself whenever am in my “being addictive moods”. Most people are like me, when they are hooked they are hooked to the point of exclusion of everything else. Needless to say personal life does not go unaffected, its a bit like alcohol .. you like it more when you are down! All the pent up frustrations could be taken out in the gaming room on your opponent, particularly if you are good. It does account for a certain measure of satisfaction but by and large it still drives you to go for more!
How many man hours ( which could have been productive ) have people ( me included) wasted into this game. Iam counting all these times when i have opened one of the gaming forums and been through the various flame wars.
Though they are disgusting and often distasteful they also have an element of entertainment value! Plus the countless times you spend trying to figure out the perfect & foolproof strategy to outperform others. Competitiveness is at its best in these rooms & its not sportsmanship which keeps it alive but rather the sinister internal individualities of simple people like you and me which drives it year after year.
That the gaming industry actually thrives on such, sometimes quite dispensable, behavior is a mystery. Do aggressive games bring out the monster in each of us? Does putting each other down translate into a measure of contentment or happiness however small the quanta? That they have a high entertainment value is proven, but how do we escape the evils which befall us as a consequence?
Information Dissemination
A major hurdle we faced in our unit has been that of information dissemination. Sometimes people just are not aware of what really is happening. There is no bulletin board or infrastructure present to pass on information to everyone responsible. This can cause problems with ramifications ranging anywhere between small to HUGE.
Recently one the assembly items had been manufactured as per a wrong specification. The mistake was with our design and went undetected all the way till assembly. This was a costly proposition as the whole item had to be scrapped and a new one put into place.
The point in question is our manager didn’t know about the situation until i specifically asked him about it. Then he had to enquire and find out himself. Comments like “Nobody told me” and “You should’ve known” flew back and forth.
The Problem
My interest lay here in how to disseminate the right information at the right time and avoid such unpleasant situations. Also to integrate it into the process and thus I will prefer offline systems as we are talking about a manufacturing unit where having a row of computer systems with email is not really feasible. IT’s really an overkill! at times.
Suggested Solution
We decide to setup a small board with the monthly ‘Production Schedule’. We add a column to indicate results of inspection. The column indicates REWORK/REJECT/PASS. They are also to state the reason for the reject/rework with just the name of the part in question. The root cause can be debated upon later during weekly meetup.
Sometimes the parts are reworked and the product assembled before end of day; In such cases the red marks are to be followed by green but marked nevertheless. This will ensure a discussion on finding root cause. This is in line with my simplicity rule.
Quality personnel were instructed to mark their copy of the ‘Production Schedule’ as stated above. They are also to do it immediately as soon as they finish inspection. Sometimes the items with rework as marking are cleared before end of day. In such cases they are to mark rework and then mark as pass. So we know that “Something Went Wrong!”.
The board is displayed in as noticeable a place as possible! Ta-Da!!
Cost Of Rectifying Mistakes
We had been facing a moderate number of mistakes during our manufacturing process. Depending upon the stage at which the mistake was caught we had to spend ‘x’ amount of hours to rectify it.
Quite often this meant going back to the drawing board. This also meant stalling of our other components until the problem was sorted out. This caused a huge burden in our production process. Over time we had something drilled into our brains, The Cost Of Rectifying Mistakes!
Our process is divided into multiple stages
- Design – The initial drawings are made and submitted for customer approval. The draftsman might spend anything between a few hours to an entire day on the drawing.
- Procurement – This stage involves interacting with various suppliers, gathering of quotes and finally ordering for material.
- Machining – The material is let out to subcontractors and machined at their premises. The costs are pretty direct going forward as the cost is a direct function of their wage rate.
- Production – The job will go through a small set of processes including drilling, suiting etc. The costs are again a direct function of our wage rate. { Our wage rate > Their wage rate; refer 3 & 4 }
- Assembly – The assembly fitters are paid the highest of the lot (excluding Design). They will assemble the components and test it to become a full fledged cylinder.
Normally each of the stages takes about a week for a moderately sized product ( We build a wide range of the same product ).
We found ( common sense really ) that the cost of rectification escalated as it advanced over different stages. This gives us a strong reason to NOT to commit mistakes. The idea of mistakes alone is long enough to warrant another post.
