Green building discussion at AU

One of our second semester Operations MBA students is doing an internship on the insolation (solar panel fixing) plans of AU central campus. He has also deeply looked at the eligibility criteria for Green Building certification LEED- Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design by the Indian Green Buildings Council (IGBC). 

Getting LEED certification for the campus besides being a very popular tool for sustainability and Lean operations within the campus, is also a great brand building tool for the University. We passionately care for our green campus and already have 20 % requirements met. There is no greater feather in the cap than getting LEED Silver, Gold or Platinum certification for our campus, which automatically catapults us to international league ... some examples 

• CISCO campus on Outer Ring Road, Bangalore have five of the eight buildings already LEED Platinum certified. 
• Hotel ITC Gardenia Bangalore from the ITC group is the only 5 star hotel in Asia to be LEED Platinum rated. 
• Infosys buildings at Mysore, Pune and Hyderabd have LEED Platinum rating 

LEED certification for Green Buildings  (International sustainability standards from USGBC and IGBC) requires a planned approach to 

• construction and maintenance of buildings using locally available materials 
• optimal usage of natural lighting and effective ventilation within buildings and inside classrooms
• optimising energy consumption using renewable energy like solar energy and LED bulbs, 
• effective solid waste disposal, 
• efficient sewage water disposal and recycling for gardening, 
• rain water harvesting for conserving water and raising water table in the campus
• carbon-free transportation inside the campus to reduce CO2 emissions etc.

The student Saroj is majorly ready with a presentation on the requirements for LEED certification  requirements for the AU campus and is interested in getting your valuable inputs for the same. The objectives are two fold 

1. helping faculty members acquire specialised knowledge on sustainability efforts with the help of LEED certification and its different requirements criteria
2. giving feedback to Saroj to do a great job

In case you are free this AN , care passionately for the environment, wish to understand what are the current global practices, regulations and certification requirements to help build a greener world around us, pl do join for the presentation as detailed below. Contribute and share your knowledge.

Topic   : Study of Green Certification (LEED) requirements of Alliance University

Venue : LHE 101

Time   : 3.30 - 4.30 PM

Date    : 31 July 2018

It's great to be proud of our green campus, but it is still greater to know how we could improve and compete with global standards.

Your presence will be a great boost !!

Sincere regards

George Easaw

Innovation workshop in Alliance University .

The Operations stream of Alliance School of Business is proud to bring yet another interesting activity in the AU campus on 9th and 10th of August '18.

Venue : LHW 203, Learning Centre, Central campus, Anekal, Bangalore.

For centuries we have been using the same methodologies in the guru-shishya parampara, first under the shade of trees, then in classrooms using blackboards, now in more developed and equipped classrooms with computer projector and then over the Internet ...

If we teach today's students as we taught yesterday's, we rob them of their tomorrow -                                                                                                                          John Dewey

We communicate and teach with the help of presentation packages and more recently we use the medium of the Internet to listen to Professors and learned people from distant reputed Universities through E-learning approach and the famous Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) www.coursera.org, www.edx.org etc ...

At Alliance University we have an elearning website for the past six years. MOOCs are being developed for in-house consumption. Our main research interests prompt us to be looking at means and ways to pioneer and innovate

• the teaching-learning process 
• delivery of knowledge and skills to the recipients
• assurance of learning
• capability to use the knowledge in critical areas
• find the appropriate media and applications to effect this transaction
• reflection in socially useful metrics

But is it the end in itself or can we think of more innovative ways to 

• get the attention span of the student, 
• get him to come to class better prepared and well read, 
• get him to take part in the discussions happening in the class, 
• get him to interact with peers more effectively, 
• get more practical knowledge in the different areas and enrich education ...

The main objective of the workshop is two fold :

1.  to develop innovative techniques in pedagogy and 

2.  redefine some of the existing and conventional teaching methods.

After attending the workshop the faculty member will be able to be more creative in his teaching styles and be more objective oriented in his approach.

George Easaw 

Value stream mapping ..

As we need languages to communicate with individuals, CAD drawings to communicate with Engineers, Building drawings to communicate between Engineers and architects, we need a language to communicate lean ideas too.

That is Value Stream Map. Originally it was started by Toyota Engineer Taiichi Onho and became the communicating medium for Toyota Engineers.

Click here for  VSM template ..

Click here for an excellent doc from Washington State University on Value Stream Mapping, explaining clearly the concept of value ..

Present VSM transitions to future VSM incorporating all the lean ideas ..

George..

Why is innovation important in organisations ?

In the present day all managerial processes in organisations aim to utilise resources in the most efficient way and to be highly responsive to customers. Organisations thus work to their optimal levels over time and try to be very efficient and effective.

What does it mean to be efficient and effective ? 

Peter Drucker has once told - Efficiency is doing things right, effectiveness is doing the right things. Let us try to understand this in great detail.

Efficient working refers to the way organisations use the different resources of time, space, employees, materials, effort, technology, machines and processes. The different production scheduling algorithms, time scheduling principles, effective layout designs etc lead us to high usage and utilization of resources bringing down the overall costs of manufacturing and related processes in the supply chain. The metrics are mostly related to costs, time, resource usage per unit of output etc..

Effectiveness on the other hand refers to the way the organisation meets the customer needs and requirements in the most optimal way. It mostly relates to the feedback from internal and external customers and the ease with which the customer is able to meet his needs and expectations. A metric is the level; of customer satisfaction with the product or process.