Listen To The Shirker
Every organization have a few people who love to shirk work. These are people who give out the maximum number of excuses. Remember, “It’s not my job.“, “How can i control ‘X’ over ‘Y’?“, “Iam too busy!“. When each of these excuses are used more than twice in a day, i think you have found your shirker in the office!!
These are the people who give all process related issues, if an assembly line is not upto the mark in a certain area, they are the first to point it out! If the deliveries are late, they know about it, if a machine has stopped working they catch on to it before anyone else on the floor! This whole way of knowing stuff is used in any of their innumerous excuses.
But if you notice, most of the excuses do have an element of truth in them. The shirkers point out innumerous chinks in your process or functioning each time something he/she was responsible for, goes wrong. This is just why you need them.
They are an information powerhouse! Each time a shirker says something, listen to him, you might just receive a valuable nugget, he will tell you where you really lost out on money besides on him!
Control The Process
We had been facing a peculiar problem; Even though management gave clear instructions regarding priority of work orders inevitably a few units get into Assembly ahead of priority. This was the point when we realized that
WE DO NOT HAVE CONTROL!!
Production was controlled by the process and not by people. This might be because,
- There was no mechanism in place for control.
- There was no task and sub-process ownership.
- No check and verification system in place.
How do we gain control?
We tried to pinpoint the problems. So we came up with a small list.
- Process Opaqueness There was no way to find the status of the production for a particular order.
- Ownership problems Sketchy work-roles/profiles.
- Imbalanced Workflow One or two people in the system were overloaded with responsibilities.
We realized that disseminating information regarding any change in our priority list was critical. Since we were the ones to initiate it we made sure that henceforth we will distribute copies of the list too all parties concerned.
Transparency In an effort to make things a bit more transparent we realized, we need to allot tasks, duties and responsibilities and lay them out clearly. This will clearly show up any lapses in the system.
We decided that a bit of Overlapping of roles was ‘OK’ in case of special circumstances and is also desirable. Special circumstances generally meant absence of the incumbent.
Multiple Stages We separated and divided the process into multiple stages. Each stage was signified by a file and each file was allotted to different people along the process. We also made a proper indexing mechanism for ease in retrieval of data.
For e.g. If product ‘X’ is produced using 10 components and each of them has to pass through the following processes in the depicted order;
Cutting + Subcontracting > Follow-up > Inspection > Assembly > Dispatch
Ownership A file was made for each of the stages above thus dividing it. Each file was designated an owner, in short the owner was responsible for the file and thus that stage in the process.
Essentially the work order document will pass from file to file until it reaches the dispatch file.
This provides two kinds of information,
- To which stage a component has progressed.
- Where is the bottleneck?
Now we work on multiple work orders at a time, so at any given moment there are multiple work orders (we process almost 1200 a year) lying in any given file. This means to find out where each work order is we need some kind of indexing system. This is what we came up with.
[The colors are only indicative and do not form part of the actual sheet.]
The top row contains the work order numbers from 1-300, 300-600, 600-900 and finally 1200+. The left hand most column contains text which says 10th September, 20th September & 30th September. The rows are self explanatory, the left hand most column indicates the approximate dates when the particular work order arrives into this file
Each owner will fill in work order numbers in the appropriate column against appropriate sections 10th Sept, 20th Sept, 30th Sept. Each time a work order passes on to the next stage, the appropriate numbers are written down against appropriate columns and sections. This gives us the following information;
- The ’stage’ of the Work Order.
- The approximate time it was put in.
- Bottleneck.
- Control.
I sort of liken the system to a pipe with a series of taps at intervals. Each tap can be used to control the process, if assembly is loaded, slow down production, if production is loaded, reduce at subcontractors level so on and so forth.
As always we would need to fine tune the system to our needs and remove any chinks and consider modifications to it as time progresses.
Day Dream
She crouched among the bushes, biding her time. Her breath shallow..her eyes alert, nostrils fuming out vapour in short impertinent gasps. The heat was taking its toll, it had been a couple of days since she had seen food. No longer agile, maybe it was time for a slow death.
The spotted deer stopped grazing for a second, to look up and survey; The alpha female had lead them quite ably into the grasslands….the African summer was unbearable, the heat on the planes, scorching, but food was aplenty…for both the specia, the food chain would remain undisturbed once more.
A light breeze had begun to blow, causing ripples in the grass. The sun was setting in the horizon, the golden rays lay bouncing off thick coats of leather. It was a beautiful sight…a million beasts grazing, as far as the eye could see, a site which lay it self as a treat to any grazing animal or predator every year.
The spotted deer was lucky, she had already begun dreaming of a long summer, plentiful food, a bit of water, maybe a deerling or two..yes, the vision was beautiful…. a sudden stir among her friends as they bolted, a pair of powerful jaws bore into her neck shutting off the trachea….the beautiful site faded into oblivion….maybe if she hadn’t stopped to admire, maybe if she had not dream, but the moment was lost……….
The alpha female, alert as ever, watched from a distance. One more deer tricked by nature, she sighed and lead the herd further away.
Mahatma Gandhi
One of the earliest memories we have as Indians, about the Mahatma is from our textbooks! To me he was just another man who was to be loved and respected like a lot many others during my school days. Naiveté does make you do things even if you hardly understood them!
Growing up is a cauldron of so many ideologies being thrown up at you at varied degrees, to say that these ideas, many of which are of conflicting nature, influence the mind is an understatement. Many of these ideologies are carried to the pyre; most are rethought about, re-inculcated as one is exposed to newer themes and ideas!
It was one of these regurgitating phases when i chanced upon the? Biography Of Gandhi (the book-not online version). The book brought me a step closer to a leader we all know and most of us admire. The mundane scenes depicted in the book demystified him to my quite volatile mindset! I was yet to look upon anyone as a role model and as most are prone to convention, i desired to look up to Gandhiji.
“The religion of non-violence is not meant merely for the rishis and saints. It is meant for the common people as well. Non-violence is the law of our species as violence is the law of the brute. The spirit lies dormant in the brute and he knows no law but that of physical might. The dignity of man requires obedience to a higher law-to the strength of the spirit….”
An Autobiography: The Story of My Experiments With Truth
The Mahatma didn’t disappoint, but it was him who encouraged me to look beyond him, beyond his philosophies, beyond look towards alternative religions, Buddhism being one of them! His book, “My Experiments With Truth” is still on my list of “Books i really want to read loved reading”. Modern life hardly provides any allowances of leisure!
The way he nurtured his little garden, the way he lead a simply life, the way he controversially had female attendants. It was a difficult life, especially for a rich lawyer unaccustomed to Indian poverty. That he did it on his own accord, trying his best to teach Indians the value of self-labour.
If he was the man who called off the non-cooperation movement due to an incident at chauri chaura then it was because of him that there was plenty of goodwill left when the British left India. The Mahatma didn’t want to just free Indian society from the British Raj, but also the evil vices which he had perceived to exist then.
He had a vision of a modern India, a post-independence India and a society which could have or would have served as an example for the rest of the world. Sadly, much of India’s problems remain post-independence! The alarming growth rate of Indian population, though now scaled down by a significant level, does not help matters!
Finally, for the proponents of “pick up the sword and slay them” ideology, in his own words,
“Non-violence is an active force of the highest order. It is soul force or the power of Godhead within us. Imperfect man cannot grasp the whole of that essence–he would not be able to bear its full blaze, but even an infinitesimal fraction of it, when it becomes active within us, can work wonders.”
I have also had an opportunity to read a little about the controversy ridden play, “Mi Nathuram Godse Boltoy“. Another view, another ideology, a defense for a “criminal act” to many, simply another ideology, to some!
Ironically his play was squashed and banned, a failure for Democracy, a failure for India, a failure for Mahatma Gandhi.
“I must not…flatter myself with the belief–nor allow friends…to entertain the belief that I have exhibited any heroic and demonstrable non-violence in myself.” ,
… very humble, very Mahatma.
Iam Saffron; Are You Green?
“Post creation, God opined… “Everything is so perfect!! Then
he gave us Religion“ ..