The question anyone would finally ask is, what happens if we are both efficient and effective at the same time. In fact, in most of the cases in spite of all uncertainties and risks involved, with a little bit of discipline, commitment and passion, all processes would become over time, efficient and effective. But is it the end of industrial development or societal improvement ?

No, humans continue to improvise the existing processes and innovate on existing methods. As long as humans can think and act, they would have new and new ideas to carry out jobs in a more efficient and effective manner and that is what we finally call as innovation.

Peter Drucker has said famously that 

"The enterprise that does not innovate inevitably ages and declines and in a period of rapid change such as the present, the decline will be fast."

Because the purpose of the business is to create a customer, businesses have got only two basic functions - marketing and innovation. Marketing and innovation produce results, all the rest are costs.

Innovation is the specific instrument of entrepreneurship. The act that endows resources with a new capacity to create wealth.

If we had mastered the act of communication using Posts to the maximum efficiency and effectiveness, we would have had letters which would reach its destination within the country may be in a day or two and replies too take the same two days. But the innovation of applying the principles of electronic communication in the human domain connecting networks across the world through the Internet, the slow communication mode of Post translated to the rather quick one these days of electronic mail or e-mail in short. In the course of four or five days, we can now have at least ten to twenty full completed conversations and transfer of ideas between people and entities through email.

Email, which is a great innovation that has affected the communication world, has thus shortened the time it takes to complete conversations and transactions, giving way to more numbers of communications and transactions taking places. It has made human life easy, effortless, more creative and productive.. 

Innovation creates wealth in the long run and the modern civilization depends so much on creating wealth and propping up our Gross Domestic Product or GDP. 

george.

Soccer stars caught in Tham Luang caves, N. Thailand ..

The most daunting, exciting and difficult international collaboration cave rescue mission ever, 1 km deep and 2 km inside the water flooded Tham Luang caves in N Thailand. 

Coach Jantawong speaks on behalf of the 12 boys..

Click here for the youtube video .. for the 55 minute ABC documentary ..

The rescue operation was daunting because it Involved not one or two but thirteen soccer stars, boys aged 11 -16 years of age with a 25 year old coach trapped without food, water or fresh air for more than 10 days in the caves with absolute zero visibility and neck-deep water.  

In this 55 minute documentary from Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) with excellent photography, the situation around the cave complex and inside it right through the rescue operation is documented in great detail pictorially. 

This is one of the first documentaries that have come out on the daring international rescue mission. Six films are also coming out about this cave rescue. 

Excellent photography and world-class journalism  🙏🙏🙏👍👍👍

George..

Theory of Constraints game

Eliyahu Goldratt first proposed Theory of Constraints as an effective LEAN production management philosophy. 

At Alliance University Bangalore in the Operations stream we play the TOC game that tells us how the constraint which limits the output from the system changes with each cycle, how the constraint workstation may become the unconstrained workstation in the following cycle and so on by using toothpicks.  In a game of 10 cycles, with 5 workstations, we find the throughput to be barely 40 - 60%. 

Click here for a very good ppt on TOC ..

When we identify a bottleneck, we need to ensure that -

1.  all other players perform according to the beat of the bottleneck operations. 

2. Concentrate on the stock of inventory (buffer) and reduce this buffer in front of the bottleneck operation 

3. This buffer can be reduced by pulling certain ropes (bringing some controls) to ensure throughput in the line without any buffer. 

4. Concentrate on the bottleneck station and see how the throughput can now be increased from this station

5. When we do this we will see that some other station becomes the bottle neck and inventory starts piling up in front of that station.   

6. Go to step I again .. 

George..

  

The six day Arab Israel war ..

The six day Arab Israel war is considered to be one of the greatest defeats suffered by any country in modern day history. 

Defeated and humiliated .. Abdel Nassar of Egypt

Taking one through those historical events, of the four great enemy countries of the small state of Israel, Egypt, Syria, Jordan and Iraq, by now two have been totally decimated, Syria has even been totally wiped out !! 

Good that Arabia misappropriated and ruled by the Saud family did not take part in the famous 1967 six day war against Israel, else they too would have been part of the rich history of that region ... 

20,000 casualties were inflicted on the enemy by Israel compared to 1000 Israeli casualties. A total of 68,000  sq km of land was captured from the enemies, Sinai Peninsula (60,000 sq.km) and Gaza Strip (365 sq.km) from Egypt, Golan heights, (1,800 sq.km) from Syria and West Bank from Jordan, (5,640 sq.km). In contrast, Israel as a whole is just 20,770 sq.km in area.  

It was the greening of the desert area by Israel that initially raised Arab envy. Israel is scantily populated with a population of just 9 million. For comparison, Israel is 5x state of Kerala in area with just a quarter of Kerala's population of 3.5 crores.

This six-day Arab Israel war saw the defeat of Arab nationalism and resignation of Abdel Nasser, President of Egypt. Arabs have ever since remained totally subjugated to Israel and scary of Israeli advances. Under UN intervention, the occupied Sinai peninsula of 60.000 sq.km was returned to Egypt, but the Gaza Strip, Golan heights and the West Bank, totally 7800 sq.km area, have been retained by Israel. 

This continues to be the bone of contention between Israel and Arabs to this day !!

Click here for the video of the war reporting ..

George ..