It’s Id. A day of our Muslim brothers! Brothers?? sadly there is little brotherhood left! One of my dearest & closest friends no longer seems to call me up! We hardly talk these days. I called him up to wish him, he wasn’t in!
photo credit: Terminalnomad Photography
When i met him last,i had marked that his behaviour was strange, he seemed at unease! We met like old friends but there seemed to be the latest embarrassing instances in the news hovering above us(Read Gujurat). The tension never left us, we didn’t talk about the incident. I didn’t because i feared he might be hurt!
His sister is no longer allowed to go anywhere alone for fear of backlash! His mom fears some anti social elements might get him while he is out working! Some of my friends query, ” Why would they kill him .. he is a muslim after all!!”. I keep mum!! Maybe its my long held policy of “I do not argue with ignorant people”!
Some of my Hindu friends swear at every Muslim they encounter! Some of my friends tell me, ” you are a fool to think they are good people“.
Yes iam a fool because i believe in humanity & equality. Iam a fool because i think people who bomb others do not belong to any religion and because i think we, as humans, should be compassionate towards each other!
Maybe the atheists are right, Religion was invented for mass control!! Maybe it’s a farce .. then why do some of us still believe in god? Why do some of us still touch our parents feet when we wed or why do we still seek blessings from elders?
It says in the Koran(so a hindu site claims)that says, “Those who do not beleve in Allah and are upto mischief should be punished”, Which justifies the massacre of other religious groups by mulims.
I have been through a few texts & have not not come across any such statement! The closest i came across was, “Those who do not believe in the me are kafirs and michief mongers. Such will not go unpunished”. Anyone with sanity & a basic understanding of English can understand that “me” used here was in the third sense meaning, “the lord” and not specifically Allah!
Interestingly, a very highly educated Doctor has written totally inflammatory and baseless allegations upon the Hindu’s & Hindu dieties on another site.
They say “Hindi me urdu ka milan jaise sone mein suhaag”, wonder whether people remember it now! My friend still lives his daily life, he still works at the same place he joined 3 years ago,he still rides his bike, he still looks at beautiful faces just like we used to do earlier. He still eats chinese …
The Biryani i ordered has arrived …. do you guys like biryani??? They invented it you know!!
a thought: Is it a folly to be wise, when fools preside?? …
photo credit: Michael Foley Photography
History of Muslims in India have dated back to the Mughal invasion, most Hindu’s then were forced to change to Islam by the then Muslim hard-line rulers! It wasn’t until Akbar came along that the hard-line policy followed till then was relaxed! Some kings, fanatical to the extreme, staunchly believed that they were the sole bearers of Allah’s work and message! They believed it to be their duty to spread Islam wherever they set foot.
Numerous forcible conversions were a norm in some Muslim dominated provinces and many converted right back when their Muslim rulers were overthrown.
Such false notions and superstitions no doubt stemmed form the power they wielded over the poor locals. Hinduism as been interpreted in a number of ways, some experts lately have gone to the extent of renouncing the word religion & opting for “it’s a way of life” instead.
If Hindus had evils like casteism in its hierarchical structure then some extremist religious fanatics(erf’s) denounced every other religion other than Islam!
Recently the Taliban government even disfigured the Buddhist statues present in Afghanistan. India remained a spectator as so many other nations.
Such instance of disfigurement is neither rare nor solitary. In the early 15th century township of erstwhile Vijayanagari, now Hampi was vandalized and all the monuments were disfigured.
Not a single temple was spared in the mad quest for wealth! Whether it was religion or the search for the incredible wealth of the Indian rulers there is any body’s guess. Incidentally Hampi has been declared as a world heritage site.
If the moghul rulers were to blame for sowing seeds of discontentment then the Hindus are definitely not to be spared for the demolition of Babri Masjid. Kar Sevaks as they called themselves landed at Ayodhya for the fateful event. A sad day in the history of Secular India.
It was followed by riots in Mumbai, no doubt, a planned setup by miscreants or maybe just local idiots out to have fun! The images come quickly across the fading wretched memory, that of a boy, 5 or 6 years old hurling a huge brick onto a stationed vehicle .. amidst shouts “maro maro“. Live on TV! Maybe he understood what the hulla was all about.
Both ironically stood justified & correct viewed from extreme angles. These are the days when a gun totting 14 year old in Afghanistan is a way of life while seperatist groups have its own suicide squads elsewhere!
There was a time when in every film watched in India there was necessarily a muslim friend or acquaintance of the protagonist. Those times stretch few and far between.
Seven Months Later
It’s been seven months since i have moved back to Bombay. Fiscal 2007 has been one hell of a year so far.
The Small Yet Significant Hits
- We have our new office ready for production. It will seat three more people.
- We have a new manual Crane setup, it has already chopped off considerable cutting time of rods and pipes.
- We have a new rack which eases up the storage problem even if only by a infinitesimal margin. Need more work here.
- We had a meeting with our subcontractors at the beginning of the first quarter. These were mostly about Quality Improvements and reduction in double work and waste. Baby steps to a high quality product. The effect is there for all to see albeit with an undesirable side effect (Increased Inventory).
- A semi-finished system is in place with controls. Now we need more checks built in. We finally have dealt with Roles and Responsibilities, there is still much to be done on this front but we have a start! Tracking has been achieved to a large extent. We still want more transparency with the production file.
- And finally the one BIG HIT .. GROWTH!!!
Figures are Year On Year[YOY]
24%
Our growth in ‘07 since April to September as can be seen is 24%. I have crossed out the rest of the entries under the ‘07 column as they do not take into account actual production during the period.
The blue line tapers down from month 7 as there has been no production since September. (October figures are pending as of the time of writing this post.) Note that the rise in month 7(October) is due to poor performance in the corresponding month in ‘06 (previous year).
Also note the sharp dip in the beginning of the fiscal and compare it with the red and the green lines. Production has shown negative growth in those periods until finally picking up in the following months. This is due to abnormal growth witnessed in April for ‘06 and low base in ‘05.
We expect the production to pick up in second half though not at the same growth rate. This possible deceleration is due to the high production rate during the previous years in the second half.
Other Changes
An Cad Operator has been hired for faster processing of designs. A new Manager has been hired for facilitating and co-coordinating efforts across the process chain.
So much more to do..
The changes in the offing are multifold,
EFFECT SHORT TERM
- Employ shifts in our bottle neck areas, to ease out traffic.
- Hire one more draftsman.
- Assign helpers to a particular set of machines to prevent unavailability. This will also allow the helper to be trained on his particular set of machines and thus breed skills in house.
- Create racks for Piston Rods for easier pick-up.
EFFECT LONG TERM
- Get people to document policies concerning their particular function. Redefine and revalidate if necessary.
- Create a new assembly area to facilitate faster Assembly and to separate assembly from the production line.
- Get a crane on another side of the shop floor, this should free up helpers.
- Standardize.
- Device a faster Assembly Line, time the current one.
- Have a design policy in place.
The journey finally begins…
Garry Kasparov
The man you see above had been an inspiration for me. As a boy of 12 years old i have been fascinated by his name and the game he played. Throughout my years of playing chess he has been my idol. So much so that i used to imitate even his openings as a 16 year old.There was only one other player who had captured my imagination as much as he had. It was Paul Morphy’s.
The only player to play Sicilian successfully in history of chess,Garry Kasparov, made it my favourite too. Infact i had even made for myself a small reputation of playing the Sicilian well during one of our local tournaments.If you do not know what iam talking about, then these represent particular variations in the opening moves of the game chess.A game, invented originally in India, modified by other world bodies and loved the world over.
He won the world championship at 22, a feat not achieved by anyone after him yet! But the game should never be lower than the player, Kasparov’s retirement marks the end of his reign since 1985. He undoubtedly has been one of the game’s best players the world has ever produced. But it’s time for us, the chess community to move on. The seat is open for a new champion, a person who would, hopefully, be a worthy successor.
Related: Garry Kasparov on His Great Predecessors
Arguably the most controversial figure in chess since Bobby Fischer, the highest rated player in the world[ The closest anyone ever reached was our own Vishwanathan Anand ], Garry Kasparov, please take a bow. … …